Off The Record

David F. D’Alessandro’s Career Warfare: 10 Rules for Building a Successful Personal Brand and Fighting to Keep It is a must read for anyone looking to build career success.  Written by D’Alessadro, along with journalist Michelle Owens, this is a personal Art of War for the modern corporate soldier.  It is particularly suitable for the Public Relations Officer (PRO) as that is where D’Alessandro started his career, climbing the corporate ladder to it’s ultimate height as Chairman and CEO of John Hancock Financial Services.  Indeed D’Alessandro was in large part responsible for John Hancock’s selection by the New York Times as one of the top 100 brands of the 20^th Century.

D’Alessandro knows brand building as his first book Brand Warfare: 10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand attests.

Career Warfare is a masterful book, a compass for those looking to move ahead in their careers.  It is insightful and frank in its advice, drawing on D’Alessandro’s own experiences and observations of those around him, including the many who had the hard skills to get to the top but failed because they lacked the insight to work on positioning their personal brands for success.

The book is a compass more than a road map.  It points the direction.  It looks at what makes the difference as you reach the higher rungs on the ladder where everyone has the hard skills, where everyone excels in capability and accomplishment.  Career Warfare looks at the concept of personal brand and what builds the trust required for ultimate success.

Insightful chapters include:
      Try to look beyond your own navel;
      Like it or not, your boss is the coauthor of your brand;
      It’s always show time;
      Make the right enemies; and,
      Everybody coulda been a contender; make sure you stay one.

D’Alessandro offers the best advice you will get on how to build your personal brand and protect it.  If you only read one career improvement book in 2007, make it Career Warfare.  Then get back to the fray of battle.

* Uma Li is a human resources development consultant living in the United States.  She previously worked in public relations in China. 

Although very much Americano-centric, with the possible exception of the chapter on the cheating culture of top sumo wrestlers in Japan, the book has important lessons for Chinese professionals, particularly in the PR industry.

Freakonomics is nothing short of a fast-paced fun read, especially for those enamored of economics, such as this reviewer.  And the chapters on the poverty in which Chicago crack dealers live in the hope of one day being a gangland boss, on the economic incentives for sumo wrestlers and public school teachers to cheat, along with the way the anti-bigotry campaigner Stetson Kennedy infiltrated the racist Ku Klux Klan and lifted the shroud of secrecy on the organization, to turn it into a laughing stock of children’s games are brilliant.

For Chinese professionals the book has important insights such as Kennedy’s use of the mass media – a popular radio show for children – to destroy the Ku Klux Klan.  This was PR at its very best.

Another lesson for young Chinese professionals leaving university with an entitlement mentality is the value of hard work even for low wages just to gain valuable experience that will enable them to get the jobs of their dreams later.  This after all is what motivates Chicago crack dealers who have to live with their mothers to make ends meet in the hope of one day becoming a gangland king.  According to Levitt they are prepared to endure sub-minimum wages and high risks (one-in-four will die a violent death) to achieve their long-term career goals, much as aspiring actors and models do.  Instead of expecting the big bucks immediately, China’s new graduates should take this leaf from the book of Chicago crack dealers.  And at least PR in China is less risky.

But some of the rest of the book is very questionable both in terms of analysis and the morality of the conclusions reached.  For example a chapter arguing that legalized abortion in a number of American States has been instrumental in reducing crime rates has been questioned by other economists.  Christopher Foote and Christopher Goetz for example question the manipulation of data by Levitt and have said “there are no statistical grounds for believing that the hypothetical youths who were aborted as fetuses would have been more likely to commit crimes had they reached maturity than the actual youths who developed from fetuses and carried to term.”

The real problem with Levitt’s work on abortion and crimes rates, though, is that it could lend itself to an argument for the forced abortion of babies of women belonging to a certain socio-economic class in order to reduce crime rates in the future.  This is eugenics pure and simple.  While Levitt certainly doesn’t make the argument for it the fact is his wrong-headed statistical analysis could be come wrong-headed morality in the wrong hands, such as in the hands of those who see man as little more than an economic actor.

This chapter is not worth reading for the economic analysis as it has very little and does even less to further the study of economics.

The final chapter on name selection for babies and future academic and career success is interesting in that it asks the question of whether American blacks are discriminated against because they have “black names” or because the names their parents gave them are associated with lower IQ’s and education.  Chinese hoping to work at foreign companies and choosing what they think are popular names could do worse than consult Levitt’s list of most popular names for boys and girls among America’s elites.

