Our Seminars

Building strategic advantage through leadership development

The Institute promotes a range of professional development programmes. Clients of the Institute can choose from one or two day events, bespoke seminars, workshops or coaching and mentoring services specific to the development of Strategic Leadership.

First Class Networking Opportunities

The Institutes founders believe that a key ingredient to the critical evaluation of leadership theory and practice is the ability to discuss these issues with experienced decision makers from different organisational backgrounds. Participants in the Institutes leadership development programmes will have the opportunity to engage with an eclectic mix of organisational leaders offering fertile ground for the sharing of ideas and the development of successful and sustainable strategic decision making.

REPUTATION RISK

30th September 2010 - De Vere Devonport House Hotel, Greenwich

The Meridian Institute for Strategic Leadership inaugural lecture

Causal Factors found in BP and Toyota Reputation Catastrophes

Press Release
Greenwich, October 8 2010.

The Meridian Institute for Strategic Leadership was launched on 30 September 2010, the last day in office for the beleaguered BP chief executive Tony Hayward. Ironically, the inaugural lecture on strategic leadership focused on reputation damage at BP over the summer of 2010 and the train of events which severely eroded investor confidence and wiped $67 billion off the value of shares.

Professor Garry Honey, author of ‘A Guide to Reputation Risk’, presented the audience with two case studies of reputation damage: Toyota and BP.

‘We have studied the causal factors in these two reputation catastrophes and reached some important conclusions.’

1. Information overload – Too much information flowing up and down a large multinational corporation leads to an inability to distinguish important from urgent.
2. Local responsibility – Reliance on local partners or contractors for growth creates an opportunity for misaligned values. Business targets and risk tolerance in conflict.
3. Self-belief – Multinational corporations mistakenly believe they have an immunity to political risk and national markets. Hubris inevitably leads to nemesis.

‘Too many organisations believe that reputation can be handled by PR or crisis management, but this is a curative approach to problems. Reputation protection requires a preventative mindset and a better understanding of behaviour and corporate culture,’ says Professor Honey. ‘Your reputation is about what you do not what you say.’

Too many business leaders leave the reputation of their organisation unprotected and this is a failure of leadership and an enormous risk to value. ‘A key pillar of strategic leadership is an understanding the art of reputation protection’ says professor John Potter Director of MISL.