Play Ball

People are in a panic about AIG. In the last 24 hours I have been swamped with emails from anxious readers around America who want to know: Is my mom’s retirement annuity safe? Is grandma’s long-term care insurance policy safe? Is my car or homeowner’s policy OK?

Here’s what you need to know.

There are three separate barriers between your policy and the AIG crisis that you’re hearing about on TV.

1. The AIG that’s in crisis and the one that wrote your insurance policy are to a large degree separate companies. The AIG on Wall Street is an umbrella company that owns the stock in a lot of smaller insurance subsidiaries. But your policy is held with the subsidiary in your state. They are tightly regulated, they are required to hold conservative assets to back up your policy, and those assets are walled off from the troubles at the parent company. It is perfectly possible for AIG to file for chapter 11 and your policy to be OK.

2. Even if your local AIG subsidiary got into financial difficulties, there’s a second level of protection for policyholders. Your state insurance commissioner would step in and take over the company and run it in the interests of policyholders. Under the law, policyholders should get back 100 cents on the dollar before the company’s other creditors can get a penny.

3. And even if those first two steps didn’t cover you completely, there’s a third protection: your local state guaranty funds. These are pools of money put together by insurance companies to provide a backstop. As a general rule of thumb, you’re covered to at least $100,000 on most policies and $300,000 on life insurance death benefits. The levels may be even higher in your state.

No system is perfect. It is understandable that people are nervous. Anything shaking their insurance provider is going to rattle their confidence. But at least insurance customers have some protections to help them.

There may be one more protection as well. AIG is simply too big to be allowed to fail. If the worst came to the worst, the federal government could let the stock and bondholders lose their money. But it would be a monumental blunder of the first order to let the policyholders lose. These are people on Main Street, not Wall Street. There are hundreds of thousands of them, perhaps millions. Oh yes — and they vote.

Write to Brett Arends at brett.arends@wsj.com

Associated Press

Bill Rodgers crosses the finish line in the 1979 Boston Marathon.

Boxborough, Ma.

I wanted to go see Bill Rodgers, because when I was a kid growing up in Massachusetts, Bill Rodgers was what I thought of when I thought of the Boston Marathon, not that acrid wickedness still under lockdown on Boylston Street. The hours since the bombings had been traumatic for the city, and in the aftermath there had been unimaginable grief. A joyous day, so meaningful to New England, had been devastated by cowardice. That’s why I wanted to see Bill Rodgers, the floppy-haired flier from Connecticut, who’d lifted this race like nobody else before him, winning it four times between 1975 and 1980—once, eccentrically, in a Snoopy stocking cap. Along the way, he helped transform distance running and became an improbable local sports legend, “Boston Billy” alongside Orr and Bird and Ted. Like anyone who ran and loved the Boston Marathon, I was sick about what had happened, and so I came to see Rodgers, and I had a big ask.

I wanted to go for a run.

He met me Wednesday morning, at his house 30 or so miles outside the city, up a twisty hill from a long stretch of pasture. Rodgers is 65 now, but the hair is still blond and robust, and his frame remained feathery, athletic. Rodgers said he weighed 140 pounds, a sliver more than in his racing prime, when he hovered at 128. He wore a long-sleeved black shirt, and black sweatpants, and on his feet were a pair of shiny pair of green and blue running shoes. Rodgers said he’d picked out a running route in the neighborhood—a brief spell on pavement, and then a country trail with grass and soft earth. He smiled. “The older you get,” he said, “the more you run the trails.”

Rodgers had missed Boston this year. He’d been all around the race in the days leading up to it, as he almost always did, making appearances and so on, but this year he decided to watch this one from home. He’d found out about the bombings from a friend. He didn’t believe it. “I was like, ‘What?’” he said. He called his daughter, whom he knew was in the city. He called his brother. Both were safe.

