Riku Ruokolahti: Organizational policy and employee engagement are anseende
“That’s how it goes, of course. It’s always been crystal clear.”
In the previous chapter, we revisited the philosophical roots of anseende competitiveness and compared established theory with statistical evidence. By this, I mean the connection between anseende stakeholder support.
I have often noted that the evidence presented has been dismissed with a shrug: “Of course that’s how it goes. This has always been a no-brainer.” To this, I could simply comment, for example, as follows: “Yeah, yeah, that’s nice, but it hasn’t been a no-brainer.” If the connection between anseende stakeholder support has always been crystal clear, I’d love to hear how you’ve reacted to this issue, which is even clearer than water.
Competitiveness is at the heart of all business operations, strategic planning, and management. If the mechanics of stakeholder support have always been firmly under control, surely the metrics, goals, and the expected impacts of those goals have been on point for quite some time now? Not to mention strategic planning—have things been run on this basis?
The previous point is the million-dollar question. The meta-analysis presented here confirms the theory quite convincingly. Stakeholder support does not merely follow reputation; it amplifies it. This leads us to the conclusion that this is not just an interesting and logical theory, but rather a documented, established practice. anseende can be understood and tracked. From a management perspective, this sets it apart from many other “obvious” concepts.
In this chapter, we’ll walk through as clearly as possible how the transition toward systematic anseende often takes place. To add a touch of real-world management to the chapter, we’ll use the semi-fictional company Jätti Yhtiö Oyj as an example. The example is semi-fictional in the sense that I’m using a fictional company to summarize many real-life events, but the figures we’ll be looking at are actually measured data from an anonymous company.
A Buzz in the Corner Room
Let’s play with some thought experiments again. Today, you’re the head of leadership. Your daily task is to allocate resources, monitor progress, and set the direction for the entire leadership team at Giant Corporation. You’ve just started your job, and there’s a flurry of activity in the corner office. Heads of various functions and business units, along with their key staff, are rushing about, trying to prove what’s most important in this world.
The HR director talks about how the workforce is a company’s most important resource. Joining him is a young rising star who explains that employer brand is everything, citing Jim Collins and the “War for Talent” study. There’s a line at the door. Next up is a visionary and knowledgeable marketing director eager to talk about the brand. This is where we need to invest!
And the door opens. The Head of Sustainability walks in, wanting to discuss how the company’s strategy aligns with combating climate change. The stock-price-oriented
CFO wants to shift the company’s focus to cost competitiveness, and the Head of Development is overhauling the innovation process. The sales director, on the other hand, calmly recommends—with sound reasoning—that the High-Pressure Funnel sales model, which he himself developed and has proven effective in the heat of battle, be placed at the center of the company’s strategy so they can, for heaven’s sake, start selling like crazy and stop making excuses. The Chief Administrative Officer sees risks in everything and hopes they won’t just go off and mess things up.
Finally, a communications director—who drew inspiration from a prestigious university’s graduate program—joins the meeting and explains that Jätti Yhtiö Oyj’s reputation is a really important matter that concerns absolutely everyone, and that the entire executive team should now commit to this.
The presentations are excellent; everyone’s arguments are crystal clear and the logic is airtight. The speeches are spiced up with well-chosen quotes from academic superstars. Inspiring! This company’s leadership is no ordinary bunch. Your problem is that the wishes and arguments are at odds with one another, and the experts presenting their cases have differing views of the situation. Even the slightest thing is enough to make your head spin. You certainly can’t please everyone, and “something for everyone” means nothing for anyone.
Keep your eyes on the ball
There’s a grain of truth in that previous exaggeration. An organization is, in its own way, a political environment where different actors very often have conflicting agendas. Many things that seem crystal clear in your own mind are, in real life, as foggy as a November morning.
In the chapteranseende , it was already emphasized that anseende is a team sport. To succeed in this sport, you need to get everyone on the same page. To achieve that, at least the following two things are needed.
First of all, this self-evident point must be argued and proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. This should be done at a level and in a language that ensures the arguments resonate with all parties involved. In an ideal scenario, the discussion reaches a point where the participants largely agree and prioritize reputation in a similar way.
Reaching this kind of conclusion usually requires numbers and data. This is precisely where the quantitative meta-analysis presented earlier really shines. Everyone knows that arguments along the lines of “reputation is so important”—spiced up with academic anecdotes—usually aren’t enough to convince a broad and diverse audience. Or people might very well think you’re right in principle, but their priorities won’t change. Things only change along with priorities. For example: “Climate change is real, but I’m still flying to Asia for a long weekend.”
