Fifteen plus years have passed since I began studying trust and trustworthiness and building tools to help leaders and teams. My focus remains on companies of all sizes and across industries. Without exception 2024 certainly had its share of organizational trust challenges from data breaches (Ticketmaster, Meta), to product safety violations (Boeing, Kellogg), and toxic workplaces (Nike, Uber) to name just a few.
OUR DATA
Close to 200,000 global participants have accessed our Trust Alliance Principles, the result of the efforts of some of the worlds leading trust scholars and practitioners. They are available at no cost and in multiple languages on our website at www.trustacrossamerica.com.
The behavioral trends in our “TAP INTO TRUST” ongoing survey of interpersonal workplace trust have not wavered since we began tracking them in 2019 with over 700 respondents reporting the following:
42% report weak ACCOUNTABILITY
38% report weak TRANSPARENCY
46% report weak TRACKING of trust
In fact, every behavior (12 in total) in our survey shows at least 20% of respondents reporting weaknesses within their organization.
Our FACTS Framework tracking the trustworthiness of public companies highlights a strong business case for organizations to focus on trust, After 13+ years our Trust 200 Index, maintained by IndexOne continues to outperform the S&P 500.
What will 2025 bring? We gathered some opinions and ideas from some of our trust colleagues in the recently published winter 2025 issue of Trust! Magazine. The link is available on the home page of our website.
Barbara Brooks Kimmel is an award winning author, speaker, product developer and global subject matter expert on trust and trustworthiness. Founder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World she is author of the award-winning Trust Inc., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset, Trust Inc., 52 Weeks of Activities and Inspirations for Building Workplace Trust and Trust Inc., a Guide for Boards & C-Suites. She majored in International Affairs (Lafayette College), and has an MBA (Baruch- City University of NY). Her expertise on trust has been cited in Harvard Business Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Thomson Reuters, BBC Radio, The Conference Board, Global Finance Magazine, Bank Director and Forbes, among others.
The returns of the Trust 200 Index over 13+ years according to IndexOne
More than 15 years ago The Economist published a briefing paper sponsored by Cisco, called “The Role of Trust in Business Collaboration,” concluding that tens of millions of dollars had been spent evaluating corporate governance but a *definition of corporate trust continued to elude us. The 2008 financial crisis essentially destroyed investor confidence in the stock market and the ethical decision making practices of business leaders and their public companies. And so it should come as no surprise that trust in the financial markets has stagnated and even deteriorated since that time. After all, what actions, if any, have organizations taken to build investor confidence and trust? Plenty of money is spent on PR “talk” followed by little constructive action.
What if instead of using the elusive word “trust” as the barometer, companies could instead be evaluated based on their trustworthiness? In other words, the ethical business principles and leadership practices that support trust building within the organization and can then be applied to all stakeholders. This was the question we began to address over fifteen years ago. With the assistance of academic, financial, corporate and consulting professionals, Trust Across America began to construct what became the FACTS Framework.
*Trust Across America describes trust at the individual/interpersonal level as the “outcome of principled behavior” and organizational trustworthiness as the “collective outcome of principled behavior.”
Our ten+ year study published in November 2021 continues to be, by order of magnitude, the most comprehensive and data driven analysis available regarding the trustworthiness of public companies. It speaks to both the public and the financial industry’s understanding of trust, supports trust based investment decision making and enables targeted and simplified trust portfolio construction. We analyze companies quarterly and rank order by company, sector and market capitalization.
As our chart and study link above highlight, trustworthy public companies are rewarded over the long-term. They not only avoid expensive crises but also have the benefit of broader internal and external stakeholder support.
Low trust keeps investors out of the stock market and on the sidelines
It has not been valuation, liquidity, or profits that keeps many investors on the sidelines. It is a lack of trust in both the financial industry and in the ethical actions and decision making practices of public company leadership. Even after a time of dramatic returns over the past several years, vast amounts of money remain parked in low yielding money market accounts and other underperforming investments. By delivering a time tested and “beyond reproach” strategy to investors combining the key drivers of corporate trustworthiness, Trust Based Investing can serve as a viable solution that both the industry and the public has been seeking.
In conclusion
Trust Based Investing provides the following:
Companies have proven through a rigorous analysis that they are trustworthy and represent lower investment risk.
Investors can be assured that ethical business and investment decisions are being made.
Trustworthy companies have stable and strong investment returns.
A virtuous cycle is created. As investment money flows into the hands of these companies, other companies will want to follow suit and become more trustworthy.
