It’s Week #24 of 2016. This latest article is part of a series drawn from our 3rd annual 2016 Trust Poster….now hanging in hundreds of offices around the world. Get yours today!
52 Ideas That You Can Implement to Build Trust
As the CEO and Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World, I offer this week’s idea:
When trust is made a business imperative, leadership must “own” it.
Ask almost any employee from the ground floor to the C-Suite who “owns” trust in the organization and don’t be surprised at the blank stares coming back your way. The truth is, “trust” is an orphan child simply because most leaders suffer from two false assumptions:
- Trust is a soft skill.
- Trust can’t be measured or tied to profitability.
But our own FACTS(R) Framework research paints a very different picture. Trust is NOT soft and it CAN be measured. During the three-year period from February 2013-February 2016 America’s most trustworthy public companies outperformed the S&P 500 by 1.8x. The composite results translate to 16.7% annualized for FACTS® vs. 9.5% for the S&P 500.
This was not a “test” but rather actual money under management, followed by an independent audit verifying the returns.
When leaders embrace trust as an intentional business strategy it translates into a hard asset and profits soar. Building organizational trust is a top down strategy and almost always involves a period of culture change. If the leader doesn’t recognize the need for change, own it and budget for it, it will never happen. The most progressive leaders are out of the “trust” gate and ahead of their peers.
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.
Copyright 2016, Next Decade, Inc.
Recent Comments