【英语生活】企业声誉：未雨绸缪远离麻烦

Of all the intangible assets that a business might want to quantify and enter on to its balance sheet, reputation is at once the most valuable, most delicate and hardest to pin down. Perhaps this is why senior managers have been slow to take the question of corporate reputation seriously. It seems both vast and insubstantial at the same time.Traditionalist leaders would probably have a limited appetite for airy-fairy talk about image and reputation. They would agree with that old cynic Jaques , from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, who, in his “seven ages of man” speech, describes the soldier – the fourth age – “Seeking the bubble reputation/Even in the cannon’s mouth”.

（http://www.dglib.cn/libonline/jdhx/002.htm）

For those who feel in their bones that business is a tough activity that has to do with sales and profits, talk of “managing reputation” is just so much hot air. Leave it to the public relations schmoozers and, if the budget stretches that far, hire a suave director of corporate affairs.

But, suddenly, a major oil field in Alaska has to be shut down, drastic security measures are introduced at airports sending queues out of the building and a Test match is controversially forfeited for the first time in the history of cricket（查自新华网http://news.xinhuanet.com/sports/2006-08/22/content_4990132.htm）, and corporate reputation lurches violently to the top of the board’s agenda. Except now, of course, it is too late.

The middle of a crisis is not a good time to formulate a new strategy for managing your reputation. But for many companies this is precisely when that conversation begins. Even those businesses that feel they have a sophisticated grasp of the reputational risks they are running can get badly caught out.

Take BAA. The UK’s main airport operator has deployed subtle advocacy in the past, winning approval in the face of public opposition for the construction of Heathrow’s Terminal 5. The slowly improving image of Britain’s major airports won the business new admirers in Goldman Sachs and Ferrovial, the Spanish construction group that won the keenly fought £10bn takeover battle for BAA in June.

How stands BAA’s reputation today? Willie Walsh, British Airways chief executive, described the scenes at Heathrow at the height of the recent security alert as “like a bad dream at Disneyland”. No one enjoys a good queue as much as the British, but this was ridiculous. Here was a crisis that should have been avoided.

What about BP? The partial closure of the Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska, after a major oil spill from its pipeline there in March, has also exposed serious management failure, and this again from a company that had worked hard at building a reputation as a responsible corporate citizen.

It seems that there has been no internal inspection (or “pigging”) of the pipeline since 1992, because the company was under no legal obligation to do this. But some parts of the pipe were up to 80 per cent corroded. BP has declared itself “very disappointed” with what it has learnt about its inspection programme.

Now even cricket’s reputation is in tatters. When the final Test match between England and Pakistan ended in farce the weekend before last, the International Cricket Council, the game’s ruling body, floundered. Had the Australian Darrell Hair, one of the umpires, exceeded his authority in declaring that Pakistan had forfeited the match by a temporary refusal to play on? It is still not clear more than a week later.

What is clear is that this crisis, too, should have been avoided. Inviting such a controversial umpire to officiate in the last two matches of what was likely to be a hard-fought series was asking for trouble. The ICC’s reputation, hardly gleaming, has had yet more shine taken off it.

All three of these “sudden” crises were predictable. But that is the point: nothing ever really does happen suddenly. Most natural disasters have been years in the making, just as most managerial disasters are.

Businesses that are serious about corporate reputation manage risk as an ongoing issue. They do not wait for disaster to strike before reconsidering their approach. Diageo, the drinks group, for example, produces a monthly board report that includes an assessment of all current reputational risks.

Ron Alsop, author of the 2004 book The 18 Immutable Laws of Corporate Reputation（没有权威中译名，采用网上多见译法）, argues that companies should consider appointing a full-time “chief reputation officer”. Not everyone agrees – not least GlaxoSmithKline, which used to have a “vice-president for corporate image and reputation” until a couple of years ago, but did not retain that role when the said VP left the business.

Reputation is, in fact, everyone’s responsibility. It is a reflection of the way a company’s staff goes about its work, every day, at all levels. The best performance-management systems will reward good behaviour, providing an incentive for staff to enhance their business’s reputation at every step. A good reputation wins you more “promoters” than “detractors”, as Fred Reichheld of Bain & Company, the strategy consulting firm, puts it – a good indicator of likely future success.

As leaders are always closely observed by their colleagues, this attention to corporate reputation has to start at the very top. You will have no one else to blame if your corporate reputation suffers. And you would not want to find yourself in the same position as the wronged Cassio in Shakespeare’s Othello, who cries to Iago (in act 2, scene 3):（http://www.lingshidao.com/yishi/othello.htm ）

“Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.”

