Trust Across America-Trust Around the World™

I am so proud to know these two millenials.  Keep reading to learn more about them.

And while you are doing so, answer these questions honestly. How many of you would:

• Save someone being attacked by a shark?

That’s what 20 year-old Justin Hoot did earlier this month, without thinking twice.

• Rescue a baby left on your doorstep?

That’s what 27 year-old Maggie Doyne did just this week.

You can read more about Maggie here.

(If you ever wanted to support Maggie Doyne and everything she does, now would be a great time: secure.blinknow.org/page/outreach/view/fundraise-for-kopila-valley/babyboy)

What a way to say “thank you” and show your support for those who put others before themselves, a key quality of trustworthy leadership.

Justin and Maggie. I am honored to know both of you.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

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Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.

Have a question? Feel free to contact me: barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Have you ever considered the inverse relationship between product warranties and trust? I have.

According to my friends at Merriam-Webster a warranty is: a written statement that promises the good condition of a product and states that the maker is responsible for repairing or replacing the product usually for a certain period of time after its purchase. 

The catch phrase is “a certain period of time.”

As consumers, how often have we heard the following:

1. It’s not covered under warranty.
2. Sorry, your warranty expired last week.
3. Do you have a copy of your warranty?
4. Do you know the length of your warranty?
5. Did you send in the warranty?

In essence the manufacturer is setting a time limit on its own reputation and building a wall of mistrust between itself and its customers. I’m not suggesting that warranties should not exist. I suppose there are times when they are needed, although I can’t think of any offhand.

If you are interested in reading about the history of the warranty including such events as the 1975 Magnuson-Moss FTC Warranty Improvement Act, express vs. written, repair and replace, breach of warranty, disclaimers and limitation and dozens of other “laws” please click here. (Thank you Paul E. Wojcicki for incorporating all this information in one neat Slideshare.) Imagine how many lawyers it took to write the warranty rules and how many are needed to enforce them! Let’s not even think about the gross annual costs to society of warranty litigation.

How about instead, if companies just “did the right thing?”

Sometimes they do.

Yesterday I called Kohler to inquire about replacing a broken head on my kitchen faucet. The call wait time was very short, an English-speaking customer service rep answered, some basic information was collected (name, address, phone) and the matter was resolved in under 5 minutes. The outcome: The part is being replaced at no charge. There was little discussion of warranties. The closest was the question as to when the item was purchased. I told the CSR I had no idea, as I could not remember when we had our kitchen remodeled.

So hat’s off to Kohler for standing behind their product and “doing what is right” instead of only “what is legal.” And the way they do business is clearly not by accident. Founded in 1873, Kohler is a family-owned business, and a privately held company. You can read their mission statement here. Their employees seem happy and they have won many awards. The CEO, Herbert Kohler, Jr. is the founder’s grandson. And I’ll bet you didn’t know that the company owns several golf courses and an arts center in Wisconsin! Do you think culture and values are high on the priority list of this company? Are you surprised they have been in business for so long? I’m not. It seems they try to “do right” by all their stakeholders. I doubt the company is perfect, but they certainly set high standards.

Kohler has built trust with this consumer, and based on the success of the company, with many others as well. Can you guess who will get my business next time I need a new fixture?

Thank you Kohler. You are truly a role model for trustworthy business.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

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Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.

Have a question? Feel free to contact me: barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

When  leaders bust trust, employees play games. I don’t mean board games or a tennis match. I mean the games employees play at work.

In my first job out of college, my boss was simply intolerable. In retrospect, I can’t blame him for being the way he was. He was placed in a leadership role, but was never meant to be a leader. He was insecure, abusive and lazy. He was also a liar. I frequently reminded him that if he didn’t lie, he never had to remember what he said. He chose not to listen. He assumed that all he had to do to be a good leader was to pay his employees well, and the other “stuff” would work itself out. But it didn’t.

“Game playing” became the office norm. These were some of the favorites:

1. Calling in sick on Fridays and often on Mondays
2. Every last minute of the hour-long lunch break was taken, and often more
3. The water cooler was the most popular spot in the office
4. Friday couldn’t come fast enough
5. 9AM turned into 9:30 and 4:30 became the new 5PM
6. Minimal effort was exerted
7. Many of us treated our clients the same way we were treated
8. People quit without notice
9. Hours were spent on personal phone calls
10. Throwing other employees under the bus was all too common

Through observation, I once calculated that the average employee spent less than 3 hours each day actually working.

