Reputation Architects

05/01/2026

A crisis plan is a roadmap. Roadmaps work best when the terrain around you is at least somewhat familiar. When it's not, it helps to have a compass. In the uncharted terrain of a crisis, values are your compass. My latest musings on putting values and culture to work for crisis decision-making, in Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)'s Strategies & Tactics.

Embedding values into everyday decision-making provides a critical framework for faster, more consistent responses — helping organizations act with clarity and credibility under pressure.

12/24/2024

Staying on top of evolving reputation risks and best practices is like keeping insurance premiums paid up. Let things slide, and the crisis resilience it takes years for an organization to build goes out the window. So, get comprehensive risk checkup on the calendar right away. Make a date with a trainer to embark on a regimen of regular crisis exercises to keep plans and teams in peak condition. And get employees invested in preventing crises by making reputation a keystone habit across your organization in the new year. Read more about building your organization’s immunity to crisis at bit.ly/BuildingCrisisImmunity.

12/23/2024

There’s a reason insurance companies offer hefty discounts for alarm systems. The sooner a problem can be detected and acted on, the less damage it is likely to cause. Using AI to monitor for sudden changes in online chatter can be a good first layer of protection, but it’s far from perfect. When it comes to spotting the early signs of a crisis, there’s no better alarm system than a motivated and empowered workforce. Remind employees regularly that looking out for their colleagues’ well-being and protecting reputation are everyone’s responsibility and give them multiple channels for reporting illegal or unethical conduct, safety issues, workplace threats and other situations that put people and reputation at risk. A hotline administered by a third party does more than provide anonymity. It ensures that calls are handled consistently and with the necessary sensitivity, and that all the details needed to properly investigate the situation are captured and shared appropriately.

12/20/2024

Look for any low-hanging risks that can be neutralized quickly and easily, like scouring websites, marketing materials, policy manuals, employee handbooks and boilerplate customer communications for language, images and policies that are no longer in sync with society’s expectations. Conducting a workplace audit to identify and eliminate potential safety hazards can head off accidents and the hefty regulatory penalties and negative publicity that usually go with them. And with remote work now the norm, review and update IT policies and security safeguards and subject employees to “phishing” tests on a regular but random schedule to mitigate ransomware and other cyber risks.

12/19/2024

As social and political activism by workers in and out of the workplace continues to rise, employers need to strike a delicate balance between respecting diversity of thought and treating workers lawfully, and avoiding legal claims and possible public cancellation for taking action against employees whose speech or activities puts their reputations and revenues at risk. If current crisis plans don’t address risks related to employee activism and social and political issues, make it a priority. Bringing the organization’s HR, legal and reputation experts together before problems arise is the best way to ensure that they understand each other’s priorities and that both legal and reputational interests receive due consideration when issues do surface. Read more at bit.ly/4gKmHmB.

12/18/2024

With more than 14,000 new articles being added to every month, the world’s go-to encyclopedia of online knowledge gives developers a virtually bottomless data set for training large language models. Because anything on Wikipedia can be edited by anyone at any time, however, it’s not uncommon for inaccurate, biased or malicious information to creep into articles unnoticed. Once ingested, those inaccuracies can appear in the model’s output, ready to be shared, manipulated and incorporated into other content, all but guaranteeing their perpetual spread. Be sure to keep close tabs on articles about your organization and executives to ensure they stay accurate and up to date. And set up clear internal processes for addressing problems, engaging collaboratively with the Wikipedia community and, if necessary, seeking expert advice on navigating the cultural norms, community standards and complex rules that govern the Wikipedia ecosystem to avoid inadvertently making matters worse. Read more at bit.ly/4bIz2pk

12/17/2024

Values are a powerful tool for preventing unforced business errors and the self-inflicted reputational wounds they often come with them. But they can’t earn their reputational keep if they remain hidden away on the About Us page of the company’s website. Setting values out for workers to use as touchstones for decision-making provides a uniform framework for thinking through the consequences of a particular decision in that critical moment before they take action and inadvertently spark a reputational firestorm. In a group setting, encouraging questions like “Is the direction we’re about to take aligned with our values and how we want to be seen as a company?” is a good way to neutralize group-think and ensure that everyone involved has considered the situation from all sides and is comfortable with the decision reached before going forward. Read more at bit.ly/37X3Unl

12/13/2024

Feeding a steady diet of high-quality that people are asking for and their algorithms value highly does more than boost your organization's online visibility. The more insightful, sought-after information you deliver, the harder you make it for negative content to gain a foothold and the better protected your against harm. Read more at bit.ly/3j0xArP and follow us at Reputation Architects for our complete series of 12 tips to boost your organization’s crisis resilience in 2025.

12/12/2024

Regular exercise reduces our levels of circulating stress hormones, allowing us to think more clearly under pressure, and boosts production of serotonin, which regulates our mood and overall sense of well-being. Exercise of a somewhat different variety plays a significant role in how companies cope with unexpected challenges. Organizations that put their crisis teams and plans through regularly scheduled tabletop games and simulation exercises are faster off the line when unexpected challenges hit and return to normal operations faster than those that don’t. Regular crisis workouts also build muscle memory, which enables team members to respond instinctively as a crisis unfolds, without having to refer to detailed plans and flowcharts to plot their every move when time is at a premium. More here: bit.ly/3PffvST

12/11/2024

Relying on an outdated plan to get you through a crisis is like counting on an aging air conditioner in the middle of a record heat wave. In both cases, the hotter it gets the greater the probability of something bad happening at the worst possible moment. The middle of a crisis is no time to realize that key crisis team members have left the company and haven’t been replaced or that you have no way to reach executives at a newly acquired unit after hours. At a minimum, make sure all essential contacts, including key customers, business partners and outside legal, reputation and other advisors, are accurate and up-to-date. And with ransomware attacks at an all-time high, be sure to think through how leaders will communicate and manage the crisis if company systems are offline or compromised. More at bit.ly/3tpV4sX