2. Must Reads

Must Reads

“When turmoil rules, go in.” — Lao Tzu

There is so much to read, so much to know, so many sources to follow. And the volume of news and information just keeps growing exponentially. How to keep up? Even more, how to rediscover the serendipity of learning something new and interesting for its own sake?

Here, for your enjoyment and interest, are the articles Temin and Company considers “must reads.” They are primarily on the topics of reputation and crisis management, the media, leadership and strategy, perception and psychology, self-presentation, science, girls and women, organizational behavior and other articles of interest.

They are listed below with the most recent articles first, and to the side, by category.

We hope you enjoy them and would appreciate your comments. And whenever you have any favorite articles for us to add, please let us know so that we might include them for other readers to enjoy.

There is so much to read, so much to know, so many sources to follow. And the volume of news and information just keeps growing exponentially. How to keep up? Even more, how to rediscover the serendipity of learning something new and interesting for its own sake?

Here, for your enjoyment and interest, are the articles Temin and Company considers “must reads.” They are primarily on the topics of reputation and crisis management, the media, leadership and strategy, perception and psychology, self-presentation, science, girls and women, organizational behavior and other articles of interest.

They are listed below with the most recent articles first, and to the side, by category.

We hope you enjoy them and would appreciate your comments. And whenever you have any favorite articles for us to add, please let us know so that we might include them for other readers to enjoy.

Facebook’s Zuckerberg is working on a way to connect you to people you ‘should’ know

Johana Bhuiyan, recode, May 21, 2017

Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO who is totally not a future presidential candidate, shared some of what he learned from his early trips around the country. (ICYMI: The not-White House hopeful wanted to visit every state he hadn’t spent a lot of time in this year.) The actual crux of the post comes later when Zuckerberg writes why he’s taking on this new challenge. Basically: He’s not running for office, he wants to find ways to strengthen Facebook’s “community.” […read more]

Does Gender Diversity on Boards Really Boost Company Performance?

Knowledge@Wharton, May 18, 2017

Many commentators suggest that gender diversity in the corporate boardroom improves company performance because of the different points of view and experience it offers. However, rigorous, peer-reviewed academic research paints a different picture. Despite the intuitive appeal of the argument that gender diversity on the board improves company performance, research suggests otherwise. […read more]

The Morning Risk Report: Greater Compliance Spending Brings Need for Better Focus

Ben DiPietro, The Wall Street Journal’s Risk & Compliance Journal, April 17, 2017

Companies continue to spend more money and resources on compliance, but a report concluded that firms aren’t leveraging their investments to their fullest extent possible. A survey of 150 compliance executives in the banking, capital markets and insurance industries by professional services firm Accenture found 48% said they expect spending on compliance over the next two years to rise between 10% and 20%, with 18% predicting spending will rise 20% or more. Making better use of existing tools and technologies would improve the ability of organizations to make the most of their compliance spending, said the survey report. […read more]

How Gender Bias Corrupts Performance Reviews, and What to Do About It

Paola Cecchi-Dimeglio, Harvard Business Review, April 12, 2017

Annual evaluations are often subjective, which opens the door to gender bias. These biases can lead to double standards —­­ a similar situation gets a positive or a negative spin depending on gender. A content analysis of individual annual performance reviews shows that women were 1.4 times more likely to receive critical subjective feedback (as opposed to either positive feedback or critical objective feedback). But when organizations implemented gender-neutral, real-time feedback tools, such biases were reduced. […read more]

How United Became The World’s Most Hated Airline In One Day

Leadership, “Reputation Matters,” Forbes, January 18, 2017

It’s no longer crisis as usual for United Airlines, or anyone else. Live social media posting has changed what you can get away with in a crisis — forever.

It used to be that if an airline made as monumental a mistake as United Airlines just did by causing a paying customer who had done nothing wrong to be dragged off a plane screaming, bloodying him up along the way in front of all his fellow passengers, they might still have gotten away with it.

After all, on a plane, passengers were basically incommunicado, so people couldn’t have protested easily, and they might not have been believed, especially if the airline denied it or called it an “overreaction.” The populace tends to believe its leaders in these situations, if compelling evidence to the contrary doesn’t exist. It rather makes one wonder about how many times such a debacle has happened before, and just not been caught on video.

But today all that changed. Live footage of the assault of an innocent passenger by security personnel was captured and immediately posted on social media around the world, instantly making United one of the most hated companies in the world. […read more]

Navigating the United PR crisis

Amara Walker, CNNi, April 11, 2017

Amara Walker talks with public relations expert Davia Temin about United Airline’s handling of their latest crisis that sparked worldwide outrage, in which a passenger was dragged off the airline when he wouldn’t give up his seat on an overbooked flight, and how they can recover from the blow to their reputation.

To watch the interview on CNN, CLICK HERE.

PR Nightmares: United Fiasco Among Worst Corporate Gaffes

Christopher Palmeri and Jeff Green, Bloomberg, April 11, 2017

When it comes to bad public relations, it’s pretty tough to top the sight of a United Airlines passenger being dragged, bloodied and screaming, from a flight.

The incident, including two attempts at apology by Chief Executive Officer Oscar Munoz, has been airing on cable TV and raging on social media for days. But the fiasco is hardly the first self-inflicted corporate blunder. Munoz can take comfort that it’s happened to others, and in many cases the bosses didn’t lose their jobs, as our PR Tales From Hell illustrate.

Over Easter week in 2009, two Domino’s Pizza employees in North Carolina posted a video on YouTube showing one sticking cheese up his nose and pretending to sneeze on a customer’s sandwich. With the clip reaching one million views, management fired the employees, sanitized the store and produced its own video with a formal apology from President Patrick Doyle.

The company’s response was to show outrage and take action, said Davia Temin, head of the New York-based crisis-management firm Temin & Co. CEO David Brandon kept his job and now runs Toys “R” Us Inc. Doyle succeeded him. […read more]