Between the “#horriblebosses” and “#perfect bosses” is the unseen executive reputation manager, By Temiloluwa Sobowale
By Temiloluwa Sobowale
Twitter @shotemiloluwa
While monitoring online Yesterday for top brands we support via our proprietary social media analytics platform, a trend started “#horriblebosses” and my eye was opened to the “doings” in the technology Ecosystem in Nigeria with employees coming out to “spill the beans” about the toxic working environment in the Ecosystem, the greatest insight for me yesterday was the underlying weakness of many tech organization in the area of corporate reputation management. While we have conquered product development, fundraising, customer acquisition, retention, engineering, and pitching, we have left the very important part of our business (reputation and crises management) to chance, it is of note that a single crisis can “consume” a flourishing brand in a flash.
To get things into perspective, very few “perfect bosses” exist and there is a huge correlation between bosses being “tough” and business growth. Sometimes as humans the tough bosses are under pressure from stakeholders and they have KPI to meet, this KPI can sometimes drive them from being just “tough or bullish” to being “horrible” and “toxic”.
Don’t get me wrong I am not in support of Horrible bosses, but just sharing a secret with the tech community, the “perfect bosses” are bosses that have recognized their strengths and weaknesses, focus on their strengths and hire the right “person or team” to manage their weakness, I must say confidently with what happened online that HR, PR, corporate communications and reputation management structure in our tech companies are not solid enough to carry the weight of the “billion-dollar businesses” we are building on them. A communication team in a commercial bank in Nigeria will have on average 12 team members (only engineering and development teams in Tech companies have that number), a lot of you will say that is too much but I dare say that the difference between winners and looser in Markets many times is the perception of the winner as being good and looser as bad. Please look at the banks you like and the ones you dislike, they all practically use the same vendors for their technology, use the same TOP 4 consulting companies, hire from the same Universities, are all regulated by CBN, but some have more customers and higher revenues than others, why? Perception of the winners differs from the losers although they use the same vendors. While not under estimating the power of other teams in the tech ecosystem, great perceptions sustain brands and the ecosystem needs to build muscle and teams in that area, please note that this area is one in which years of experience counts a lot, an executive reputation manager with less than 10 years’ experience may not help your brand much as each crisis and issue differ and wealth of experience is key to solving the unique daily issues, you don’t experiment with that area ( you can experiment with digital Marketing, graphics, content development) but not executives/ brand reputation management because the impact or damage of poorly managed reputation issue or crises might last forever.
Finally, let me sound a note of warning to Top Tech CEO’s and Start up’s, Majority of large tickets fundraising transactions in Nigeria come from many global brands, these brands don’t joke with reputation or purpose issues, imagine kicking a cat and losing endorsements, that’s how much global brand take “brand” issues.
With global brands, a top priority is “what impact are you making with your work”, followed by how do people (customers, staff, and other stakeholders) perceive your brand, before “profit”. As a CEO if all you are trying to deliver to investors is just strong financials at the expense of your community impact and people, you may end up losing the investment altogether. NO GLOBAL INVESTOR “WHO KNOWS THEIR ONION” WANTS TO BE CAUGHT SUPPORTING AN OPPRESSOR OR A “PROFIT ONLY” DRIVEN ORGANISATION.
What to do
- Analyse your brand personal and corporate brand
- Admit your weakness
- Get the “right” help from professionals that can guide you.
- Listen to and follow their advise