Any of the above sound familiar?

This week leadership expert Tom Peters asked the following:

Do you absolutely understand and act upon the fact that the first-line boss is the…KEY LEADERSHIP ROLE…in the organization?

Employees take their cues from their leader. We certainly did. If you want to avoid game playing in your organization, act like a trustworthy leader simply by being a VIP role model (values, integrity, promises kept.)

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

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Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.

Have a question? Feel free to contact me: barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Recently I saw an ad for a men’s wristwatch. The company had substituted the “5” on the watch face for a picture of a martini. Apparently this reminds the wearer of the watch that it’s time to leave work and head for the bar!  It got me thinking about “humpday” and TGIF, the “grind” as some call it, and all the expressions workers use to show their disdain for their jobs.

Gallup released a poll in 2013 showing that a shocking 63 percent of employees are disengaged and another 24 percent are actively disengaged. Those disengaged workers cost business over $300 billion per year.

We know that happy workers are productive workers, so apparently the majority are pretty unhappy nowadays. Can you blame them? Overwork, underpay, job insecurity, and many less tangible reasons. And the root cause… organizations with leaders who place little to no value on their employees. Inflated egos, inattention, inability to say “thank you,” and perhaps worst of all, lack of transparency. This is how business is done, and  trust is busted. In a recent blog post  called “In Building Trust Actions Speak Louder than Words,” I offered some very simple suggestions for leaders who want to give trust a try. Pick  just one or two from this list today and watch engagement grow immediately.

Not convinced?  Look what happens at companies like Zappos when employee engagement is placed very high on the “to do” list. And as my friends at Edelman like to say, “If you want your employees to trust you, try engaging with them.” You may find less of them checking their watches for that 5 o’clock reminder to head to the bar.

Thank goodness today is Monday! I love my job and occasionally I even pat myself on the back.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

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Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.

Have a question? Feel free to contact me: barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Did you know that Trust Across America-Trust Around the World (TAA-TAW) facilitates a group called The Alliance of Trustworthy Business Experts (ATBE)?

This is a vetted membership group (annual fee to join.) We formed at the end of 2012 to meet the need for an organized team of cross-functional professionals (trust, leadership, teamwork, culture, ethics, compliance, customer service, CSR, branding, reputation, crisis repair, etc) who would work collaboratively to help organizations build trust. Among our members are CEOs and former CEOs, C-Suite executives, consultants, academics, NGOs, nonprofits, and even the media. We all have one trait in common. We know that trust works!

If you are interested in learning about our history, you can read the original press release announcing our initial 2-year Campaign for Trust via Reuters News, and review a list of our original 25 founding members.

We’ve come a long way in less than 2 years, and have expanded to almost 100 members from around the world.  The TAA-TAW website attracts thousands of visitors every day, with well over 100,000 page views per month, and growing daily.

While there are many benefits of joining the group, these are some of the more tangible.

1. Referral Network: A growing network of speakers, panelists and experts that Trust Across America has booked for events
2. Introductions: to other members with similar and complimentary objectives
3. An opportunity to showcase your work: in Trust! (The Magazine) (coming this Fall)
4. Write a report: for one of the most visited pages on our site: Building Trust Reports
5. Produce a video: for our Trust Talks™ series
6. Add your work to our living bibliography: (the most comprehensive of its kind) Constructing a Framework for Trust
7. Participate in regional events: via our Circles of Trust
8. Trust Inc. Books: participate in our book series The third book was announced to our members last week.
9. Join the Alliance of Trustworthy Business Experts Tribe (with an audience reach of almost 1 million)
10. Ask the Alliance: Provide expert commentary for the media (see example)

And finally, you can read what our members are saying.

Please consider joining us as we enter the second phase of our organizational trust journey.

**Note: The Alliance will be closed to new members when we reach our goal of 100 active participants. We will then initiate a waiting list.

Have a question? Feel free to contact me: barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

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Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.

Trustworthy leaders are VIPs according to a simple model incorporating 

Values, Integrity and Promises.

The VIP Trust Model™

TRUST=  VISION & VALUES+INTEGRITY+PROMISES KEPT

 Copyright © 2014 Next Decade, Inc.

Organizations and their leaders become trustworthy once TRUST is earned.