In the living room, Rodgers’s television continued to update the agonizing reports of deaths and mayhem at the finish line. That finish line had changed Rodgers’s life when he crossed it first in 1975. Now it was a crime scene, marked with blood.

“It’s a sad thing, in so many ways,” Rodgers said softly.

Tragedy was the opposite of what a marathon was supposed to be. Rodgers had come of age as a racer during that exuberant ’70s running boom, and though he was a great competitor—he also won the New York Marathon four times—he loved the inclusiveness of a marathon, how anyone could line up with the trained professionals (Rodgers doesn’t like the term “elite,” considering it too standoffish). A marathon packed together so many skill levels and life stories. “We’re on the same road,” Rodgers said. “We sweat the same. We struggle the same.”

That scope was something that the attacker or attackers of Boston did not comprehend, Rodgers said. This marathon was global and universal, bigger than one city. “It’s such a human sport,” he said. “I don’t think these bombers get that—that when they attack the Boston Marathon, they don’t just attack America. They attack all the countries with runners in the marathon.”

We set off from the house, nice and easy. Rodgers said he still ran six times a week, about 40 miles. His strides were light and effortless; he talked easily. He spoke about his longtime friendships with fellow runners; his famed running centers, the last of which closed in October; his new book, “Marathon Man.” He mentioned the three-time winner Cosmas Ndeti of Kenya, who had given his son the middle name Boston. He stopped to say hello to a pair of unleashed dogs. (Rodgers usually stops for crazy dogs. He said he’s only been bitten once.)

The road wound down to a barn and an open field, and then out of the sun and into the woods, where we ran over tree roots and pine needles. “I think next year I should run Boston,” Rodgers said suddenly. He’d been considering running in 2015, the 40th anniversary of his first win. But this felt right. “I think I am going to do it, no matter what. I want to do my part. Make a statement.”

It had been a painful week, in the sport and beyond. Everyone felt it, including Boston Billy. But he was hopeful. “The beauty of the sport is always there,” he said. “You can’t take that away. You can’t.”

Back at Rodgers’s house, where his New York Marathon championship plates were stacked neatly in a Tiffany & Co. box in the kitchen, Rodgers went into another room to search for a photo in the newspaper of Martin Richard, the 8-year-old boy who had been killed after coming to watch his father finish the Boston Marathon. In the photo, little Martin was holding a poster he’d made last year in school.

No more hurting people, the poster read. Peace.

“What he’s saying is really the story,” Bill Rodgers said. “That’s everything. Nothing else needs to be said.”

Write to Jason Gay at jason.gay@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications

Bill Rodgers met with the writer Wednesday morning. An earlier version of this article said Thursday.

A version of this article appeared April 18, 2013, on page D6 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: ‘Boston Billy’ Won’t Stop Running.

By ELLEN BYRON

The quest for a good night’s sleep is universal, but the mattress that delivers the slumber varies widely by region. Kingsdown Inc., a 108-year-old U.S. mattress maker with global reach, produces mattresses under its Sleeping Beauty, My Side and Blu-Tek brands as well as its namesake label. The privately held company says it is among the top 10 sellers of mattresses in the U.S. Frank Hood, chief executive of Kingsdown, describes mattress preferences around the world.

U.S.

Regional Variety

Nationwide, demand for giant, thick mattresses is gradually waning. “There’s a perceived value that bigger is better, but that doesn’t always mean you sleep better,” says Mr. Hood.

Easterners prefer the firmest mattresses, while Westerners like a soft bed and gel technologies that enable cooling. In the Midwest, 60% of sales are of traditional, innerspring mattresses, while almost 70% of bed sales in the South are made of specialty foam.

United Kingdom

Tufted Surfaces

Residents here tend to buy white- and cream-colored ticking, tufted surfaces and firm mattresses. “It’s a very conservative market,” says Mr. Hood. So far, consumers are slow to adopt foam beds that are gaining popularity elsewhere.

Japan

Very Firm

Mattresses made for this region can be “extremely firm,” Mr. Hood says, crediting Japan’s cultural tradition of bed rolls.