Second, you need to reach a shared understanding of the company’s reputation. If you have different perceptions of your reputation, you cannot develop it together. In that case, you’ll easily end up with a truck pulling up with its horn blaring and dumping a pallet load of research reports on your table. There are customer experience and satisfaction surveys, employer brand surveys, employee satisfaction surveys, political analyses, sustainability studies, opinions from the neighborhoods surrounding your factory sites, a wheelbarrow full of brand studies, and in one study, they’ve even selected the Communications Director of the Year. The table is groaning under the weight of these reports—which are, in their own right, excellent and necessary—but the metrics aren’t comparable, and each one examines different content. Every individual participating in the discussion finds support for their own opinions in them. After an exhausting data marathon and a lively discussion, you still don’t have a shared understanding of the situation. Oh, if only I could go home!
Reputation must be measured and analyzed anseende
If a meta-analysis of anseende stakeholder support tells the story anseende , then measured anseende snapshot of the organization’s reputation.
In the section on anseende Maturity,” I referred to anseende in all possible interactions an organization has with its stakeholders. For this reason, for example, customer experience or any metric centered on a single issue is not the same thing as reputation. Reputation consists of the perceptions of the organization and its operations that stakeholders have accumulated over time, from any perspective. An organization can be viewed, for example, as an economic entity, a workplace, a member of society, a community, a provider of products and services, or an active player expected to behave in a certain way in its business operations, both now and in the future. For this reason, a set of metrics designed for some other specific need cannot capture an organization’s holistic reputation and its impact. That was never the intention, nor can reputation be measured by accident.
We’ll take a look at a well-known meta-analysis of corporate reputations among the general public. We already saw this chart in the chapter on stakeholders, but now the context is richer.
Jobs Are Calling
Let’s stop the small talk and get to work. Let’s call a meeting of the management team at Jätti Yhtiö Oyj. The goal is specifically to establish a shared priority and a clear understanding of the situation anseende . That’s all for now. We’ll leave the reversing research truck at the loading dock and choose Reputation&Trust as our tool. The communications team could certainly have named other anseende , but we’ve heard a lot of good things Reputation&Trust from our colleagues.
The analysis highlights this year’s most and least reputable companies, along with their stakeholder support. The data becomes extremely interesting when viewed in context. Discussion of the phenomenon and the companies flourishes until someone asks where we ourselves would place ourselves on the map. The group becomes cautious. No one wants to guess wrong. Only the boldest reveal their cards.
The tension eases as Jätti Yhtiö Oyj’s data point snaps into place. Here we are! And that’s not all. Right next to it, our two most significant competitors appear. There’s just one image in front of us, but it speaks volumes. Where are we—the conversation calms down—and why are we where we are—the conversation starts up again.
At the same time, the connection between anseende stakeholder support is confirmed. Thanks to this confirmation, team members understand why anseende is important and where it fits into the company’s strategy. At the same time, our team’s competitive spirit is rising. We’re gradually starting to pull together. The dam has broken, and you’ve opened a discussion about where we—Jätti Yhtiö Oyj—should be. Levels of ambition vary. Soon we realize that knowing where we are isn’t enough. Now the priorities have been set. This really needs to be led!
Measuring anseende stakeholders provides a snapshot of the current situation
Assessing and prioritizing the situation is a good start, but it is not yet leadership. The situational awareness must be deepened, and based on that, objectives must be set, followed by plans to achieve those objectives. But let’s focus first on situational awareness. As noted in previous chapters, the general public represents a kind of overall reputation for the organization. Giant Corporation operates in the international B2B market and, as such, has nothing commercial to offer Finnish consumers. However, there are several aspirations regarding the general public.
It would be very important for Finns to trust Jätti Yhtiö. We need the support of our domestic market to succeed globally. That support could take the form of more favorable legislation and smoother approval of subsidized product development projects. As a company, we are particularly dependent on regulation. Our director of public affairs is a product of the political system and is considered an incredibly well-connected and smart figure. Trust in him is strong, but there’s a question mark over the company. In fact-based background discussions, comments like this have started to surface: “I agree with the argument, but we also need to consider how this will be interpreted by voters. Supporting Jätti Yhtiö Oyj’s proposals in this situation…” We’re not losing on the facts, but when it comes to sentiment, we’re starting to take a beating.
anseende , we notice that perceptions of Giant Corporation are quite divergent. The company is seen as highly profitable and financially stable, but at the same time as a poor communicator. Is it the case that Giant Corporation does not listen to or understand its stakeholders? The truth may be one way or another, but the general Finnish public holds the perception that Giant Corporation handles stakeholder engagement poorly. Ratings for the company’s governance and corporate responsibility are also quite low, and the price-quality ratio of its products is not considered particularly impressive either.
The structural analysis shows that Giant Company’s anseende relies quite heavily on its financial performance. Is this a good or a bad thing? It depends on how the anseende components anseende affect stakeholders. But we’ll come back to this a bit later with the help of data analysis. Let’s first consider anseende on its own.
The company’s funny guy starts talking and crafts a narrative structure around Jätti Yhtiö Oyj’s reputation: “Can this be interpreted to mean that an arrogant company makes unlimited amounts of money without caring about its responsibilities or stakeholders?” Ouch. That wasn’t very funny after all. anseende measured anseende can indeed be interpreted this way.