This is accomplished via the following sequence of actions:

• VISION & VALUES: Identify why the organization exists and what it stands for.
• INTEGRITY: Identify, practice and communicate the moral principles and purpose of the leadership team and the organization.  Alignment is essential.
• PROMISES: Ensure that leadership is held accountable for doing what it says it will do, and for regularly communicating the vision, values and promises to all stakeholders.

What do you think of this model?  Leave a comment.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

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If you would like to communicate directly with Barbara, drop her a note at Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.

We are all familiar with the expressions, “talk is cheap” and “actions speak louder than words.” For anyone who embraces trust as a personal or organizational imperative, what you say is not nearly as important as what you do. In fact, people learn by example, not through empty words like “I believe in you” or “great job” or that end-of-year performance “review.”

If you want to build trust in any relationship (family, friends, colleagues, coworkers, employees) you should find at least a few helpful suggestions in the list below:

1. Be selfless instead of selfish. Put yourself second. Do something wonderful and unexpected. Do it just because you can.
2. Celebrate every great achievement, every risk taken, and even the failures that can serve as learning experiences.
3. Buy those turkeys at Thanksgiving, even if money is tight.
4. Give an extra day off instead of “docking” someone for time not “earned.”
5. Honor those who work hard with unscheduled bonuses.
6. Catch someone doing something right. Pat someone on the back.
7. Schedule some time for fun.
8. Forego your “special” parking space and don’t brag about your “vacation” home or your latest “toy.”
9. Spend time out of your ivory tower and down on the shop floor.
10. Share a personal story. Be human, but don’t be a drama queen (or king.)

Don’t tell your family, friends, colleagues or your employees that you care. Instead, show them. Your actions might be contagious, and they will most certainly build trust.

What other actions have helped you build trust in relationships?  Leave a comment.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

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If you would like to communicate directly with Barbara, drop her a note at Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.

I struggled earlier to find a topic for today’s blog post, and then one was literally dropped right at my feet.

My friend Charlie Green likes to say  “I trust my dog with my life, but not so much with my ham sandwich.”

Several years ago we rescued this silly guy from Pennsylvania where he spent most of his puppy days running free on a farm without much supervision or training. He’s a happy dog and very loyal to my husband in every way but one. He loves to steal his shoes. And sometimes…well,  he eats them. And each time this happens, my husband blames the dog. In truth, he’s been given so many opportunities to eat shoes that, at this point, the dog thinks it’s a game and an okay response when he finds them laying around the house.

As we all know, trust is a pretty complex subject and there are different types of trust. Some are based on competence, others on honesty. Many are situational. For example:

• You might trust Target to have the best selection, but not with your credit card information.
• You might trust your doctor to manage your health but not necessarily to manage your investment portfolio.
• You might trust your mother to keep a secret but not to cook a gourmet meal.
• And finally, you might trust your dog with your life, but not with your shoes 🙂

What are some other examples of situational trust? Leave a comment.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

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If you would like to communicate directly with Barbara, drop her a note at Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.

If you are not accountable, why do you expect your team members to be?

If you lead an organization or a team, accountability is an essential trait. Lack of accountability leads to distrust which, in turn, leads to disengagement. When you find yourself falling back on an excuse, stop and think about the impact it has on your team and consider using an alternative response instead.

Below is a list of commonly heard trust BUSTING excuses and an alternative trust BUILDING response.

Trust Busting Excuse #1:  It slipped my mind.

Trust Building Response #1: I won’t forget.

Trust Busting Excuse #2: Sorry, I’m going on vacation.

Trust Building Response #2: This will be done before I go on vacation.

Trust Busting Excuse #3: I’ll do it later.

Trust Building Response #3: I will do it right now.

Trust Busting Excuse #4: Keep reminding me.

Trust Building Response #4: You will not need to remind me.

Trust Busting Excuse #5: It’s not on my “to do” list.

Trust Building Response #5: I’m putting it on the top of my “to do” list.

Trust Busting Excuse #6: It isn’t a high priority.

Trust Building Response #6: I’m giving it high priority.

Trust Busting Excuse #7: It was just a white lie.

Trust Building Response #7: I admit to being dishonest.

Trust Busting Excuse #8: I’m very busy. Check back later.

Trust Building Response #8: I’m very busy right now but let’s talk in one hour.

Trust Busting Excuse #9: I thought I did it.