Airflow technology like Kingsdown’s “Blu-Tek” mattress helps keep it cool. With limited housing space, the most common bed size for couples is approximately the size of a Full or Queen. “We’re not sending California Kings there in droves,” he says.

Southeast Asia

Custom Firmness

Many consumers in Southeast Asia, including Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, are buying a Western bed for the first time. So far preferences lean toward mattresses with customized firmness on each side. “We’re seeing consumers here wanting personalized products,” Mr. Hood says.

Middle East

Opulent Styling

“Many mattresses here are luxurious, and impart hand-crafted detail,” says Mr. Hood. Plush beds with opulent styling, like pillow tops and tufted surfaces, are most favored.

Write to Ellen Byron at ellen.byron@wsj.com

By DIANA MIDDLETON

• The Job: Translator/Interpreter

• The Nature of the Work: Translators and interpreters work fluidly with languages, but their responsibilities differ. Translators work with printed copy. Interpreters specialize in the spoken word and serve as liaisons between two parties, such as a doctor and patient or defendant and attorney. They typically must consider ethical obligations; translators often have to massage copy to make sense of pop culture references. “Being bilingual isn’t enough,” says Judy Jenner, who co-founded Twin Translations with her sister. “We have to shape a message to an international audience.”

• The Pay: Many jobs are free-lance. Interpreters can earn between $15 and $30 per hour, according to Common Sense Advisory, a Boston-based research firm. Translations are paid per word. Ms. Jenner, for example, charges 24 to 27 cents per word, depending on the skill level. Savvy translators can earn six figures per year, says Milena Savova, academic director of the department of foreign languages, translating and interpreting at New York University. Full-time staff at language-services firms earn from $40,000 to $60,000, according to a recent survey from the Globalization and Localization Association, a language-services trade group.

• The Hours: Hours are often flexible. Ms. Jenner, who lives in Las Vegas, says she completes her assignments while lounging by the pool. Her twin sister and fellow translator/interpreter works from Austria. Elizabeth Chegezy, a translator and interpreter in Philadelphia, says free-lancers can work as much or as little as they like. However, she warns that the high-paced role technology plays in the business means some clients will demand unreasonable deadlines. At language-services firms, business hours are the norm.

• The Benefits: Free-lancers are responsible for their own health-care and retirement-savings plans. At language-services firms, traditional health-care packages are common, as are retirement-savings programs.

• Other Incentives: Translators and interpreters can cultivate a specialty in the field—thus leading to higher-paying jobs. Those with a background in chemistry, for example, will be shoe-ins for jobs translating complex documents about chemicals. Ms. Jenner parlayed her M.B.A. in marketing to nab a tourism-related translation job in Vienna.

• Best Part of the Job: For those with a passion for languages it’s a way to flex that muscle for personal satisfaction. Ms. Chegezy enjoys learning different strands of slang from Spanish-speaking countries, from Panama to Mexico. “Languages are an acquired skill for me, and there’s always something new to learn,” she says.

• Worst Part of the Job: Interpreting jobs in the health-care industry can make some squeamish. Ms. Chegezy has seen broken bones and patients vomiting while on the job. In addition, professionals must aggressively look for jobs. “It’s feast or famine,” says Ms. Jenner.

• Education/Qualifications: There are no official certifications required, although several are offered through trade organizations, such as the American Translators Association. A college degree is not required, but most have them. Spanish is the most in-demand language, but other languages are growing, such as Arabic.

• Hiring: Demand for translators and interpreters is expected to increase 24% through 2016, according to the Department of Labor. Joining an industry group such as the American Translators Association, which has its own job bank, can help translators find jobs in both translation and interpretation. The All Language Alliance also connects job seekers and positions.