Faces are serious, and the conversation is lively. Where does this anseende come from? Are the measured perceptions accurate, or do the general public’s perceptions differ from the Giant Company’s actual performance? In other words: do we have an operational problem or a communications problem?
If perceptions of a company’s interactions, management, responsibility, and products and services are in line with our actual performance, the problem is certainly not a communication issue, even when we’re talking about reputation. On the other hand, if our actual performance is demonstrably exceeding public expectations, we can begin to address the problem directly through communication.
But how can we know which perception is true and which is a misconception? The point here isn’t to philosophize, but rather to be practical. The question is still relevant, however. Jätti Yhtiö Oyj’s performance in various areas is always measured against expectations. Even lackluster performance can seem good to us if our own expectations aren’t very high. In this context, it’s important to understand the expectations of stakeholders, and you—the management team of Jätti Yhtiö Oyj—need to discuss the operating environment and how it’s changing.
You grit your teeth and boldly ask out loud: “Is it really true that people are just misinterpreting us and the whole thing is one big misunderstanding? Or is it that expectations regarding companies have changed faster than Giant Corporation’s operations have actually evolved?”
Industry and competitor analysis provides context for the results
The painful question raised in the previous paragraph is drowned out by a flood of defensive comments. “We’re in an industry that not everyone accepts from the outset…,” “The general public doesn’t understand that we have to operate this way…,” “Political influencers are using us as their pawns…,” “Legislative changes have forced us to lay off employees…” and so on.
If anyone dares to ask such a terrible question, the conversation almost without exception turns to looking for someone else to blame. No one wants to appear weak, so the operating environment is used, as usual, as a general scapegoat. The company has done a fantastic job, but the whole world is out to get it!
I’m being a bit blunt here, even though I often consider the practice anseende others’ work to be ungrateful. In reality, the operating environment is the same for everyone. It is, of course, true that it is constantly changing and that, from time to time, certain changes are exceptionally difficult for entire industries. Everything is constantly changing, and, on average, people don’t like change. Naturally, this is also reflected in the reputations of companies and organizations.
However, it is not the role of the world around us to adapt to our business. Adaptation is our responsibility. And adaptation means that we need to look inward and put our own actions into context within our operating environment. Just ask the film crew from the “Operating Environment” episode.
It is also true that different industries have different starting points when it comes to reputation management. If you were to establish a mining company in Finland right now—one that grew rapidly and performed at a world-class level by all metrics—it would be hard to imagine the company struggling to win the title of “most reputable company” next year. A Finnish breakthrough in the global mobile gaming market could yield a different result. The industry and its history influence people’s perceptions and expectations—and, consequently, their interpretation of the organization and its intentions. These expectations “out there” are, in themselves, part of the operating environment.
The best way to gain insight into your own performance relative to the operating environment is to compare your company’s reputation to that of other companies or organizations in the same industry that are in a similar situation. This provides context for your organization’s reputation—a point of comparison that highlights the level of your own performance.
It's time to pull up that competitor comparison!
The situation was clearly starting to get a little annoying. The entire executive team is meeting for the first time to discuss this issue, and Giant Corporation has clearly fallen behind the rest of the industry. Now people are starting to question the research methodology. Who was surveyed? How was this data collected? And when was it collected? Is it possible that it’s related to that story about us that ran in Etelän Media right around that time…
The data on Jätti Yhtiö Oyj was collected in accordance with the same standard and at the same time from all entities surveyed. Its statistical accuracy, in terms of the mean, is +/-0.04 units in either direction on the 1–5 scale presented. And no, that one story in Etelän Media’s column does not account for the differences in scale relative to the competition. This interpretation is supported by the fact that Jätti Yhtiö’s reputation was at a similar level in the previous survey as well.
Resistance is broken down through discussion. It is always difficult to accept new information that contradicts one’s previous understanding or hopes. To those who have already formed a clear picture of the situation, these discussions may sound pointless or frustrating, but they are certainly not. In reality, we are on the verge of a breakthrough. People’s doubts and fears are now out in the open, and we have opened ourselves up to discussion—a discussion based on measured and unambiguous data. We are now moving rapidly toward a shared understanding of the situation among the entire leadership team. We are at the very heart anseende .
What about other stakeholders? What kind of reputation do we have among customers, employees, investors, or political influencers? Of course, we haven’t measured these yet, but we’ve taken the first—and often the most difficult—step. We’re able to prioritize our reputation in a consistent manner, and we have a unified understanding of Jätti Yhtiö Oyj’s reputation among the general public. Moving forward, working together will certainly be easier.
Riku Ruokolahti has written a handbook on corporate reputation and reputation management. The chapter published here, “Organizational Policy and Employee Engagement,” is part of the section on anseende and can be found in the handbook’s second section: anseende Management.”
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