by JARVIS CROMWELL

Tomorrow the world heads back to work. Armed with your 2010 New Year’s resolutions, what are your sources of inspiration as you set out to face what remains a challenging environment on so many fronts?

Here’s a suggestion. Even if you’ve seen this iconic video of basketball player Matt Scott, which was released in 2007 as part of the Nike No Excuses campaign, watch it again. It still inspires.

Across the media landscape hero’s fell and leaders disappointed in 2009, but putting it all in perspective one realizes that sources of inspiration remain all around us.

All you have to do is look for it.

by STEPHANIE FIERMAN

Ed Note: As the numbers trickle in and retail analysts debate the success – or lack thereof – of this holiday season, Trustmeister Stephanie Fierman asks the key question…

Is Santa the best marketer ever?

Think about it.

Long-term reputation management: No Tiger Woods problems here. Ever. Do you think that Coca-Cola worries that it might go to sleep one night and wake up to find a sex tape of Santa on the Web? Have you ever noticed that the whole “Mommy kissing Santa Claus” business never seems to go past a certain point (paging Charlie Sheen…)? Nope, not gonna happen. Santa is one reliable dude.

Brand promise and channel integration: No matter where you go, you receive the same disciplined message. Movies, television, email, radio, social media, Web, snail mail, music, retail… You get the same message everywhere and each channel builds upon and reinforces the others. He’s big, he’s fat, he wears a red suit and he gives you what you ask for on Christmas Eve. Not December 23. Not December 25. It’s December 24. Every year.

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by ANDREW JAFFE

Starbucks has had its ups and downs over the last couple of years. And now the market seems to be making a rough judgment on the company every day.

That’s the problem with taking a wonderful idea and building it to the point that you can launch an IPO and cash in on the goodwill you created.

But once you bite that IPO apple and allow your company to be publicly traded there are few secrets to be kept as you try to manage the brand over the shoals and storms of the world’s economies.

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NICOLETTE WURING

Garage Tip: In Today’s Low-trust World Your Promises Are Less Likely to Be Believed. Focus Instead on Improving Your Ability to Deliver Meaningful Interactions With Customers — the kind that Build Trust

A cable company in Europe launched a re-branding soon after a roll-up of acquisitions by a group of venture capitalists. The investors demanded that the re-branding take place almost immediately.This was not only premature and meaningless to employees and customers, it proved harmful.
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NICOLETTE WURING

Editors Note:

General Electric’s Jeff Immelt recently noted that the global economy is not simply undergoing an economic downturn, but an emotional, social and economic reset.

Is your management team feeling panic about that? Applying the thinking developed by the trustmeisters here in the Reputation Garage can help. If Mr. Immelt is right, and we think he is, your management team will need to radically change its playbook. And not only have the rules changed, there is not yet a lot of clarity around what the new game board looks like.

Below our newest “trustmeister,” Amsterdam-based Nicolette Wuring, offers thoughts as this relates to her specialty: customer advocacy, operations and service. In a follow-up piece, Nicolette will offer tips for keeping customers in this rough and tumble environment.
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By Jarvis Cromwell for The Reputation Garage

High employee engagement is money in the bank. As the graph opposite shows, companies considered the best to work for between 1998-2004 had a total stock market return of 176% versus 39% for the S&P 500.

But when it comes to engaging employees in this economic downturn, chances are you’ve got at least three problems. 1) Morale is at a low ebb (surveys have been tracking its decline across most large companies for a decade); 2) high levels of distrust in management limit your ability to rally the troops; and 3) even if you could figure out what to do, the current downturn leaves you with little or no money to address it.

Don’t sit around moping. You’re a manager, so act. There are a number of things you can do that don’t have to break the bank to build trust and improve morale. After all, you can’t take the next hill (which is looking to be steep and well fortified) if you don’t have the trust of your team. The trick is to be consistent in your approach. Here are ten tips from Forbes that would be a good start.

1) Give thanks

2) Pull them aside for a one-on-one

3) Value family time

4) Invest in their future

5) Surprise them

6) Engage them by handing out pet projects

7) Reward specific achievements

Get everyone involved and limit micro-management

9) Heavy up on encouraging a team approach

10) Focus more on fun and less relentlessly on cash

The learning for trustmeisters is that low levels of trust among employees hurts performance. Given the current environment, you’ll need to work harder over the next year on this dimension of your job as a manager. See the complete Forbes slide show of all ten tips HERE.