Barbara Brooks Kimmel is an author, speaker, product developer and global subject matter expert on trust and trustworthiness. Founder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World she is author of the award-winning Trust Inc., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset, Trust Inc., 52 Weeks of Activities and Inspirations for Building Workplace Trust and Trust Inc., a Guide for Boards & C-Suites. She majored in International Affairs (Lafayette College), and has an MBA (Baruch- City University of NY). Her expertise on trust has been cited in Harvard Business Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Thomson Reuters, BBC Radio, The Conference Board, Global Finance Magazine, Bank Director and Forbes, among others.
As the year draws to a close, I am pleased to provide the following visual summary of the progress we made at Trust Across America-Trust Around the World in 2023. For more information please visit our website at www.trustacrossamerica.com or reach out directly to me at barbara@trustacrossamerica.com
#1 Trust Across America’s Trust 200 Index Continues to Outperform the S&P 500 over time (12 years)
Recently, I presented at a conference for leaders running businesses with participants from over one hundred and fifty countries. Having spoken on trust in more than fifty-eight countries on-site—and in even more virtually—I’ve noticed that although every culture is beautifully unique and different, there is one common thread that runs through them all: trust. Regardless of the setting or the circumstances, each culture and country is shaped by trust – or the lack thereof. Every society, organization, team, group, and family functions well only to the degree there is trust. Indeed, it can be said that trust “makes our world go ‘round.”
If it feels like your world isn’t going ‘round right now, or it’s going slower than you’d like, I recommend looking at trust first. The reality is, that low trust is almost always the root of the problem – or the most impeding barrier to the solution. Indeed, most organizational performance issues are really trust issues in disguise.
Never before has the impact of low trust been more prevalent or apparent. More and more we see examples of this play out on the news, as well as in our own organizations, communities, and neighborhoods. On top of that, we have more research and data on how trust drives performance available at our fingertips than at any other time in history. We know this is important. And yet, deliberately moving the needle on trust, which is vital for everyone and everywhere, continues to present an enormous challenge. Why is that?
Trust the Noun
For me, it begins with understanding what Trust means. Trust as a noun is both complex and eye-opening.
Take for example, this exercise that I invite teams and audiences to participate in when I speak on this topic. Consider the statement below:
It is possible to have two trustworthy people working together and to have no trust between them.
Take a few moments to ponder the significance of that statement, because in all my years of teaching trust, this is perhaps one of the most profound insights I’ve learned.
Read it again. What stands out to you?
The idea that you can have two trustworthy people working together and also have no trust between them continues to be one of the biggest challenges I run into when working with people— regardless of the situation. Whether it be on a team, between teams, in an organization, in the relationship between partners and customers, or even just on a personal level, this problem comes up again and again.
It exhibits itself as misalignment between departments, a lack of collaboration, weak retention, lethargic execution, an inability to innovate, and formation of silos. It becomes greatly magnified in the context of nearly every form of organizational change. It becomes a silent stumbling block on the road to innovation and progress. Have you experienced this or seen it in your own organization? The majority of people can relate to the frustration that comes hand in hand with low trust.
However, the statement I shared is only part of the insight. Take a moment to consider the completed message:
It is possible to have two trustworthy people working together and to have no trust between them . . . if neither person is willing to extend trust to the other.
When most people think about trust, they simply think about trustworthiness – the level at which someone can be relied upon or trusted. Although insufficient by itself, trustworthiness is still a good place to start because it’s difficult to have real, meaningful trust between people when one or both parties isn’t worthy of it.
But here’s the kicker: in my experience, our most significant challenge is not a lack of trustworthy people. Everywhere you go, you can find good, honest, trustworthy people to work with. So, that is less often the issue. Rather, the bigger challenge is trustworthy people who do not extend trust to other trustworthy people. Those same good, honest, trustworthy people are often the ones who find it hardest to give trust to others.
I can’t tell you how many leaders I’ve worked with who are credible and authentic, who care deeply about both their work and their people, who are excited and eager to make a difference for their organization – and yet who just can’t seem to extend trust, or enough trust for it to really matter. They are trustworthy but are not trusting. Both dimensions are vital. And because trusting is reciprocal, it goes both ways: employees and team members who are distrusted by their leaders learn to withhold trust from those same leaders. And the cycle and impacts of low trust continue onward. To achieve Trust in its ultimate noun form, we must have both components present and operating – trustworthiness and trusting.
The Good News
Although your organization might not currently be operating at the level of trust you want, I believe this insight provides hope that it can. If our teams and organizations really are full of trustworthy people, it means there is enormous potential waiting for us on just the other side of a meaningful extension of trust. There are enormous benefits we have yet to reap if we shift our focus from not only being trustworthy but also to being trusting.
