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`Corporate communications is best left to PR professionals'

If encouragement comes from the top managements, it becomes part of corporate values. K. Satyamurty meets the `chief dreamer' who has evolved the concept of Total Reputation Management

"The reputation of an organisation is the reputation of individuals who make up that entity," says the man who evolved the concept of TrM, Total Reputation Management.

The head of imagequity, who calls himself "chief dreamer" for a designation, is A. Viswanathan but "Avis" to his colleagues, friends and business associates. Brevity is a hallmark of his speech so the abbreviated nomenclature fits in.

Two decades in the media, advertising and public relations have left Avis with the conviction that the "plain vanilla" of corporate communications is best left to PR professionals. "What I try to do is concerned with the total image of a corporate entity, including all its employees at all levels. The image built through the corporation communication exercise has necessarily to fit that real face," he says.

Creating perceptions

All companies try to express themselves; through the media, through paid advertising and PR agencies, but it still leaves a large gap in creating the right public perceptions about an organisation, he says. The "reputation management" idea came to him in 1996, when, after nearly 50 years, the country was trying to create a new image for itself. Corporates going through the changes in the globalised economy were attempting to do the same.

That is when he became firmly convinced that people make an organisation, but organisations with a great image can also overcome the failings of individual executives because they accept the shortcomings and make up for them in the public eye. Interestingly enough, his first TrM efforts were for a pizza chain.

"I then became familiar with the Australian slang, `a bonzer', that means a jolly good fellow; something we all want to be thought of by others," says Avis.

It was the term Don Bradman affectionately used after his meeting with a much younger Sachin Tendulkar.

"We all want to be bonzers, none of us want to do a lousy job in whatever career we are. We want to do the right thing effectively and efficiently and be recognised for it. If encouragement comes from the top managements for such efforts, it becomes part of corporate values, all down the line," he says.

People want to do things that raise their self-esteem and their image before others. They also need motivation. Whether to work better, lose extra weight or stop smoking. Self-application has to be supported by others. Non-smokers need the advice of others who have stopped smoking.

Reputation

Reputations, even carefully built up ones, can be marred by one single act of indiscretion. Avis is onto something new now: Celebrity reputation and its management. It cannot happen with stage management but only by internal transformation and the willingness to accept a better, more credible and lasting value system, he says.

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