Trust Building Response #9: I will take care of it right now.

Trust Busting Excuse #10: I ran out of time.

Trust Building Response #10: It’s more time consuming than I thought, but I will get it done.

What are some other common trust busting excuses? Leave a comment.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

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If you would like to communicate directly with Barbara, drop her a note at Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.

Late last year Trust Across America-Trust Around the World  published the first in a planned series of award-winning books. The book, TRUST INC. Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset brings together the wisdom of 32 experts and is divided into six chapters:

1. Why Trust Matters- read our blog of July 18 to find out Why Trust Matters
2. Trust in Practice- read our blog of July 18 for Trust in Practice from Apple to Africa
3. Trustworthy Leadership- read our blog of July 19 for Secrets of Trustworthy Leadership
4. Building Trustworthy Teams- read our blog of July 20 for five great strategies
5. Restoring Trust- read our blog of July 21
6. A New Paradigm for Organizational Trust (today’s post)

Over a six day period, our blog has highlighted each chapter. Every strategy stands alone as an excellent resource in helping leaders understand why trust matters, and provides tools for those who choose to implement trust building programs in their organization. Today we complete our six day review.

“Brave Leadership Builds Trust in the New World” according to Ben Boyd at Edelman.

Organizations must change the way in which they engage stakeholders; they must commit to inclusive management. This management style is not a linear process, but rather dynamic, continual and evolutionary in nature. Leaders need to do more than just pay attention; they must engage all of their stakeholders 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in an authentic way. Only then can they succeed in such a transparent environment. To reach this goal, leaders must embrace inclusive management by committing to four actions: vision + share, enlist, adapt and act.

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Eric Lowitt tells us “Why Trust is Our Future’s Most Vital Resource”

Can we reasonably expect that the public sector will provide global, let alone federal, leadership to address our global challenges: water, energy, food, infrastructure, healthcare, or climate change? In the U.S. there’s this belief that we as citizens pay 40 percent of our income and deserve 100 percent return on investment from our government. We believe our taxes will provide blanket services to all our needs. It doesn’t work this way.

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Philip Mirvis envisions a shift “From CSR to Corporate Social Innovation”

Companies can continue to move forward incrementally, dotting the “i’s” and crossing the “t’s”, and the practices of CSR will become more or less “routinized” into business.  However, this routinization process has been studied by many scholars who conclude that it is a recipe for decay. Don Sull, in his investigations of “Why Good Businesses Go Bad,” attributes their decline to “active inertia.”  In other words, they just “keep on keeping on,” insensitive to changes in the business context.  And Jim Collins, in his new book How the Mighty Fall describes the implications as a “capitulation to irrelevance.”  Is this where CSR is headed?

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Steven Pyser shares his views on “Capitalism and High Trust: Leveraging Social Worlds as Intangible Assets”

We teetered on the abyss of financial collapse during the economic crisis of 2008. Transforming capitalism and global economies currently operating in default non-trusting communication modes to ones driven by trustworthy business dialogue and behavior will not happen overnight. It will likely take time for the pendulum of greed and untrustworthy misdeeds to swing toward positive and sustainable change. Until then, moneyed interests will continue to seek short-term gains. Building a culture of high trust by leveraging the “right” conversations as intangible assets is the antiseptic and new structure global capitalism requires.

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And finally, my friend Robert Easton at Accenture has some concluding thoughts on “Creating a Positive Deviance of Trust.”

What if we were to think more constructively than mere functionality of trust and trustworthiness – in other words, positive trust? This concept does not simply connote the absence of distrust, or merely the presence of a normal state of trust; rather, it focuses on creating a positive deviance of trust- a force for helping people, corporations and societies to thrive.  Yes, where distrust is prevalent we have to return to normal functioning- to a state where people feel safe at home, at work and in their communities.  But in a paradigm of positive trust, a mere normal level of functioning is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for trust to catalyze social change.  We must encourage leaders to view trust as more than just an instrument to improve corporate profit and organizational accomplishments to one of fundamentally increasing the total positivity of the organization. What will it take?

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I hope you have enjoyed this six day sneak peak into the trust treasures contained in our book. Did I mention that the book has won both a Nautilus Business Book and Eric Hoffer Grand Prize Award for Best Business Book? If this brief look behind the door has been helpful, follow this link to order the book online.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

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If you would like to communicate directly with Barbara, drop her a note at Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.