Write to Diana Middleton at diana.middleton@wsj.com

By INTI LANDAURO And NADYA MASIDLOVER

Hours after the Cannes Film Festival premiered Sofia Coppola’s “The Bling Ring,” depicting a gang of Hollywood jewel thieves, a real-world heist lifted $1.4 million of jewelry from a hotel in Cannes. Inti Landauro has details. Photo: Associated Press.

PARIS—Hours after the Cannes Film Festival premiered Sofia Coppola’s “The Bling Ring,” depicting a gang of Hollywood jewel thieves, a real-world heist lifted $1.4 million of jewelry from a hotel in Cannes, French prosecutors said.

The jewels were stolen in the early hours of Friday from an employee of Swiss jeweler Chopard, an official sponsor of the Cannes festival and maker of its iconic Palme d’Or award, prosecutors said.

Chopard said the jewels weren’t part of the collection to be worn by actresses at the festival, and that the value of the stolen pieces was “far lower than those in the figures circulating in the media.” The company didn’t give an estimated value of the stolen goods.

The employee had left the jewelry in the safe of her hotel room at the four-star Novotel in Cannes, they said. Upon returning to her room at 2 a.m. on Friday, the employee saw that the safe had been taken off the wall and stolen, prosecutors said. Preliminary investigation suggests it was a burglary, said Jean-Michel Caillau, the prosecutor in the nearby town of Grasse, who is conducting the probe.

“The majority of the jewels belong to the company Chopard, but it seems some are owned by other private persons, we have no detailed inventory yet,” he said.

The Novotel hotel chain’s parent company Accor SA

declined to comment.

Local police were interviewing witnesses and watching video footage from security cameras, Mr. Caillau said. He declined to say whether police had identified any suspect.

Mr. Caillau said similar thefts have happened in Cannes in the past. “This is a risk that we are aware of,” he said.

The Palme d’Or wasn’t involved in the theft and is still set to be awarded on May 26 at the end of the festival to the winner of the Best Film prize, according to a spokeswoman for the festival organizers. Since 1998, when Chopard was enlisted to redesign the event’s trophy, the company has crafted the award in its workshops.

The Swiss luxury jewelry and watchmaker, founded in 1860, rose to fame in recent decades with a number of high-profile ventures including its partnership with Cannes Film Festival, where it uses the red carpet to display its works. Jewels are typically lent to the stars to be worn during award ceremonies and parties.

Related

The Cannes Film Festival (which begins May 15) is known for its sometimes tough audience. But many films that were booed at the festival go on to win awards and are considered classics now. (Photo: Columbia Pictures)

This year, stars including Spain’s Blanca Suárez—who played in Pedro Almodóvar’s film “The Skin Ilive In”—and Chinese actress Fan Bingbing have sported pieces made by Chopard at the festival.

In “The Bling Ring,” which is based on a real-life story, a group of juvenile thieves accumulated high-end branded goods from celebrities’ homes.

Friday’s apparent burglary in Cannes followed a string of high-profile luxury-goods thefts in the country. In March, Louis Vuitton—the main brand of the world’s largest luxury company LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton

—saw its store in the northern French town of Deauville attacked by masked gunmen in broad daylight. Last month, a truck carrying products made by Hermès, was the victim of a holdup orchestrated by robbers masquerading as police officers, according to press reports.

Write to Inti Landauro at inti.landauro@dowjones.com and Nadya Masidlover at nadya.masidlover@dowjones.com

A version of this article appeared May 18, 2013, on page A8 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Jewels Stolen At Cannes Film Festival.

Por MIN ZENG

Pacific Investment Management Co., el fondo de bonos más grande del mundo, redujo sus tenencias de deuda soberana española e italiana, en medio de un fuerte repunte en ambos mercados este mes.

La firma de gestión de dinero ha estado vendiendo deuda europea en las últimas dos semanas como parte de reducción generalizada en la exposición a activos de riesgo en los mercados de renta fija, dijo Andrew Balls, titular de gestión de cartera europea de Pimco, en una entrevista concedida el miércoles a The Wall Street Journal.

