OK, maybe this is a stretch, but I saw some weird parallels on my Italian vacation these past coupla weeks. One at home (California), another in Rome. Yes, that rhymes. A couple of institutions with which I've become familiar over the years, both prestige outfits, are doing some serious damage to their respective "brands" through sheer obliviousness -- and reliance on their gaudy reputations. I can't think of two more disparate entities than (1) the University of California system and (2) the Hotel DeRussie in Rome, Italy, but check it out: UC's been getting royally whacked for months after disclosure of unauthorized executive compensation, during this era of budget strangulation, and the chi-chi hotel in Roma just ain't what it used to be. If you want the dish on the paychecks for UC brass, check out the SF Chron's piece: UC regents approve $1 million in improper pay for 60 top execs.
Here's Assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, who has legislation barring the regents from meeting behind closed doors when considering the compensation of high-ranking executives: " 'Those regents have got to be living on another planet...the constant revelations of closed-door deals and back-door deals have shaken the foundation of the UC system and they simply don't get it...Usually when a government entity gets caught with their hand in a cookie jar, they try to correct the problem...All they do is try to codify and sanctify what they are already doing.' "
Ouch! Meanwhile, in Italy, the Rocco Forte luxury hotel group that owns the DeRussie seems to be standing by, watching the slow trainwreck that has more people than me wondering why good staff are leaving the hotel in alarming numbers, being replaced by self-impressed pavoni (Italian for peacocks) who can't understand why guests should be upset when porters enter your locked room "by mistake", hard-to-get restaurant reservations go uncomfirmed and unheld, and the walls between many rooms are so thin you can hear the guy next door knot his tie. Thing is, my wife and I thought we were the only ones complaining -- until some people we met a few days later, experienced travellers, said the very same things about the same issues. Yes, maybe a stretch, but it goes to illustrate something fundamental about reputations (read: your brand). What takes years to establish can melt away overnight. In the hotel and restaurant business, or higher education. Yes, it can.
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