Read Freakonomics for the sheer joy of seeing the study of economics applied to the mundane and even to the bizarre.  But feel free to skip the chapter on abortion as it doesn’t add very much to the sum of human knowledge.   

By Ronald J. Alsop
 

Following the wave of scandals involving Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen, etc. corporate reputation has been positioned at the forefront of all intelligent companies’ business strategy if it wasn’t there already. Surprisingly though, the concept of “reputation capital” is still neglected within much of the corporate world. Very few companies realize the importance of - and the enormous benefits associated with - a positive reputation: enhanced financial performance, attractiveness to investors and talented employees, and protection in times of crisis.

Drawing on many years experience reporting on corporate reputation and brands for The Wall Street Journal, Ronald Alsop provides a roadmap built around eighteen “laws” for constructing a strong, long-lasting reputation. These laws are supported by an abundance of thoroughly researched case studies and categorized into three parts: how to create a good reputation, how to retain it, and, when it has been damaged, how to repair it.  

A perfect example of the importance of company reputation is demonstrated by an incident involving Johnson & Johnson (J&J), a leader in the pharmaceutical industry, one of the toughest for reputation management. When seven people died in 1982 after taking Tylenol capsules (made by a subsidiary of J&J) laced with cyanide, J&J’s reputation was clearly at stake. J&J, however, was able to draw on a previously strong company image and together with sound crisis management strategies, recovered. J&J now enjoys one of the best reputations in the business community, as studies conducted by Harris Interactive and the Reputation Institute show. The gravity of the crisis faced by Johnson & Johnson in 1982 and its relatively positive resolution- the company regained almost all of its pre-crisis market share - proves that a company’s reputation is “its most valuable asset”, as Alsop puts it, in times of crisis.

Contrary to popular belief, reputation is far more than ethical behavior. “Though certainly of growing importance, ethics and social responsibility are but two elements of the equation. Financial performance, the workplace environment, the quality of products and services, corporate leadership, and vision also figure into reputation”. Alsop actually argues emotional appeal - the link between people and a company - is “the primary driver of reputation”.  For example, J&J, a company that understands the importance of emotional appeal, has made a conscious decision in their marketing and advertising to focus on baby products even though it comprises a small proportion of their total business.  Society, J&J rightly believes, associates more positively with babies than drugs.  Similarly, despite the financial and strategic challenges being faced by the Walt Disney Company, because of the “special aura” surrounding the Disney family, e.g., Mickey Mouse, the company’s reputation remains strong.

Alsop effectively covers such topics as instilling a culture of transparency and ethics in employees, making sound CSR program choices, and dealing with new fast-paced means of communications such as the Internet. Every significant issue relating to the management of one’s business name is covered.

Foreign companies operating in
China should also learn from Alsop’s case studies and recommendations, as still too large a number lower their ethical standards when doing business in the Chinese market. Building a good reputation in the local communities in which foreign companies operate could bring them wider benefits in the long run such as a stronger reputation at home and increased local legitimacy. Foreign companies doing business in emerging economies can help set the standard in areas such as the protection of labor rights and hence improve the overall business environment. 

Likewise, Chinese companies can also benefit from Alsop’s eighteen laws, as more and more try to develop their brand outside of China.

CNOOC’s failed bid on American Unocal, Haier’s failed attempt to buy Maytag, and the US Congress’ refusal to use Lenovo products in classified areas of government departments should indeed act as warning signs for Chinese companies wishing to go global. Quality of customer experience is not enough in the current international business environment for today’s cynical consumers, nor is writing a cheque to a charitable organization. 

The reputation rub-off associated with the “China Inc. perception” (discussed on this blog), makes the need for Chinese companies to fully integrate and embrace the concept of reputation capital, in its broader form, much greater. Not merely concerning core stakeholders- i.e. consumers and investors, but also including internal communications, community relations, and the media. 

An article published in the May issue of the China Economic Review titled “Battle of the Brands” calls into question, however, the role of brand building for Chinese companies operating domestically. The article explains that a very fragmented national retail market means “substantial barriers exist to those trying to create a nationwide brand”, which translates into price and distribution being “more important to success than marketing” and premium foreign brands having a clear advantage over domestic firms. As they consolidate, it will be crucial for Chinese brands to understand the importance of corporate reputation and act accordingly.

In the short-run however, Alsop’s eighteen laws might not be as immutable for Chinese companies operating domestically as they are for other firms.

Review by Diane Faure, Assistant Account Executive at AC Capital Strategic Public Relations, Beijing.