Reputation Diagnostic

Is your organization’s earned reputation supported by the way it makes decisions, absorbs costs, and carries responsibility?

This short diagnostic helps leaders identify where strategic tradeoffs may be creating hidden costs — and where those costs could return as operational, financial, regulatory, or reputational risk.

The diagnostic is an initial self-assessment. It does not replace a deeper analysis of company data, stakeholder signals, governance practices, financial exposure, culture, or strategic decisions.

Time required: 2-3 minutes
Format: 6 questions with 1–5 rating scale
Output: Initial reputation-risk profile

Where Does Your Organization Stand?

0-6

Reputation at Risk

Trust is at risk because it is not adequately supported by organizational practices.

7-12

Vulnerable Reputation

Trust is vulnerable to hidden costs that may be accumulating beneath the positive perception.

13-18

Conditional Reputation

Trust is supported across most domains, though some strategic tradeoffs and costs warrant closer attention.

19-24

Deserved Reputation

Trust is reinforced through responsible decision-making, accountability, and cost internalization.

Strategic analysis of corporate decisions, tradeoffs, and consequences.
Strategic direction for evaluating corporate decisions and their consequences.

What the Diagnostic Examines

Cost Awareness

Do leaders understand the costs created by their choices around growth, speed, efficiency, safety, margins, or performance?

Willingness to Act

Cost Absorption

Are there clear mechanisms to absorb costs through investment, staffing, controls, safeguards, transparency, or remediation?

Cost Shifting

Can the organization distinguish between costs it absorbs responsibly and costs it may be shifting onto others?

Is leadership willing to slow growth, adjust incentives, increase investment, or change direction when actions shift costs onto stakeholders?

Assessment of strategic costs, tradeoffs, and organizational exposure.
How deferred costs accumulate and return to the organization over time.

Cost Return

Has the organization identified how hidden costs could return as talent loss, customer churn, regulatory penalties, litigation exposure, or reputational crisis?

Movement of costs between the organization and its stakeholders.
Stakeholders affected by product decisions and corporate tradeoffs.

Leadership Alignment

Does leadership share a view of which reputation risks are most likely to materialize over the next 12–24 months?

Want to Understand What Drives Your Score?

A deeper diagnostic can help identify the tradeoffs, cost paths, and accountability gaps behind your result.