De ilskna fåglarna

Schumpeter-kolumnisten i The Economist skriver idag om hur svårt företag och företagsledare har att skydda sig mot den ilska som kan genereras i sociala medier.

Han utgår från boken “Glass Jaw: A Manifesto for Defending Fragile Reputations in an Age of Instant Scandal” av kriskonsulten Eric Dezenhall.

 He dismisses the idea that corporate social responsibility (CSR) bestows on firms the PR equivalent of a stock of political capital: digital vigilantes will always assume businesses are guilty and can add the charge of hypocrisy to CSR-obsessed ones, as they did to BP after its spill. He warns against one-size-fits-all approaches to crises: the common prescription to come clean quickly and fully sometimes stokes the fire, he notes.

Mr Dezenhall argues that the best defence in this age of instant global scandal is to be brilliant at your job. He notes that, a couple of years after the crisis that almost destroyed his career, Tiger Woods was chosen for a Nike advertising campaign with the slogan, “Winning takes care of everything”. Unfortunately, for CEOs it may not: if you are an ace golfer mired in personal scandal you can redeem yourself on the greens. But a boss brought down by a baying social-media mob does not always get a second chance.

Kort sagt, det är i dagens värld inte så lätt att försvara sig mot det Schumpeter kallar ”the angry birds”. Jag menar att det centrala budskapet här är att det inte finns några enkla patentlösningar.