A new playbook for effective crisis management in higher education.
Unlike other industries, in higher education an institution's most
important asset is its reputation. Yet as fundamental as it is, many
leaders continue to view managing reputation as dishonest and
counterproductive, a suspect process that undermines the very idea of
reputation as an organic outcome of reality. When leadership credibility
is on the line, though, and an institution's reputation is facing
potentially irreparable damage, the concept of reputational risk moves
from being nebulous to all too tangible.
In Preventing Crises at Your University, Simon Barker demonstrates how
critical it is for colleges and universities to align strategy and
values with decision-making during times of crisis. Arguing that leaders
must stop considering the discussion of reputational risk as unseemly,
he demonstrates that this discussion is in fact a strategic imperative
for every leader. Significant reputational damage, Barker asserts, is
not the inevitable outcome of a crisis but of a poor response. Defining
a new crisis leadership playbook to deal with self-inflicted crises, he
also
- explains what typically goes wrong in a crisis;
- describes how to prevent crises from escalating;
- demonstrates how a stakeholder-centric model of communications can
help mitigate reputational damage; and
- introduces a number of original concepts, including a Reputational
Risk Management Framework, a Reputational Risk Maturity Model, and a
Culture and Capability matrix.
Moving beyond the theoretical by presenting case studies of real crises
involving sexual assault, freedom of speech, student protests, faculty
misconduct, and a broad range of financial, social, and ethical issues,
the book highlights and underscore key concepts around effective
management of reputational risk. Ultimately, Preventing Crises at Your
University serves as a wake-up call for all higher education leaders
and board members.
