Appetite for Reputation Risk
How big is your tolerance for it and what is your "aperture?"
Decision making often reveals how much tolerance we have for risk to our reputation. We may or may not realize how much risk we are choosing to assume by how we are thinking, deciding and acting.
It’s extremely important to pause, ask and clearly know how much risk to credibility, trust, relationships (personal and professional) and reputation we are willing to take.
Yes, highly moral intentions can still not fully prevent how we are experienced and judged. That certainly happens. There are honorable risks that sometimes have to navigate. That’s life.
There are also risks where uncertainty exists yet are ones worth carefully accepting.
Then there are those that we know could be very dangerous and foolish and we talk ourselves into “buying” that risk anyway, when the odds are clearly not in our favor that the outcomes will be positive and there is very little available reward and benefit.
Changing Directions
Matt Ziegler shared two interesting points in an article I’m going to share with you. He learned of them in a discussion Elie Jacobs, a strategic communications specialist and geopolitical consultant, discussed his personal risk framework on the Just Press Record podcast with him and Eric Markowitz:
R.I.S.K.
Reputational Intelligence, Stakeholder Knowledge.
“Brand is not reputation,” Jacobs said. “Your brand is the story you tell about yourself, aka the carefully crafted narrative you push out into the world to describe yourself. Your reputation is the story others tell when you're not in the room.”
I’d add that your reputation is also what people will verbally say to your face communicate in the printed word. They may not be reserved about it either.
We think we know our reputation. We may be accurate in that understanding. Of course, we might be off, way off.
The Gap
“The gap between your self-proclaimed brand and your public-proclaimed reputation is your risk aperture,” Ziegler wrote about Jacobs saying.
“The wider that gap, the more vulnerable you are. The narrower the gap, meaning what you project and what others reflect back at you are in harmony, then the more resilient your position.”
It’s not uncommon for people to insist that they know (assume) precisely what their reputation is (absolutely positive) and push back on any credible, contrary evidence (that is less than positive or negative).
They are unaware that there is a gap present or they are in denial that there is one. This usually occurs, no surprise, when the gap is more significant than it is smaller.
In almost all circumstances, we can narrow that gap with honorable efforts. Most people and organizations decide not to choose that response. Perplexing decision.
Their comfort zone is a moderate-to-large gap. We’ve all learned that as humans, we don’t always reason most effectively and impressively and make the most logical of conclusions and responses.
“Everybody wants a narrower risk aperture at the end of the day,” Jacobs said.
”Nobody wants it widening out of control.”
I disagree. Not everyone cares. Should care, yet don’t. The risk aperture remains wide, showing that people are (overly) comfortable moving forward without reputation risk protection and assuming a high tolerance for danger to their name and reputation.
Michael Toebe is the specialist at Reputation Intelligence, helping individuals and organizations with matters of credibility, trust, decision analysis, communications, relationships and reputation.
You can DM him on Substack or contact him below for consulting, risk analysis, coaching, ongoing advisory, a variety of proactive and responsive communications and reputation (not legal) representation.
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