Balls declinó especificar el monto en dólares que Pimco ha vendido en bonos españoles e italianos. Pimco gestiona más de US$2 billones en activos globales.

El ejecutivo dijo que el repunte en los precios de la deuda italiana y española —que hace poco arrastró el rendimiento de la deuda a 10 años a su nivel más bajo desde 2010—, fue impulsada por la inyección de liquidez de los principales bancos centrales, que por el momento ha eclipsado los problemas fiscales y económicos de la eurozona.

“Este repunte, inspirado por los bancos centrales, ha encarecido los mercados”, dijo Balls. “Los rendimientos podrían caer aún más en España e Italia, pero hemos vendido porque todavía nos preocupan los fundamentos en la eurozona”.

Balls agregó que, tras su reciente venta, las posiciones de Pimco en deuda española e italiana, en algunas carteras, van ahora “desde ‘neutra’ a algo por ‘debajo de ponderación del mercado’”, mientras que la exposición a otras carteras sigue siendo “desde ‘neutra’ a algo ‘sobre ponderación del mercado’”.

Pimco tomará importantes decisiones sobre su cartera general en su reunión anual, programada para el mes entrante, indicó Balls.

Agregó que los rendimientos en España e Italia deben subir en forma significativa antes que evaluar nuevas compras. Pimco tampoco tiene bonos soberanos de Grecia, Portugal e Irlanda, pese a que también han registrado alzas.

El miércoles, el bono italiano a 10 años rendía 4,01%, mientras que su contraparte español a igual plazo rendía 4,3%.

By RAYMUND FLANDEZ

See Correction & Amplification below.

Franchise restaurants, hit by higher commodities prices and a cutback in consumer spending, are aggressively searching for ways to slash costs.

Many of these businesses can’t pass on the higher costs to customers without losing even more business. So, they’re trying to find alternative ways to save — including changing vendors and packaging, altering delivery schedules, cutting serving portions and even prolonging the life of fryer oil.

Restaurants feel they have no choice, as some chains are posting some of their worst monthly sales declines. Ruth’s Hospitality Group Inc.’s

same-store sales at its company-owned Ruth’s Chris Steak House locations fell 15% in October. Ruby Tuesday Inc.

experienced a 10.8% drop in same-store sales; California Pizza Kitchen Inc. had a decline of 7.3%; and Red Robin Gourmet Burger Inc.

posted an 8% drop.

“These restaurant operators are really operating under a perfect storm, dealing with record [high] commodity prices, higher labor costs with the minimum wage increasing and falling consumer demand,” says Robert Marzo, senior analyst of food service for F&D Reports, a retail consulting firm in Great Neck, N.Y. “Many of [them] can no longer offer the same quality ingredients that they have in years past, so they’re downgrading in any way that they can.”

They’re getting “creative with their recipes, using cheaper ingredients and offering smaller portions in an effort to stay afloat,” he adds.

Here’s a look at a few efforts by chains and their franchisees to save money and draw in customers:

Ruth’s Chris Steak House

Big Steaks Management LLC, a franchisee in Pikesville, Md., operates several Ruth’s Chris Steak Houses in Maryland, North Carolina and New Jersey, and has seen 5% to 10% declines in revenue for the past six months.

So the company recently looked to reduce freight costs for the first time by buying meat from one vendor — and getting just one delivery per week from that vendor — instead of using multiple vendors with various deliveries throughout the week.

In North Carolina alone, Big Steaks’ three Ruth’s Chris Steak House locations will save $22,000 a year on its weekly purchase of 3,500 pounds of meat, says David Sadeghi, chief operating officer of Big Steaks Management.

Meantime, the franchisee hopes to get more business by offering fixed-price holiday-party packages for the first time. “We need to have the holiday parties to keep our employees employed,” Mr. Sadeghi says. Customers “had an open check last year or the year before, [but now] they can’t afford to go up a couple thousand dollars. They need to keep in the budgeted numbers.” He says holiday bookings are up 10% so far from the same period last year.

