Some six months ago, I wrote about how CEOs
can keep their jobs with five new rules of perception that were the result of a
study conducted by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. Since the turn of the
millennium, company performance is not any longer the most important indicator of
a CEO's success. Nowadays the CEOs public perception and its effective
management decide the CEO's future and often the company's market value too.The case of the CEOs Anshu Jain and Juergen Fitschen shows that good performance does not necessarily leads to a fair and positive perception too. Both have resigned, after losing the stakeholders' general trust and in the fallout of the financial crisis.
Nowadays the perception of a CEO is either
a liability or an asset to the company. CEOs have to provide orientation and
guide the company and its employees. Poor perception does not only leave an impact on
the CEO's career but also on the company's reputation and image too. Moral compass
and integrity are becoming more and more important for all
stakeholders and the general public. Due to the increasing participation of
stakeholders, executives must persuade not only the supervisory board and the
administration but also the public and mass media in general.
Executives should be able to determine weak points in their perception and develop personal plans tailored to situational use to avoid the discrepancy between CEO's vision (strategy) on the one hand, and the reality on the other. Today CEOs not only have to persuade the stakeholders but also mass media and the public in general. That’s what makes CEOs perception so important and valuable for companies and executives.
Perception
needs to be managed professionally
This example shows that companies and CEOs
need to manage their perception effectively. Roland Berger Strategy Consultants
developed an analysis tool that enables companies and its executives to
identify a CEO's current perception and develop measures to be taken as well as
strategies using three different media channels for the improvement of a CEO's
perception. This tool enables executives and decision- makers to compile
pre-emptive as well as ad-hoc strategies to steer the perception in the
direction needed.
To learn more about Roland Berger's new business unit "Executive Communications", with experts in professional perception management, see this recent article in PR Magazin and watch this video.
