Your PR Architect

After having written about Chipotle restaurants' PR crises several times in the past year, I pledged I wouldn'tgo back to that trough again.  Yet, there's more negative news today about the beleaguered eatery. So, I'll just let the New York Daily News do the talking. This calls for more than a simple re-branding. How do you say "Leadership Change" in Spanish?

I didn't know you could buy surplus animatronic figures from Disney parks. Let alone install one from the Hall of Presidents as a company CEO. Animatronic at Disney Hall of Progress By SteamFan (own work (Nikon D80)) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) via Wikimedia Commons You'll read countless New Year's resolutions in the coming week. Some will be preposterous or hard to keep. But if you're a CEO or executive director of an organization, and you don't wish to be mistaken for an animatronic historical figure, there's an easy resolution to keep -- one that will help your internal communications far more than any newsletter or video message. It's simple: Be authentic. Be human.  Not every CEO is a "people person." The leader I'm describing -- call him Gerry -- was a good strategist and a charismatic sales leader. But he was never at ease talking...

Hats off to Google for opening their wallet where it's needed: in diversifying its workforce. Geneva Hats. Photo (c) DKassnoff, 2014. Google is paying to help women and minorities learn to write computer code, according to Business Insider.  A month ago, the company admitted it didn't have enough women or people of color in those IT jobs, and cited a lack of women and minorities studying IT to assume those jobs. This, tied with its $50 million " Made with Code " initiative, are fine steps toward ensuring a more diverse workforce. But, as I wrote here a month ago, Google's diversity effort is only 2/3 complete. Transforming the Internet colossus into a more-diverse business will really succeed if it also diversifies its leadership ranks. That's where the biggest gaps existed, according to Google's own numbers. Women and multicultural executives are essential to creating a business culture that's consistently mindful of the need for continued...

By Oregon Department of Transportation (Diversity Uploaded by AlbertHerring) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Wow. Say what you will about Google's massive  Internet presence,  but when they mess up, they're not shy about it. A few days ago, Google admitted its workforce was overwhelmingly white. And male. They shared some metrics here . This is unusually forthright, because there's no major litigation facing Google regarding workforce inequities. Instead, they got out in front of their problem, defusing potential negative publicity before criticism or litigation arose. But dig deeper and you find their statistics are somewhat worse when it comes to the diversity of the company's leadership. Google's overall workforce is: 30 percent female, 70 percent male.  61 percent white,  30 percent Asian,  2 percent African American, and  3 percent Hispanic. Google's leadership demographics are less fo...

Even in the off-season, the NFL's Buffalo Bills -- perennial pro football also-rans -- can't manage their operations. Buffalo Jills, Rich Stadium (c) David Kassnoff, 2012 Last week, five cheerleaders for the Buffalo Jills sued the Buffalo Bills organization, claiming they were under-compensated for their work on and off the field. And, they may have been sexually harassed in connection with their jobs. Their management company promptly cancelled the sideline entertainers'  2014-15 schedule. (Update: read this: http://nypost.com/2014/04/27/my-life-as-a-buffalo-jill/ ) I'm not a sports columnist. But this isn't about athletic success. This is about the damage to an organization's brand and reputation. The Bills are in trouble -- maybe more than any PR pro could fix. Besides the Jills fiasco, the Bills recently agreed to pay $5 million for sending too many promo messages to fans. Their head coach had a private cancer scare -- disclosed on the team's ...