It was my turn to blog in the wrap up class of Reputation Management, our quarter long, collective experimental journey at the GSB.  Although there was one more class to go, this was the class where we were to sum up our collective journey down Reputation Way. I happily began to type my blog entry (as I had mapped it out in advance), hoping to simply fill in the blanks during class and hit the submit button on WordPress as I walked out the door.

More than halfway through my 600 words, however, Allison Kluger, the co-instructor and founding architect of the course, took the class stage. With her bright smile and warm enthusiasm, she began to share a story about her early career with Good Morning America (GMA).  She began with two mantra’s she learned from her mother as a child that have been life lessons for her:

1)   Treat people the way I want to be treated.

2)   It’s not what happens its how you deal with it.

After getting to know Allison over the past few months, the mantra were not surprising to me. We witnessed through the course the deep and enduring relationships she has cultivated with amazing people throughout her life, and her incurable positive attitude, presence, and genuine kindness toward others.  We had heard her war stories working in the media, and her battles overcoming stereotypes and not being taken seriously at many points throughout her career. Through it all, she treated everyone with respect and generosity, ensuring that her reputation prevailed. With each challenge her gracious response enabled her to take a next major career step forward. She seemed to always approach her challenges with a ‘chin up’ attitude, seeing the bright side of each difficult situation she encountered.

With her cheerful disposition and pleasant tone I was completely unprepared for the story she then told.

She had been in a horrendous car accident as a young GMA producer, while sent on location to Dubuque, Iowa. As she described the severity of her injuries, including a partially severed leg, a crushed right arm and the first aid she conducted on herself before forcing her very damaged leg to walk out of a corn field to a pitch dark rural road, while nearly bleeding out – I could no longer type.

The dissonance between how I had grown to know her over the past few months and the gore and tragedy of this story caused me to sit up in my chair.  Narrowly avoiding amputation of her leg, Allison could’ve chosen to let that situation embitter her. She could’ve chosen to hold a two-year pity party, instead of zealously pursue physical therapy.  She could’ve sued GMA and never returned to the company, blaming them for what had happened.

Or worse.

Instead, she chose grace and kindness, dealt with the situation as her mom taught her – both at the time of the accident, and for the years of healing that followed. After thinking about it, actually, there was no dissonance at all, except that she did that at 23.

Incredible.

She defined the tragedy. The tragedy did not define her.  Like tempered steel of a prized Samurai sword, the accident tested her physical, emotional and psychological limits.  She was forced to bend, over and over again, beyond what seemed possible.  But she never broke.

I will carry her story with me, along with many lessons from this class:

“Don’t let tragedy define you”

“Go with your gut, follow your passion”

“Own up”

“Failure can be a badge of honor”

“It’s easier to create than repair a great reputation”

“Be a conscious content creator”

“Do the work, be true to your beliefs”

To Be Or Not To Be, That is Reputation

Our journey together in Reputation Management has now come to a close.  We have learned, that like Hamlet’s dive into what it means to “be” (e.g. human being), it is in the tension between living and dying where the deep questions of life are posed.  As we build careers in the digital age and seek to have impact in the world, reputation will similarly impact and define how we live and die in our careers.  And how we plan for, predict and rise to challenges will shape how others see us.

Daniel Diermeier summed it up well in his book, Reputation Rules, our ‘textbook’ for the course, “Reputation management is not the domain of specialists or experts.”

It is up to each of us as leaders in our respective fields and occupations to serve as reputation stewards – not only for ourselves, but for our organizations and those within them.  Reputation needs to be a core part of how we design and build companies and teams and how we define organizational culture, wherever we go.

Thank you JD an Allison for a wonderful journey.