Achievements

Reputation Management

What does it mean and why do we need it?

The most valuable asset that any individual or organisation possesses is its reputation. This is as true today as it was over 500 years ago when King Richard III was alive. Without a good reputation, credibility doesn’t exist and in turn this affects the ability to perform. As duke of Gloucester, Richard’s reputation was high but after his accession to the throne, rumours on the continent circulated by disaffected Englishmen and European politicians about an unlawful ‘usurpation’ began to tarnish his image and the scene was set for the Tudor annihilation of his reputation. The Society aims to redress that bias and in turn it has to be mindful of its own reputation. 

Today, the ‘smart’ corporations place a high regard on reputation management and they employ senior managers or directors to manage their activities which are in the public eye, and in so doing they have a positive effect on their reputations. These activities include press and public relations, advertising and promotion, sales and marketing, collateral, logos, branding and its management. At this point you could be forgiven for wondering do these current management techniques really have anything to do with a historical society and indeed Richard III.  The answer is a lot more than you might imagine.  In fact many comparisons can be, and are, drawn, between history and modern business management practices, particularly between medieval kingship and modern boardrooms. Richard Olivier, the son of the late Sir Laurence Olivier, whose compelling image of the Shakespearian Richard III formed one aspect of the 20th century’s view of the last Plantagenet king, teaches business executives about the qualities of leadership. Drawing on Shakespeare’s Henry V he demonstrates how the young king/modern businessman has to inspire followers/employees to accept a challenge, manage dissension (the Southampton plot), overcome difficulties (stalemate in the French campaign) and finally to achieve victory/deliver the project on time and within budget. The broadcaster and historian David Starkey, well-known to Ricardians, also lectures on the management speaking circuit, drawing comparisons between the medieval and modern worlds.

Another modern management ‘tool’ is the mission statement. Many organisations have expended a great deal of time, money and energy in trying to encapsulate their raison d’être. For the Society it is very simple:

In the belief that many features of the traditional accounts of the character and career of Richard III are neither supported by sufficient evidence nor reasonably tenable, the Society aims to promote in every possible way research into the life and times of Richard III, and to secure a reassessment of the material relating to this period, and of the role in English history of this monarch.

Just like any modern organisation we have a need to guard our reputation and that of our brand, which in the Society’s case is Richard III. In pursuing this goal, our approach differs from that of other organisations in one major way. They are able to register their name and brands and therefore have the very real advantage of legal recourse in taking issue with actions, including libel and slander, against their reputations. The Society on the other hand does not have this advantage and so has to take issue by way of reasoned argument.

In the process of trying to manage the reputation of Richard III, the Society has to be careful that it is not seen as some sort of dedicated ‘fan club’ who will not have anything said against its ‘hero’. The Society encourages the view that it is not possible to use current social values to judge medieval monarchs and their actions and it seeks to find the truth.

One of the major problems facing those who wish to bring about a reassessment of King Richard is what could be termed as the ‘Shakespeare syndrome’. William Shakespeare has been credited with writing some of the greatest verse in the English language and he wrote his play on King Richard during the golden age of the Elizabethan era when it was commonplace to accept the Tudor representation of Richard III. With the proliferation of histories and chronicles written by Sir Thomas More, Edward Hall, Richard Grafton and Raphael Holinshed, it is unthinkable that the playwright should have chosen to approach his subject in any other way – indeed it was the ultimate flowering of the Tudor tradition and the combination of myth and poetic genius that led to the enduring popularity of the play. It is alleged that the duke of Marlborough took his history from Shakespeare and sadly it is the image of Shakespeare’s dramatic Richard that many take to be the historical Richard.

The Society’s quest to manage Richard’s reputation and to counter the ignorance of the historic Richard and belief in the dramatic Richard is an ongoing challenge. As a Society we need to manage our own reputation in order to be in a position to try to attain a reassessment of Richard’s reputation.  To do this we need to respond to situations, articles, statements, and media productions with a measured response that befits an established and learned historical Society. 

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