Erika Hayes James

Is BP’s Reputation Sinking?

Earlier this week I attended a conference in which one of the speakers was describing the corporate reputations of various firms and industries.  Her message was largely about how advertising campaigns and, more recently, effective management of social media can tremendously influence the public’s perception – for the better and for the worse.  This conclusion itself was not particularly surprising, but when paired with a particular example, it really got my attention.  The story the speaker shared described the changes in British Petroleum’s (BP) reputation over the years.

You may be familiar with BP’s most recent advertising campaign in which, following a merger with Amoco, the firm was attempting to reinvent itself as a socially conscious company. BP used its acronym as a play on words suggesting that the newly formed company was ‘beyond petroleum’ and provided examples of the various ways in which it was going green. In fact, BP was the first oil company in the industry to suggest a link between energy use and global warming.  Read the rest of this entry »

Not of Their Making

I recently responded to a question posted by the Washington Post’s “On Leadership” series regarding the airline executives symbolic flights to show that air travel was safe after the Icelandic volcano. There are several things to consider here.

Today’s executives are leading through considerable turbulence. For the airline industry, the on-going financial challenges alone are a perfect example. Now add to those long-standing burdens the situation in which thousands of planes were grounded as a result of volcanic activity. The result was lost revenue (to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars each day that flights were canceled), agitated passengers, and an operational nightmare. Who can prepare for a crisis like this?

Interestingly, a volcano eruption has interfered with air travel before so the situation is not a new one. Consequently, although one cannot predict a crisis like this, there is reason to believe leaders would have systems in place for dealing with an operational disruption of this sort, though perhaps not of this magnitude.

Perhaps a more compelling question is what should an effective leader do in the midst of a crisis? Read the rest of this entry »

Writer’s Block

It has been almost two months since I contributed a new posting to my blog. In the first few weeks I was not overly concerned, but as time continued to pass and one month turned into two I started to panic. And with the panic came my first ever bout of writer’s block. Some might find this surprising given that as an academic fifty percent of my professional life is devoted to writing. I have written a dissertation, a book, numerous articles for the academic and business communities, and now regular blog postings (or at least what used to be regular). One would think that in the past 17 years I would have encountered writer’s block at least once, but in all honesty I have no recollection of ever having trouble writing. I love the creative expression of the task.

So, why now? Read the rest of this entry »

Complacency or Reinvention: You Make the Call

Last week I spoke to a group of women at the 10th annual Women in Leadership Conference at Rice University in Houston.  The event was sponsored by the Jones School of Business chapter of the National Association of Woman MBAs (NAWMBA).  The conference theme was “Where to Next?  Reinvent Your Career”.  Having been a university professor for 15 years, I initially thought that I was an odd choice to serve as a speaker on reinventing one’s career.  Professors, after all, tend to be a stable lot and I did not necessarily see myself as an exception in that regard.

But in the process of preparing my remarks I realized that I have in fact made numerous transitions in my career and have reinvented myself on more than one occasion, all the while staying firmly rooted in the same profession.  For starters, I have changed employers four times in 15 years.  All moves I initiated and all were motivated by a desire to challenge and develop myself through new experiences and opportunities that accompanied each transition.  Each move became more complicated and more consequential than the ones they preceded, and with that came an element of fear: Fear of failure; fear of making decisions that would adversely affect my family; fear of leaving behind friends and colleagues and sense of comfort and familiarity for people and an organization that I knew less well; and fear of not living up to expectations. Read the rest of this entry »

Toyota: Too Little? Too Late?

This morning I saw the first Toyota commercial in which the firm not only acknowledged the problems in their vehicles that have resulted in not one, but two extensive and expensive recalls, but they apologized for not living up to their longstanding reputation for quality.  The commercial I saw was clearly an attempt to tug on the emotions of its consumers while also informing customers about the specific actions Toyota is taking to repair the affected vehicles and rebuild trust in their brand.  Unfortunately, the response may be too little too late.

In my work I have said that it is not always the crisis event itself (in Toyota’s case a faulty product), but it is the handling of a crisis that often most threatens a firm.  Toyota is the latest example of this. Read the rest of this entry »