Trust Across America-Trust Around the World™

We are heading into Week #2 of 2016. How many readers took the advice of Kouzes & Posner on building organizational trust in Week #1?

This is the second blog in a series of weekly ideas to elevate trust in your organization, pulled from our third annual 2016 Trust Poster, 52 Ideas That You Can Implement to Build Trust.

This idea is offered by Bob Vanourek, a former CEO and multi-year Trust Across America Top Thought Leader honoree, and a Trust Alliance member. You can read more about Bob’s work at this link.

 Identify what builds trust and what breaks trust

Action: Hold several small-group discussions with your colleagues. Elicit their thoughts on:

1. Why is trust important?
2. What builds trust?
3. What breaks trust?
4. What can each of us do to build trust?

If you currently hold a leadership position or aspire to be a trustworthy leader, remember that if leaders can’t identify trust builders and busters, they are missing out one of the best opportunities to improve their workplace.  And by the way, trustworthy leaders also ask the right questions!

The second week of 2016 starts soon!

Thanks Bob. Best wishes for 2016.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the CEO & Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help responsible organizations build trust. She facilitates the world’s largest membership program for those interested in the subject. Barbara also serves as editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

Copyright 2016, Next Decade, Inc.

Welcome to 2016!

This is the first blog in a series of weekly ideas to elevate trust in your organization, pulled from our third annual 2016 Trust Poster, 52 Ideas That You Can Implement to Build Trust.

This first idea is offered by Jim Kouzes (a 2015 Trust Across America Lifetime Achievement Award Winner) and Barry Posner of The Leadership Challenge:

In building trust leaders go first

What does this mean?

According to Kouzes and Posner, the five practices of exemplary leadership are:

1. Model the way– Leaders do what they say they will do.
2. Inspire a shared vision– Imagine and believe in an exciting and attractive future and enlist others in a common vision.
3. Challenge the process– Search for opportunities to innovate grow and improve. Then experiment and take risks.
4. Enable others to act– Foster collaboration and build trust, and make it possible for others to do good work.
5. Encourage the heart– Recognize contributions and celebrate values and victories.

If you currently hold a leadership position or aspire to be a trustworthy leader, remember that in building trust, leaders go first. The first week of 2016 starts right now! And by the way, trustworthy leaders also ask the right questions!

Thanks Jim and Barry. Best wishes for 2016.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the CEO & Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help responsible organizations build trust. She facilitates the world’s largest membership program for those interested in the subject. Barbara also serves as editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

“Many in leadership roles feel the need to have all the answers, while true leaders ask the right questions.” Barbara Brooks Kimmel

“LRN (the business ethics and corporate compliance firm) recently surveyed more than 900 C-suite executives and found that they were three to eight times more likely to believe that their organizations were highly values-based than the more than 35,000 less-senior employees taking part in the same study.” bit.ly/1JJ0Up8

That’s a pretty compelling argument for the disconnect between the beliefs of senior leadership and their employees, and Trust Across America sees the same pattern in its own research. The solution to closing this perception gap is very simple. Leaders must take ownership of the issue and be open to honest feedback. Until they admit, (perhaps as the New Year strikes 12) that their organizations are not, in fact values based, 2016 will bring more of the same.

Here are ten questions every authentic leader should be asking before work resumes in 2016:

1. Do I consider profitability the most important measurement of trust?
2. Who is more important, my customers or employees?
3. What are our organizational values? Are all stakeholders aligned? How am I advancing these values?
4. Are we effectively communicating our values?
5. Do I walk my talk?
6. Have I asked our stakeholders if they trust us?
7. Is there a way out of our crisis mentality mindset?
8. Do I understand the difference between compliance, ethics and trust?
9. Am I leading or managing?
10. Am I trustworthy?

For leaders who find this worthy of their attention, additional questions are available in this free resource on our website called The Leaders Project.

Another great resource for authentic leaders…. for the third year, Trust Across America-Trust Around the World has assembled, with the help of dozens of global experts, an annual TRUST POSTER. The 2016 theme is 52 Ideas That YOU Can Implement to Build Trust. 

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the CEO & Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help responsible organizations build trust. She facilitates the world’s largest membership program for those interested in the subject. Barbara also serves as editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

How many of the following are ongoing issues in your office?

1. High employee turnover and absenteeism
2. Negative water cooler conversations
3. Slow decision making and low innovation
4. A seemingly never ending series of crises
5. Stagnant or diminishing profitability

If you answered “yes” to one or more of the five issues listed above, your office is suffering from low “T” and the prescription for a return to health rests squarely on the shoulders of leadership. So what is low “T?” It’s low trust and the single most common and debilitating impediment to successful organizations.

The good news is low “T” is easily cured. Leaders just need to acknowledge the disease and implement a trust building prescriptive culture. Why not set a goal of starting that process on January 1, 2016? Here are a few ways to head down the path to recovery:

In every interaction with every person, ask yourself: “What can I do in this moment to strengthen the trust between us? Jim Kouzes & Barry Posner

You don’t build trust by getting louder; you build trust by getting closer. Richard Fagerlin

Take a younger employee to lunch and ask them a lot of questions and listen-to-learn. Jon Mertz

Terminate toxic people, even the star performers. Bob Vanourek

Build a foundation of organizational trust to soften the blow from the next breach. Barbara Brooks Kimmel

We have a great tool to help you. For the third year, Trust Across America-Trust Around the World has assembled, with the help of dozens of global experts, an annual TRUST POSTER. The 2016 theme is 52 Ideas That YOU Can Implement to Build Trust.  It not only makes a great inexpensive “gift of trust” for the holidays but provides many of the keys to reversing the cycle of organizational mistrust. These are just a few suggestions on ways to use these posters that are already in place in many organizations for 2016:

• Hang one in your office as a conversation starter with visitors, employees or colleagues.
• Give them as gifts to key influencers in organizations suffering from low “T.”
• Send them to clients along with the suggestion to place on their bulletin boards in the employee lounge as well as share an “idea a week” in their management team meetings.
• Mail them to remote employees.
• Give them to your kid’s teachers, send one to the mayor and police chief, and share them with local business owners.

Everyone can benefit from high “T” in 2016!

Read more about the 2016 poster at this link.

Do your part by joining our movement today!

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the CEO & Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help responsible organizations build trust. She facilitates the world’s largest membership program for those interested in the subject. Barbara also serves as editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

Copyright 2015, Next Decade, Inc.