Gail McGovern, twice named one of the “50 Most Powerful Women in Corporate America” by Fortune Magazine, is a model of being trusting. When she became CEO of The American Red Cross, she inherited a $209 million operating deficit, along with a Board mandate to eliminate said deficit within two years. On top of that, she was the 10th CEO of the prior decade. Walking into the struggling non-profit and assuming trustworthiness at scale may not have been the most natural position to take.
Knowing the difficult circumstances the organization faced, and how temporary the CEO role had been, Gail arranged a series of town hall meetings around the country—what she called a “listening tour”—with the intent to listen to and connect with employees as a foundation of developing a turnaround plan. During one such meeting, an employee bravely asked the question on everyone’s mind, point blank: “Gail, you’re new and we’ve gone through a lot of leaders. How do we know if we can trust you?”
Gail responded thoughtfully, “You’ll have to decide that for yourself but I certainly believe you’ll find in me someone you can trust.” Then she leaned in and emphatically declared to everyone in the room, “But let me tell you that I trust each and every one of you.”
This was an easy thing to say yet hard to do. But Gail meant it. She was trustworthy when she arrived, bringing with her an excellent track record, but that wasn’t what inspired her employees to trust her. It was her early decision to practice trusting others that people responded to powerfully. This strong start inspired her people and helped them to buy into her plan and vision for the organization. This unified front served them well as they were able to eliminate the deficit and kick off a turnaround that continues to this day to perform and serve society in profound ways.
Trusting Globally
Another great example of trusting is Daniel Grieder, the CEO of global fashion retailer, HUGO BOSS, out of Germany. When Daniel was brought in from outside the company to serve as the new CEO, he immediately met with his top leadership team, and outlined, in essence, two possible paths forward. In that meeting, he laid out his vision and invitation for the future:
“Team, you don’t know me, and I don’t know you. So, we have two choices: we can spend the next year deciding whether or not we can trust each other . . . but then we’ll have wasted a year. Or we can decide to trust each other from day one. I choose the second option. So please know this: I trust you. Please trust me too. Trust is how we we’ll create a new way of working together, and a new culture.”
Can you imagine the impact this immediate extension of trust had on those in the meeting? In fact, I recently had the opportunity to meet with Daniel and his team, just about two years into his tenure and the results were obvious. In those early days, the company had created a five-year strategic plan and, even though only two years had passed they were already on year four of the plan! Indeed, they were operating at the speed of trust. The decision to trust each other internally had long since been made, and their external performance—as well as internal culture—was the proof. Through trust, Daniel and his team were able to build a strong culture of trust that allowed them to collaborate more frequently, innovate more fully, and achieve their goals more quickly. They were winning in the marketplace as a result of winning in the workplace first. Daniel was trustworthy but he also trusted his people who in turn trusted him and together they were able to achieve remarkable results.
Imagine how differently things might have gone in both scenarios had Daniel or Gail chosen not to extend trust.
What About You?
Stories like this are inspiring but may also feel overwhelming due to their scale. But in my experience, the results of extending trust are just as impactful and magnificent on a personal level as they are on an organizational or global level. Perhaps this can be seen most clearly, as you consider these three favorite questions of mine.
The first is simply, “Who trusted you?” I often ask people to identify someone in their life who trusted them. Someone who saw potential in them that maybe they didn’t even see in themselves, someone who believed in them, someone who took a chance on them. Almost without exception, everyone can quickly, if not immediately, think of someone (and sometimes more than one). Whether it was a parent, a boss, a teacher, a coach, a friend – we all remember those people who trusted us and believed in us.
The second question I like to ask is, “how did that extension of trust impact the way you saw yourself?” We know these people had a great impact on us but there is something special about articulating how exactly they did and how it changed and inspired us. Regardless of the situation, deep down we all want to be trusted – and when we are, it does something for us. Being trusted is the most inspiring form of human motivation. Being trustworthy is vital—but sometimes the very thing that makes a person worthy of trust is when they find themselves on the receiving end of it. People more often than not rise to the occasion when they are given the chance to prove themselves.
Having thought about the person who trusted you and how it impacted your life for the better, my third question is, “For whom can you be that person?” The cycle of extending trust shouldn’t end with you. There are people out there waiting for someone to offer them the chance to shine. You can be that person for them.