在企业可能想加以量化并记入资产负债表的所有无形资产中，最有价值、最微妙、同时也是最难确定的一项首先就是声誉。或许，这就是为什么高管们一直没有认真对待企业声誉问题的原因。这个问题似乎很大，同时又很虚。对于有关形象及声誉的空谈，奉行传统主义的领导人似乎没什么胃口。他们会认同莎士比亚(Shakespeare)剧作《皆大欢喜》(As You Like It)中那位老迈的愤世嫉俗者杰奎斯(Jaques) 的说法。后者在他的“人生的七个时期”演说中这样描述军人（人生的第四个时期）：“在炮口上寻求着泡沫一样的荣名”。

对于那些确信经商是一种与销售额和利润有关的苦力活的人而言，“管理声誉”的说辞只是一种空谈，应该是负责公共关系的扯谈之人干的事情，或者，如果预算充裕，就雇佣一位文雅的公司事务主管。

但是，突然间，阿拉斯加一个大油田不得不停产；机场引入了极端的安检措施，导致旅客一直排到候机楼外；国际板球史上首次富有争议地在一场锦标赛中对一只队伍罚分；而企业声誉问题也猛然间出现在董事会议程的第一位。当然，这已经太晚了。

深陷危机之中，不是制定一个声誉管理新战略的好时机。但对许多企业而言，有关声誉管理战略的讨论恰恰始于此时。即便是那些自认为对其声誉风险有着深刻领悟的公司，也很难发现这一点。

以英国机场管理局(BAA)为例。这家英国主要的机场运营商曾经利用出色的鼓吹手段，在公众的反对声中赢得政府批准，开始建设希思罗机场(Heathrow)的5号航站楼。英国主要机场缓慢改进的形象，为英国机场管理局赢得了高盛(Goldman Sachs)及西班牙建筑集团法罗里奥(Ferrovial)的青睐，后者在今年6月赢得了对英国机场管理局价值100亿英镑的收购大战。

英国机场管理局今天的声誉又怎么样呢？英国航空(British Airways)首席执行官威利•沃尔什(Willie Walsh)形容称，在英国最近将安全警报提高到最高级别时，希思罗机场的情景“如同在迪斯尼乐园(Disneyland)经历的一场噩梦”。没有哪个国家像英国那样排起长队，但这很荒谬。这是一个本该避免的危机。

英国石油(BP)怎么样？在其石油管道3月份发生一次重大泄漏事故之后，该公司在阿拉斯加普拉德霍湾(Prudhoe Bay)的油田部分停产，也暴露出严重的管理失败，而且，这家企业也曾努力为自己打造一个“负责任企业公民”的声誉。

英国石油似乎从1992年开始就没有对输油管道进行内部检查，因为该公司没有法律义务这样做。但部分管道的腐蚀度已经高达80%。英国石油宣布，该公司对已知的有关检查程序的信息“非常失望”。

现在，甚至板球运动的声誉也变得很糟糕。英格兰与巴基斯坦之间板球锦标赛的最后一场比赛，在上上个周末以一场闹剧收场，而作为该运动的领导机构，国际板球理事会(International Cricket Council)也是乱作一团。当值裁判之一的澳大利亚人达雷尔•海尔(Darrell Hair)，在宣布巴基斯坦队因临时拒绝继续比赛而输球时，他超越职权范围了吗？事情已经过去一周多，结论现在仍然不清楚。

很明显的是，这场危机本来也可以避免。邀请这样一位具有争议的裁判，来执法最后两场可能争夺激烈的比赛，这等于是自找麻烦。国际板球理事会的声誉本来就不怎样，如今更是雪上加霜。

上述3件“突发”危机都是可预测的。但关键在于：从来没有什么事情是真正突然发生的。绝大多数的自然灾难都经过多年的酝酿，绝大多数的管理危机亦是如此。

注重声誉的企业，会将风险作为一个持续性问题来管理。它们不会等到灾难来袭的时候才重新考虑自己的所作所为。例如，饮品集团Diageo每月都会编写董事会报告，其中包括一份针对当前所有声誉风险的评估。

2004年出版的《声望管理18铁律》(The 18 Immutable Laws of Corporate Reputation)一书的作者罗恩•艾尔索普(Ron Alsop)主张，企业应考虑任命一位全职的“首席声誉官”。并非所有人都赞同，葛兰素史克(GlaxoSmithKline)尤其不：该公司曾经有一位“负责企业形象与声誉的副总裁”，但随着这位副总裁几年前离职，该公司就没有保留这一职位。

事实上，企业声誉人人有责。它是企业各级员工每天工作态度的反映。最好的绩效管理制度会对员工的良好行为进行奖励，给员工提供一个激励因素，促使他们时时刻刻提高企业的声誉。良好的声誉会为你赢得更多的“拥戴者”，而不是“毁谤者”——正如战略咨询公司贝恩(Bain & Company)的弗雷德•赖克赫德(Fred Reichheld)所言，声誉是一个预测企业未来能否成功的很好指标。

由于领导者总是受到其同僚的密切关注，因此，这种对企业声誉的注重必须从最高层开始。如果你的企业声誉受损，你是无法责怪其他任何人的。而且，你也不会希望自己与莎士比亚戏剧《奥赛罗》(Othello)里做错事的凯西奥(Cassio)处在相同境地。在该剧第二幕第三场中，他向伊阿古(Iago)大声呼喊：

“名誉，名誉，名誉！啊，我的名誉已经一败涂地了！我已经失去我的生命中神圣的一部分，留下来的也就跟畜生没有分别了。”

译者/陈家易 刘彦