Facing Reality: Why CEO Reputation Matters
Leslie Gaines-Ross, Burson-Marsteller

Research conducted in recent years by Burson-Marsteller shows that CEO and company reputation matter more than ever to the bottom line, employee commitment and meaningful corporate cultures. The reason? CEOs are faced with far greater decisions than ever before, and the equity that companies derive from a great reputation can be used in many ways to fuel ongoing success. A solid reputation drives the best and brightest to join an organization, drives capital and even drives profitability. Great reputations are not accidental, however. There is a clear model of excellent reputation that CEOs can follow as they strive to provide ethical leadership and create meaning for the communities they serve. The drivers include such attributes as being credible, demonstrating ethical conduct, communicating effectively with shareowners, consistent truthfulness and transparency.

Rebuilding Credibility and Trust: A CEO's View
Michael Dell, Dell Computer Corporation

The Dell brand has been influenced and guided by our always being able to tell our story. I learned quickly the value of great public relations—among all of our audiences. It helped us stay focused. But the road map of our success has been paved by the challenges we have overcome. Along the way, however, we remained committed first to our customers' needs and to providing shareowners with access to information. We had to convince people that we were a "direct" company and we had to explain this new category using bold advertising, which compared our products to our competition and we took full advantage of many other tactics that helped us communicate our message. The first high-tech company to hire a consumer PR agency, we were successful at staking out a new position and public relations played a major role in the guts of our success. Especially in today's business environment, it is important to not over-attribute success to the leader of a company. Success comes from the basics—tell the truth, don't lie, don't steal. And it's everyone's responsibility to create or recreate this culture of integrity.

The Challenge of Leadership in Our Time
Leon Panetta, former Congressman and Clinton chief of staff

Effective leadership is important to business, the nation. Our democracy and our economy are both dependent on trust. The founding fathers of our nation wanted to make certain that power would not be centralized or abused by one branch of the government, so they created a formula for gridlock that was key to making the democratic process work. The formula was leadership with compromise and trust—or the fundamental belief that power rested with the people. When we look at corporate America, the same key principles are involved. Today, governance is about restoring trust. We are seeing the most dramatic overhaul of business practices since the New Deal. When even a few trust issues arise in corporate America, it further weakens public trust in all corporations. The goal of the public-private challenge then has to do with accountability, transparency and integrity. We can anticipate a fundamental shift between CEOs and directors—Boards will be more active and involved, challenging what goes on inside a company in ways that they never have before, and CEOs will become managers of day-to-day activities and more committed to the development of long-term stability.

Report on the CEO Survey
R. Jeep Bryant, the PNC Financial Services Group
Donald K. Wright, Ph.D., University of South Alabama

Members of the Arthur W. Page Society spoke with their CEOs about what keeps top executives awake at night. The results of the survey of 16 prominent CEOs revealed the most important business-related concerns. These include reputation, innovation, re-establishing trust and confidence, challenges of successful marketing, personnel issues, achieving growth in a declining economy, potential ethical issues, civil justice reform, and potential and global business opportunities. When asked "What is the role of the public relations function in helping you deal effectively with these issues?" CEOs said, for example, "PR helps us put our best foot forward," "PR plays a key role in promoting innovation," and "PR complements other key line initiatives."

The Story Behind the Story: The Collapse of Enron
Bethany McClean, Fortune

On the surface, Enron looked like it was doing everything right. But the numbers told a much different story, and so did an up-close look at the culture. Bethany McClean was the first journalist to stand up to Enron executives and assert, "The Emperors have no clothes." When she made her claim, she was dismissed as a novice who did not understand business. But this accusation did not stop her or her editors from inquiring or looking deeper into the Enron story. When she dared to look at the basics of how the company derived profit, she discovered it wasn't just accounting that ruined the company, it was culture—a culture that valued lying and cheating on many levels among other destructive business behaviors. McClean said that business journalists can take a lesson from the Enron story especially in terms of getting past the corporate "puffery" and not overlooking the answers to essential business questions that often come directly from careful analysis of the company's financials—rather than company representatives, consultants or third-parties such as accountants and analysts.

From Executive Suite to Shop Floor:
Bridging the Communication Gap Between Leaders and Employees
Alison Davis, Davis & Company

In terms of the issues that keep CEOs up at night, there are four key themes that relate to communicating with employees: innovation; achieving goals and understanding strategies; truth, ethics and values and motivating employees. CEOs want employees to understand and take ownership of the organization's business strategy. Employees want less information and more meaning. Employees seek the straight story, an understanding of "what the business strategy means to me," visible leaders and present managers. Communications executives can help close the gap between the wants and needs of CEOs and their employees by developing and implementing strategic approaches that consider both sides of the leadership-work force equation.

New Rules—New World?
Richard C. Breeden, past Securities and Exchange Commission chairman

What is new about corporate governance today is that the problems do not just involve startups and marginal companies but also corporate 500 companies. These days every Board has to be sure they are following the rules. But it's more than just checklists. Check lists make sure you are within the rules, but they don't guarantee good behavior. In my opinion, Boards – with the exception of the CEO – should be 100 percent independent. Other officers can come to the meetings but they shouldn't be directors. Unfortunately, the new rules allow you to get by with a small number of independents. At WorldCom, where I am the court-appointed corporate monitor, the previous directors were independents but they were passive and detached and didn't know the company. Directors have to be alert to what the company is doing with regard to disclosure and compensation. At WorldCom we are trying to create a new corporate culture and set corporate governance rules that are more than a checklist. We want WorldCom to be a model company.

Journalists on Journalism: Changes, Issues and Perspectives
Richard Edelman, Edelman, moderator
John Byrne, Business Week
David Greising, Chicago Tribune

Answering questions from the floor, Byrne and Greising acknowledged that the business press was not as critical of corporate behavior as they should have been. Part of this was a lack of sophistication about financial matters but also a failure to recognize the depths to which some analysts had fallen. The media helped make rock stars out of CEOs but this is because there was pressure (particularly among broadcasters) to make business news more accessible and readable. They tried to put a personality on a company. In the post-Enron era, CEOs are doing themselves a disservice by not speaking out. Also PR people need to learn to deal with aggressive reporters; it doesn't pay to shut off the contact. Most reporters try to be objective and fair. But you need to be open with them. Reporters also know when you are trying to use them; they are not about to be blindly led. We're operating in a different environment. The Internet has changed the competitive metric; the news cycle is now minute-by-minute. The vast majority of companies are doing a good job of communicating with the press. But the CEO needs to be the role model.

Conversation with a Leading CEO
Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Carlson Companies

It's important to understand the complexities of the world today. We see each other through a different lens. But we have to ask ourselves, what can we do to promote understanding, improve relationships, show more leadership. Carlson Companies is the largest global marketing service company in the U.S., operating in 140 countries with 190,000 employees. Not all are direct employees, but if a franchise isn't doing well somewhere in the world, we feel as responsible for those employees and their families as if we paid their salaries directly. One of my passions at Carlson has been to create a meritocracy where men, women and people of color have a truly equal playing field. I have also been concerned about issues facing women in business such as access to capital and markets and health insurance for workers. In a company such as ours, we see the future more in terms of long-term stewardship. Being a private company, we have to fund our own growth, expense our own stock plans, operate transparently and honestly with every one of our stakeholders. It's sad that American business of late has been anything but transparent and honest. It's also shocking that between 1998 and 2001 almost one in three American companies changed CEOs. Can we really expect long-term stewardship from such short-term stewards? We must show more patience, look at a more balanced scorecard of our performance and reward real progress, not financial creativity.