Trust Across America-Trust Around the World™

Trust each other again and again. When the trust level gets high enough, people transcend apparent limits, discovering new and awesome abilities for which they were previously unaware.” –David Armistead

I am excited to share the results of a brand new research study called “Building Workplace Trust” from our  trust alliance members at Interaction Associates.

Leaders: did you know there’s a 60 percent chance your employees don’t trust you much? It’s true, according to brand-new research from Interaction Associates. And this is the case despite the fact that eight in ten workers say they need to trust their bosses in order to be effective on the job.

Just four out of ten workers report they have a high level of trust in their leaders and their organizations. Perhaps even more worrying: one-quarter of employees surveyed say they trust their boss less this year than they did in 2013.

So why is this important? The study demonstrates that companies which enjoy high levels of trust among their employees are two and a half times more likely than those that don’t to enjoy superior revenue growth. High-trust businesses significantly outperform all other organizations in achieving a wide variety of business goals, including customer loyalty and retention; competitive market position; values-driven behavior and actions; predictable business and financial results; and profit growth.

So how do these high-trust, highly successful companies earn the trust of their employees? Those surveyed chose these as the top five actions leaders can take in order to build trust.

1. Ask for input into decisions that affect employees.
2. Give employees background information so they can understand why decisions are being made.
3. Set workers up for success by providing them with learning opportunities and the resources they need.
4. Admit your mistakes.
5. Don’t punish employees for raising issues or concerns: in other words, don’t shoot the messenger.

To complete the research study, Interaction Associates surveyed 500 employees at companies worldwide in a range of job functions and industries.

Thank you for the opportunity to share this with our audience.

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 and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

Nominations are now being accepted for Trust Across America-Trust Around the World’s 5th annual Global Top Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business.

                                                                                                 Coming Soon!

Should you wish to communicate directly with Barbara, drop her a note at Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.

A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity– Dalai Lama

How many of the following ten “trust” danger signs are present in your organization?

1. Passion is missing and so is the boss
2. Bureaucracy is increasing as is the compliance staff
3. Closed doors have become the norm, as well as the conversations behind them
4. Decisions take forever
5. Employees are disengaged and turnover is increasing
6. There is more talk and less listening
7. Nobody ever fails, a sign of little to no innovation
8. Empathy and kindness are rarities
9. Transparency has taken a back seat to secrecy
10. The “giving” has stopped and the day of the “free turkey” is over

The business case for trust  has been made. Beware of the “trust” danger signs and address them before distrust becomes the norm.

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 and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

Nominations are now being accepted for Trust Across America-Trust Around the World’s 5th annual Global Top Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business.

Have you seen our brand new magazine TRUST!

Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.

Successful leadership is not about being tough or soft, sensitive or assertive, but about a set of attributes. First and foremost is character. — Warren Bennis

Ask any group of people whom they trust and the two most common answers will be “parents” and “siblings.” Ask them why and they will talk about longevity, familiarity and shared experiences. Rarely will the answer to the first question be a coworker or a boss.

What makes families unique? Each has its own culture. But if the family culture is corrupt, so are the offspring. The same applies to organizations, regardless of their size, industry or composition.

Someone recently asked me if there were any “quick fixes” for low-trust organizations. My answer was simply “Diseases can’t be cured with Band Aids.” Trust takes time and it is built in incremental steps.

If you lead an organization and want to build trust into its DNA, it all begins (and ends) with you.

Start with an assessment of yourself:

• Are you trustworthy?
• Do you have integrity, character and values?
• Do you share those values with your family?
• Do you instill them in your children?
• Do you take your personal values to work?

Perform an organizational trust audit:

• Have you built trust into your organizational culture with the support of your Board?
• Is it reflected in your statement of values and credo?
• How do you practice it?
• How well do you communicate it?
• Can it outlive you?

Consider your internal stakeholders:

• Do you discuss trust daily?
• Do you encourage feedback?
• Do you share a consistent vision?
• Do you model openness and vulnerability?
• Do you use transparent decision-making?
• Do you ask for input?
• Do you have long-term trust-building goals and execute them well, one by one?
• Do you share every “Wow” moment in your organization?
• Do you communicate, communicate, communicate?

Consider your external stakeholders:

• Have you shared your vision and values in building a trustworthy organization?
• Have you identified the outcome(s) you are seeking?
• Have you defined your intentions for each of our stakeholder groups?
• Have you made promises that you will keep?
• Have you determined the steps you will take to fulfill these promises?

Remember, the fish rots from the head. Every problem in an organization, including low trust, can be traced back to its leadership.

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.

Nominations are now being accepted for Trust Across America-Trust Around the World’s 5th annual Global Top Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business.

                                                                                               Coming Soon!

Should you wish to communicate directly with Barbara, drop her a note at Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
– Albert Einstein

Most leaders gauge their performance on metrics that “matter” to their Board of Directors like earnings growth, expansion, new products, acquisitions, cost savings, etc. But how much better would those KPI’s be if the man (or woman) in the ivory tower lead with trust?

Last week I wrote about The Blinder Effect at the Top. With Gallup’s research showing only 13% of workers as engaged, it’s not hard to conclude that most employees aren’t “feelin’ the love” and KPI’s suffer as a result.

It’s Monday morning. Do you know if you are leading with trust?