Church’s Chicken

Church’s Chicken, owned by Cajun Operating Co., is looking to squeeze out savings from the ingredients and other products it uses. For instance, the Atlanta-based franchiser is testing the idea of filtering the shortening for frying in order to stretch a batch’s use to 14 days from the current 10 days. That would save the company $1 million next year. It also is shrinking the scoop size of its biscuits to 2 tablespoons from 3 tablespoons, for a saving of $1.8 million a year.

Another cost-cutting move: It has eliminated the chicken diaper, which is used to absorb some of the liquid in raw-chicken cases — for a savings of $800,000 a year. The company also plans to change its french-fry packaging from cardboard sleeve to paper, which will generate $700,000 in annual savings.

The franchiser says there have been minimal customer complaints about the changes.

IHOP and Applebee’s

DineEquity Inc.,

the Glendale, Calif., parent company of IHOP and Applebee’s restaurants, is consolidating the vendors the two restaurant chains use — and, in the process, is getting a discount by buying more from the vendors it does keep. DineEquity purchased Applebee’s a year ago and found that there was 75% overlap among IHOP’s and Applebee’s vendors.

The company says the new purchasing plan, which it hopes to have in place by January, would save the company millions of dollars each year. “That’s the biggest opportunity to assist [franchisees] in the cost of goods,” a DineEquity spokesman says.

Marco’s Pizza

At Marco’s Pizza, owned by Marco’s Franchising LLC of Toledo, Ohio, restaurants are looking to save money on their purchasing process.

They are ordering larger amounts less frequently, are working with vendors to lock in transportation costs and are choosing manufacturers that are closer to distribution centers to help reduce freight costs. Marco’s expects these and other changes to save the company a total of $2 million a year.

For example, scaling down to once-a-week deliveries will save a Marco’s franchisee with five stores more than $3,500 per year overall.

The company also is trimming packaging costs. It has eliminated its small pizza boxes at more than 170 stores in 14 states. Instead, it’s now using the box for CheezyBread for both products. That will result in a saving of $164,000 a year.

Tumbleweed Restaurants

Tumbleweed Restaurants Inc., a grill chain based in Louisville, Ky., is showcasing its lower-priced fare. The company has moved higher-priced food, such as red-meat grilled items, to the back of its four-panel menu, while putting lower-cost, more-profitable items, like tacos and burritos, front and center.

The result: Less-expensive items are being ordered more often. So food costs as a percentage of total operating costs have fallen to 33.2% from 34.2% since January at 44 full-service restaurants — a savings of $500,000.

Write to Raymund Flandez at raymund.flandez@wsj.com

Correction & Amplification

Same-store sales rose in the third quarter at the Church’s Chicken, IHOP and Marco’s Pizza chains. This article and headline about cost-cutting strategies at franchise restaurants suggested that the chains’ same-store sales were falling.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page B7

Welcome to the executive suite. But beware: Your smallest acts can cause big consequences.

Consider Linda Parker Hudson, promoted last fall to run the U.S. arm of BAE Systems

PLC, a global defense giant.

She told her top lieutenants that she expected “rapid responses” to email around the clock. To her surprise, several started sleeping beside their beeping BlackBerry so they could answer her 3 a.m. messages right away.

Ms. Hudson says she repeatedly reassured these colleagues that they could sleep at night and tried to lessen her nocturnal BlackBerry use. But “it was probably a few months before we all got used to each other,” she concedes.

BAE Systems

Linda Parker Hudson of BAE Systems

Ms. Hudson experienced “executive amplification,” a widespread phenomenon that can significantly affect your career. When you land a senior post, staffers constantly will scrutinize — and possibly misconstrue – your deeds, dress and words.

