Michael D. Moberly   January 18, 2016   ‘A business blog where attention span really matters’.

Numerous RR (reputation risk) presentations that I have observed are quite conventional in their design and essentially become nuanced (confirmatory) explanations – highlights of what an audience is likely to already know and/or have experienced and routinely focus on reputation risks emanating from online platforms.

To be sure, this post departs from and expands those conventions by focusing exclusively on (orthopedic) surgeons’ reputation risk through an IA (intangible asset) lens, e.g.,

• addressing reputation value as driven by interwoven and collaborative sets of IA’s, i.e., primarily intellectual, relationship, and structural capital.
• recognizing and examining reputation and any attendant influencing triggers and vulnerabilities to achieve effective levels of resilience, durability, and enduring reputation risk mitigation strategies.

This post respectfully invites orthopedic surgeons, practice managers, and team members to examine, in a preventative and mitigation context, surgeon ‘reputation’ as an IA while recognizing…

…substantial percentages, perhaps 80+%, of most practice’s value, their sources of  revenue,  sustainability, and competitiveness evolve directly from interwoven and collaborative clusters of IA’s, the most valuable, but also most fragile-vulnerable being, reputation!

As an IA strategist and risk specialist, I distinguish orthopedic surgeon’s reputation as a critically essential and competitive asset which can develop sustainable value through respectful oversight, stewardship, and leverage. In my experience, most any initiative to sustain the value of orthopedic surgeon’s reputation, i.e., by mitigating its endemic – persistent risks, is substantially more likely to be achieved if done so having acquired an appreciation for reputation’s operable – triggering (intangible) features and elements, e.g., by…

• recognizing the asymmetric rationales – circumstances in which reputation risks are likely to materialize.
• recognizing and mitigating the initial-principle risk triggering emotions, circumstances, and demeanors which can rapidly materialize to undermine surgeon reputation and depreciate its competitive-attractive value.
• introducing practical, efficient, and respectful pre and post op engagements with patients and their significant others.
• demonstrating how reputation and goodwill can accrue and become ‘banked’ to strengthen practice/reputation value and mitigate the impact of (reputation) risks should they materialize.

It would indeed be an overstatement, in my judgment, to suggest every surgeon’s professional reputation is consistently at risk, thus, this is not merely a gratuitous or self-serving exploitation of reputation risk. Let’s be clear, I am not associated with nor do I represent another service provider that offers generic, one-size-fits-all strategies for mitigating or addressing reputation risk.

Nor do I speciously cast dispersions on orthopedic surgeon practices or resort to the conventional ‘FUDI’ approach to seek attention, i.e. fear, uncertainty, doubt, or inevitability as rationale to extort adoption.

Instead, this will describe orthopedic surgeon’s reputation and that of their practice as being interwoven with and reinforced by honed sets of personal capital, i.e., intellectual, structural, relationship, training, creative skill and technique, and affiliation.

The IA aspects/components to a surgeon’s reputation are seldom, if ever, addressed in conventional medical school or residency curricula, so reputation risk relevance, speed of materialization and probable adverse affects are frequently underestimated or passively dismissed.

The practice of orthopedic surgery is indeed, an IA intensive and dependant profession (business)!

Mr. Moberly is an intangible asset strategist and risk specialist and author of ‘Safeguarding Intangible Assets’ published by Elsevier in 2014, [email protected] View Mr. Moberly’s videos on YouTube at ‘safeguarding intangible assets’ or his CNN and CNBC videos at his webpage https://kpstrat.com