I invite you to consider all three of these questions. No matter your circumstances – whether as CEO of a company, a manager of a small team, an hourly employee, a stay-at-home parent or simply as a human being, you have the opportunity to change lives through trust. Your organization, your team, the trustworthy people in your life can reap the benefits as you extend trust to them. And you will find in turn that they will extend trust to you. And this uplifting cycle, no matter where on the globe you might be, will indeed make your world go ‘round.
by Stephen M. R. Covey (bestselling author of The Speed of Trust and Trust & Inspire)
Trust is not one way but many ways. If you are confused about what trust is and what it is not, watch this 3 minute video called Why Trust is Worth It. bit.ly/1fEnM8L
Last week we published the summer issue of TRUST! Magazine. It includes 14 essays on our current ” state of trust.” These are some thoughts from the authors.
Trust in Turbulent Times:Interestingly, the etymology of “trust” is rooted in old Norse and English words meaning “strength” or “to make safe and strong.” In times like these, we crave leaders who will keep us safe and make us strong. Bart Alexander
The Formula for Building Trust: If it feels like your world isn’t going ‘round right now, or it’s going slower than you’d like, I recommend looking at trust first. The reality is, that low trust is almost always the root of the problem — or the most impeding barrier to the solution. Stephen M.R. Covey
Trust & Commerce: Trustworthiness is a vital component of every corporate interaction. It is the lubrication of commerce. Without trust in the organization, the company will ultimately cease functioning effectively or efficiently. Dr. James Gregory
The Trust Landscape: Couple decreasing trust with what we know about what we do when we distrust others and we have the makings of a slow-moving disaster. Unless we start turning this ship around we will see diminishing cooperation with increasing polarization, more balkanization in politics and society, less willingness to talk things out as people pull back from those they distrust. Charles Feltman
The Business Case for Trust: Contrary to what many executives are lead to believe, trust is not a “soft” skill. In fact in today’s challenging business environment it may mean the difference between survival and failure. Barbara Brooks Kimmel
The Margin of Trust: America’s corporate governance systems also make it difficult for boards to set the tone of a trust-based corporate culture. In the name of “accountability,” the system has veered from principles and tailored approaches towards mandatory rules and standardized practices for all. Lawrence A. Cunningham
Risk & Trust:Things go wrong when institutional trust is based on rules intended to rein in personal freedom and autonomy, implying that forced compliance creates more institutional trust than the personal trust it displaces. This way of thinking usually doesn’t end well. Charles H. Green
Trust & Governance:The smooth functioning of an organization therefore relies on an assumption of regularity. That, in turn, relies on two “trust” factors. First, that the people involved can trust each other and, second, that the corporate governance system itself is trustworthy. Jon Lukomnik & Rick Funston
Ethical Leadership & Trust:Most core values are a set of ideas thought up on a management golf outing, brought in on the back of a clubhouse napkin, then printed and posted without another word being spoken. The values and ideals of a business are what employees and others bring to work every day. James Lukaszewski
Sustainability Reporting & Trust:If trust is the purpose, then what you intend to do is as relevant as what you have done. Publicly committing to multi-year targets is a must for credible sustainability reporting. Elaine Cohen
Trust in Healthcare:Lack of trust creates a situation that creates the propensity to misinformation. At the same time, misinformation can create a negative trust reset. Jan Berger
Technology & Trust:As of November 2022, we have over 8 billion people sharing our precious planet earth. It makes sense to continue debating and researching trust between humans both individually and organizationally. At the same time, we urgently need to focus on the trustworthiness of technology. Our very survival as a species may depend on it. Helen Gould
Trust in Media:Ultimately what’s needed is changing the culture of how news is produced and what journalists are expected to do on a regular basis. We are talking about updating a system that, when you look at the format and expectations, hasn’t evolved since it started. Lynn Walsh
Trusting Artificial Intelligence:While Chat GPT may have the potential to revolutionize industries, the response to my original question reads like a primer on trust research with little to no information on trust in practice. Barbara Brooks Kimmel
Next month Trust Across America-Trust Around the World (TAA-TAW) begins its 10th anniversary celebration. As the largest global community focused exclusively on helping organizations build trust, we plan to introduce several new programs during the coming year.
Twelve Trust Alliance members have recently been named to serve a one-year term on our inaugural Trust Council. The diverse Council members have brought their unique expertise over the past ten years in assisting TAA-TAW in the development and execution of new programs and tools to elevate organizational trust.
Presented alphabetically they are:
Bart Alexander
Art Barter
Donna Boehme
Alain Bolea
Randy Conley
Stephen M.R. Covey
Charles H. Green
Deb Krizmanich
Holly Latty-Mann
Linda Fisher Thornton
Bob Vanourek
Bob Whipple
You can read more about the Council and its members at this link.
