GE ‘s “culture…disdained bad news [and] contributed to overoptimistic forecasts and botched strategies (as they were ignorant to) the insights and expectations of its employees closer to the ground.
December 4, 2018
MIT Sloan Management Review
“GE…executives were regularly making promises to shareholders … that operating managers knew were impossible.”
Reputation risk is born in the gap between expectation and reality.
Reputations are valuable strategic intangible assets. Threats to these assets⏤ enterprise reputation risks, often mislabeled “brand risks” ⏤ need to be managed, and management needs to be overseen through reputation risk governance lest reputational damage or reputational harm result in long-tailed go-forward losses in economic value and/or political power. Because these intangible risks arise from the interplay of stakeholder expectation, experiences, and media amplification, parametric insurances for intangible asset risks, for reputational value, for reputational harm, and for reputation assurance help mitigate risk by telling a simple, convincing and completely credible story of quality reputation governance to stakeholders. This story telling effect is the expressive power of insurance complementing insurance’s better known instrumental power of indemnification.
Risk management, risk financing in insurance captives, and risk transfer through reputation insurances comprise the constituent elements of a comprehensive solution. What’s your strategy?