Ensuring the Future of the Arthur W. Page Society

1. Ensuring the Future of the Arthur W. Page Society Thought Leadership on Culture and Reputation Management DRAFT Jon Iwata Roger Bolton

2. Background • What is the nature of the problem we are addressing? • Many companies are grappling with how to build differentiated brands and strong reputations given the empowerment of disparate new stakeholders due to the rise of social media and demands for transparency. • Simply having well-recognized or even well respected products and services is insufficient. Stakeholders expect more from a corporation: To act ethically and fairly in the way it creates products, treats its employees, impacts the environment, contributes to communities and society, and governs itself. • Maximizing the business value of a company’s brand and reputation requires members of the C-suite to gain and retain a deep understanding of the power and influence of their company’s culture – intangible values consistently reflected in the actions of employees – and how these can instill trust and enhance reputation among stakeholders. • In light of these shifts, the communications profession needs a systemic approach to building culture and managing reputation that encourages collaboration across the C-suite (HR, CIO, CFO, CCO, general counsel).

3. Background 3 • Why is it important that the Society address this area? • Public trust in business is near an all-time low. • The digital empowerment of customers, employees, and influencers creates new challenges in terms of reputation and brand management. • Communicators, and CCOs in particular, are uniquely positioned to deliver unprecedented value to the enterprises they serve through their understanding of marketplace and workplace environments along with their business acumen and sensitivities to brand, culture and reputation. • AWPS has a long-standing track record of preparing communications leaders to master the ever-evolving environment in which we operate. As we make decisions shaping the future of AWPS, we must focus on constantly increasing value to our membership – ensuring they are prepared to meet new and emerging challenges. • We have an opportunity to create a model, supported with research and data, that can bring together the four existing workstreams and serve as a catalyst for driving collaboration across the C-suite. • There’s a strong opportunity for CCOs to rally around reputation management and culture as a value creation platform.

4. Background 4 • What hypotheses do we have about how we might pursue the opportunity? • Use the Vision document, Authentic Enterprise and Trust Report as foundational work to develop and support this framework/system. • Build upon and take advantage of the workstreams already under way (Values, Stakeholder Relationships, New Media, and Trust). • Build a model (a fifth workstream) that brings together the other four and enables practitioners to put these concepts into action. • Collaborate closely with human resources, general counsel, CIO, CFO, and CMO within our organizations to determine business risks and challenges. • Generate dialogue within the profession. • Closely examine issues linked to reputation and culture: • ROI, trust, multi-stakeholder, relationships, new media, values, employee as communicator. • Examine and learn from case studies and best practices to be gathered by our members and Future Leaders.

5. Background 5 • What are anticipated costs, if any? • TBD based on required research, case studies and white papers.

6. Objectives • What will we accomplish? • Develop and introduce a system that encompasses key aspects of culture, brand, and reputation management, and serves as a catalyst for bringing together the C-suite to address these issues in collaboration. • Deliver a model to be shared with and endorsed by the Society. • Use it as a platform to introduce a new way of thinking about legacy issues. • Help professionals understand this new model: • What the new communications function can and should do • Encourage collaboration across the company: HR, CIO, etc. • Develop new content to support the framework: • White papers • Research (coordinate with Research Task Force) • Case studies

7. Objectives 7 • How will this advance the role of the CCO? How will it cause the CEO to say, “I have never looked at communications in this light”? • By establishing a modern point of view: How reputation and brand are synergistic, with culture as the means to the outcome – all underpinned by values. CCOs can use the culture-reputation-values nexus to align a company’s workplace with its marketplace. • By creating a value creation platform and help companies implement it – giving our CCO colleagues the model, tools and skills to make this a reality. • By realigning the CCO’s role in the C-suite – enhancing the mission and impact of HR, Legal, Finance, IT and other core functions through integration with brand, culture and reputation; and serving a new convening and implementation role. • By serving as a “culture counselor” and a conservator of corporate character to the CEO, demonstrate how a strong corporate culture shapes corporate reputation, and a leading voice in the C-suite, CCOs can use the culture-reputation nexus to align a company’s workplace with its marketplace.