I have enormous gratitude to this group who have individually and collectively helped make TAA-TAW what it is today. I look forward to their input and guidance as we continue to develop new tools and programs in the future to continue to help organizations build trust.
Click here to view Issue #2 of Trust Across America’s Corporate Integrity Monitor.
Methodology: Since 2009 Trust Across America’s FACTS® Framework has been measuring and ranking public companies on five equally weighted quantitative indicators of integrity, forming the acronym FACTS- Financial stability, Accounting Conservativeness, Corporate Governance, Transparency and Sustainability. Our objective model (companies do not know they are being analyzed nor are any internal employee surveys completed) was initially constructed in 2008 and measures the corporate trustworthiness/integrity of the largest 2000 US public companies. Trust Across America’s Most Trustworthy Public Companies ranks the Russell 1000.
This, by order of magnitude, is the most comprehensive and fact-based ongoing study on this subject. We analyze quarterly and rank order by company, sector and market capitalization. We are particularly interested in tracking individual companies and sector trends over time.
2017 Highlights:
Companies in descending order:
#1 Dr Pepper Snapple Group (tied) *
#1 CSX Corporation (tied)
#3 Best Buy Co., Inc.
#4 Hasbro Inc. *
#5 Johnson & Johnson
#6 Xerox Corporation
#7 Morgan Stanley
#8 Nvidia Corporation
#9 Visteon Corporation, Abbot Laboratories, The Home Depot*, Inc. (3 way tie)
* Named for two consecutive years.
No company is perfect. The 2017 highest scoring company(ies) received a “79” on a 1-100 scale.
The “Top 10” companies hail from 9 of 16 sectors. Industry is not destiny.
About the CEOs (as of December 2016):
Seven CEOs have served in their position for at least 5 years
Both CSX and Xerox have appointed new CEOs in 2017
Average CEO age is 58
At least four are foreign born
Two have no education beyond high school
Four possess an MBA or equivalent and three have Master’s in Engineering
At least three were, at one time, employed by McKinsey & Company
When a baby decides it is time to be born…”the show must go on.”
Such was the case on January 23, 2016 when approximately 103 million people were affected by a blizzard that hit the east coast of the US, requiring eleven states to declare emergencies, including New Jersey.
Assisted by local EMTs, the healthy baby was delivered at home on the living room couch, the second child of a couple with a fully paid health insurance policy. But the extreme weather conditions and treacherous roads required both the healthy mother and her new baby to be transported to the closest hospital, not one designated by the family’s insurance plan, and certainly not through any special requests on the family’s part. In less than 24 hours, both mother and child were released from the “unaffiliated” hospital, returning home to celebrate their new arrival.
But the biggest surprise for this family was yet to arrive.
The following week a hospital bill was delivered for $53,000. And in case you are not totally shocked by that number, it didn’t include subsequent invoices from the EMTs, emergency room doctors, nor the $39.00 adult diaper that was “sold” to the mother following delivery, to name just a few “incidentals” that brought the total “hit” to over $60,000.
Now this family, who should be bonding and celebrating the birth of their healthy second child, is instead:
1) Faced with a daunting bill that no insured young middle class family could ever possibly pay, and mounds of paperwork and invoice totals that change with every postal delivery.
2) Spending countless hours away from their children and professional obligations listening to prerecorded messages claiming “our menus have changed,” “your call is important to us” and “we are experiencing unusually high call volume.”
The following are some not so simple questions for insurance companies, hospitals, doctors, miscellaneous health services providers and any other parties who would like to weigh in on this story:
What responsibility, if any, do organizations have to ensure their customers are treated fairly, ethically and in a trustworthy manner?
Has corporate greed and the “maximization of shareholder value” permanently replaced doing what’s right?
If this child had been born to a family with no health insurance what would their bill be?
How can this family, who believed they had done everything “right” except better timing the birth of their baby, expeditiously resolve this and “get on” with what matters and their daily lives?”
I suppose the moral of the story is “buyer beware:”
Even under the most extreme circumstances caused by acts of nature, thousands of dollars in monthly health insurance premiums don’t “cut it” once companies are asked to honor their obligations and do the right thing. Why is this so?
Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the CEO and Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. Now in its seventh year, the program’s proprietary FACTS® Framework ranks and measures the trustworthiness of over 2000 US public companies on five quantitative indicators of trustworthy business behavior. Barbara is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine.
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