Seek External Guidance

It is not easy to allow outsiders into your corporate world and ask them to critically assess how well you are doing business. But that is exactly what you as a good leader must do to get the best results for your organization and its customers, shareholders and employees.

External validation goes a long way toward establishing a great corporate reputation, if it is conducted with transparency, integrity, and purposefulness. For example, compliance audits, corporate social responsibility assessments, diversity assessments and audits, in addition to the mandatory Sarbanes-Oxley reviews, are a few ways you can obtain the considered opinions of others.

When you engage outside consultants, do your best to go beyond the big three consulting firms. You just might find that smaller, niche, firms will do just as good a job and be easier to work with. More law firms are providing these types of assessments or “audits”.

After it’s all done, report to the public on your status, especially if the assessment is mostly positive. Convene a press conference and tell your shareholders, just how good you are, and allow surrogates from your outside advisory groups to give their assessments too.

(c) Adonis E. Hoffman, 2008.