Is Managing National Pride The New Patriotism?

Ignoring the very weird background graphic, what are we to make of the results of a survey taken by the Reputation Institute and reported in The Economist on National Self-Image?

The Reputation Institute who performed the survey, specializes in Corporate Reputation Management, and according to their website:

Reputations are perceptions people have of an individual or organization, be it a company, a city, or a country. These perceptions form as a result of the personal experiences that people have, the messaging they see and hear, and the third party conversations they are exposed to.

Reputation strategy is competitive strategy. Reputation initiatives drive stakeholder perceptions, which drive the likelihood of eliciting supportive behaviors, and fuel business results. Leveraging reputation allows clients to build advantage in the marketplace and reduce risk exposure.

I’m not entirely comfortable with the phrase “Reputation Management”. If you take the statements above at face value, it looks (to me) like we are into some serious Consultancy Voodoo.

But let’s just say we don’t know enough to make a judgement, and talk about the Survey.

In Dan Ariely’s book “Predictably Irrational”, he performed a number of experiments showing that if you “own” something you generally place a much higher value on it than most other people. One obvious example is real estate; another is season tickets to a famous sport franchise.

• Should we assume the same bias when people are asked about their own country? Would we get better, more objective answers, when we ask about other countries?

So let’s pair off, and get some real Reputation Rankings by asking each of these about the other:

• Israel and Iran
• India and Pakistan
• Turkey and Kurdistan
• Republicans and Democrats

There are some things you can Manage, and some things that take longer.

But no matter what, you gotta love the Aussies, happy with themselves in 1st Place and here’s a video link to demo the Aussie Spirit!