Yet power makes you “less aware that your behavior matters,” cautions Adam Galinsky, a professor of organizational behavior at Northwestern University’s business school. “That can be a career killer by demoralizing your troops.” Even lack of eye contact with them as you walk down the hall conveys your disapproval, risking alienation.

Amplification also can work to your advantage because effective, small moves often improve employee motivation. You must recognize that “leadership is a role, and you are always on,” says Gary Bradt, an executive coach in Summerfield, N.C. “Make sure you send the messages that you want to send.”

Ms. Hudson first saw the downside of the amplifier effect when she became the first female division president for General Dynamics Corp.

in 1999. During her first week, she wore a new scarf tied in a fancy bow. The next day, she ran into more than a dozen women there wearing scarves tied the same way.

Being watched so closely frightened Ms. Hudson. “I wasn’t accustomed to being the center of attention,” the 60-year-old executive recalls. “I felt like I was up on a billboard.”

She soon found herself closely scrutinized again. Touring a division factory months later, Ms. Hudson noticed flyers posted everywhere. They displayed her photo and list of leadership expectations from a recent management team speech.

Thanks to the unanticipated flyers, Ms. Hudson says she realized that amplification represents a potentially positive tool. “You can change employee behavior by subtle changes in your behavior,” she explains.

Anton Rabie, president and co-chief executive of Spin Master Ltd., a toy maker, uses a minor symbolic gesture to amplify his deep commitment to taking risks. He mounts failed Spin Master products and misguided mock-ups on a wall of his Toronto office.

“Each one has a lesson that we should remember,” observes Mr. Rabie, who launched the manufacturer with two classmates in 1994. Staffers viewing his flop-filled wall know “it’s okay to make mistakes,” he continues. “It’s like walking the talk.”

You may also reap benefits from executive amplification by seeking frequent feedback – and making needed corrections. Easier said than done, however.

“As you rise in the ranks, people stop telling you what they should tell you,” notes Richard A. Davis, a partner at RHR International, an executive-coaching firm, and author of the new book. “The Intangibles of Leadership.”

He advocates creating a personal board of directors to help identify your blind spots. “They have to know you and the people around you,” but work elsewhere than your employer, Dr. Davis recommends.

A performance review known as 360-degree feedback persuaded a newly promoted executive at a multinational apparel concern to alter her misinterpreted appearance, according to Rosemarie Fiorilli, a New York executive coach who advised her this year. The 360-degree process involves anonymous input from peers, subordinates and superiors.

The executive wore designer duds, including luxury-brand jewelry, at a workplace that favors business casual dress, Ms. Fiorilli says.

During 360-degree interviews, co-workers said, “She’s trying to be better than us,” the coach recollects. “She was the only one who didn’t know this was bothering people.”

Ms. Fiorilli says she warned the executive that the amplified impact of her luxurious look was hurting her group’s cohesiveness. The woman “toned it down immediately,” the coach adds. “Her boss said other people had noticed and remarked favorably.”

An associate’s frank feedback taught Tim Rice a different amplification lesson. While chief operating officer of Moses Cone Health System in Greensboro, N.C., he visited a friend seated in a chair two days after she underwent open-heart surgery at one of its five hospitals.

Mr. Rice teased her nurse for leaving the woman “in this chair all day long” because the patient looked tired. His joke devastated the nurse, “and she cried afterward,” the nursing director told Mr. Rice.

He later apologized to the nurse and in front of nearly 150 colleagues, praised the nursing director’s candor. Actually, “I was really afraid to come tell you,” she replied.

Mr. Rice says he concluded that his high-level title intimidated subordinates, and he should avoid sarcasm “because everything we do is amplified.” He took charge of Moses Cone in 2004. But “I am probably not as open and free and goofy as I have been in the past.”

At the same time, Mr. Rice regularly encourages his team members to suggest ways that he might lead the health-care system better. “I always say, ‘Who is going to tell the CEO that his fly is unzipped?”’

Write to Joann S. Lublin at joann.lublin@wsj.com