Record the following over the course of the week:

• Percentage of employees who arrive to work on time.
• Percentage of employees who call in sick.
• Percentage of employees who leave work early.
• Number of excuses for work not completed.
• Number of fires you need to extinguish.

Also count the number of times you:

• Come down out of your ivory tower and on to the shop floor.
• Ask an employee about their family and kids.
• Praise someone for a job well done or pat them on the back.
• Hold an impromptu celebration or an ice cream party.
• Ask for feedback.

Trustworthy leaders look up, walk around and engage with their employees. Practiced daily, your KPI’s will soar. This is the simple stuff, but it can’t be delegated.  As Nike says “Just do it!”

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.

                                                                                                  Coming Soon!

Should you wish to communicate directly with Barbara, drop her a note at Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.

We must reinvent a future free of blinders so that we can choose from real options. David Suzuki

Question: What role does trust play as a business imperative when senior executives are unable to remove their blinders?

Answer: No role.

On two separate occasions, I posed the following questions to two senior executives at Fortune 500 companies:

Question #1:  How is trust in your organization?

1. Answer from Executive #1: We have no trust issues

2. Answer from Executive #2: We have no trust issues

Question #2: How do you know?

1. Answer from Executive #1: Our revenues are exploding and we are expanding globally.

Note: I call this the “shareholder value” answer.

2. Answer from Executive #2: Weren’t you listening during my speech? Our CSR and philanthropy program is one of the best.

Note: I call this the “corporate window dressing” answer.

Ask almost any C-Suite executive these questions and most likely you will get one of these answers.

Now let’s take a deeper dive

Executive #1 works for one of the largest health insurers in the world. Over 500 employees posted the following comments on Glassdoor.com. Overall, the employees rate the company a 3 out of 5.

• Horrible health benefits (the company is a health insurer)
• Huge cronyism issues
• Tons of corporate politics and red tape
• Poor appraisal process
• High stress
• It paid the bills
• Management by fear
• High turnover rates

Executive #2 works for one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. Let’s see what over 200 employees have to say about their work experience. Overall, the employees rate the company a 3 out of 5.

• We played cards to reduce our workday from 8 to 6 hours
• Employees not allowed to talk to each other
• Too many company meetings and policies
• No decent leadership
• No morale
• Leaders are inept
• Bureaucracy and never ending process

Do these sound like “high trust” companies to you?

The Costs of Low Trust

• Gallup’s research (2013) places 13% percent of workers as engaged (87% disengaged.)

• The disengaged workforce (Gallup, August, 2013) is costing the US economy $450-550 billion a year, which is over 15% of payroll costs.

• According to The Economist Intelligence Unit (2010), 84% of senior leaders say disengaged employees are considered one of the biggest threats facing their business. However, only 12% of them reported doing anything about this problem.

• According to Edelman globally, 50% of consumers trust businesses, but just 18% trust business leadership.

• And finally, in the United States, the statistics are similar, but the story is a bit worse for leadership. While 50% of U.S. consumers trust businesses, just 15% trust business leadership.

Building a trustworthy business will improve a company’s profitability and organizational sustainability.

A growing body of evidence shows increasing correlation between trustworthiness and superior financial performance. Over the past decade, a series of qualitative and quantitative studies have built a strong case for senior business leaders to place building trust among ALL stakeholders (not just shareholders) high on their priority list.

According to Fortune’s  “100 Best Companies to Work For”, based on Great Place to Work Employee Surveys, best companies experience as much as 50% less turnover and Great Workplaces perform more than 2X better than the general market (Source: Russell Investment Group)

Forbes and GMI Ratings have produced the “Most Trustworthy Companies” list for the past six years. They examine over 8,000 firms traded on U.S. stock exchanges using forensic accounting measures, a more limited definition of trustworthy companies than Trust Across America’s FACTS Framework but still somewhat revealing. The conclusions they draw are:

• “… the cost of capital of the most trustworthy companies is lower …”
• “… outperform their peers over the long run …”
• “… their risk of negative events is minimized …”

From Deutsche Bank:

• 85% concurrence on Greater Performance on Accounting –Based Standards (“… studies reveal these types of company’s consistently outperform their rivals on accounting-based criteria.”)

From Global Alliance for Banking on Values, which compared values-based and sustainable banks to their big-bank rivals and found:

• 7% higher Return on Equity for values-based banks (7.1% ROE compared to 6.6% for big banks).
•  51% higher Return On Assets for sustainable banks (.50% average ROA for sustainable banks compared to big bank earning 0.33%)

These studies are bolstered by analyses from dozens of other respected sources including the American Association of Individual Investors, the Dutch University of Maastricht, Erasmus University, and Harvard Business Review.

Do you think the two companies cited about have trust issues? How can we help them remove their blinders? How can we help them move beyond quarterly numbers and corporate window dressing?

As my friend Bob Vanourek likes to say. “Leaders must place trust on their daily docket.”

Business leaders may choose to ignore the business case for trust but the evidence is mounting, not only for the business case but also the financial one.  Trust works.

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.

                                                                                                  Coming Soon!

Should you wish 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.  TRUST INC., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset brings together the wisdom of 32 experts. Six months later we released our second book, Trust Inc. A Guide for Boards & C-Suites. In this book, sixty experts have joined forces to offer 100 strategies.

Throughout the month of August, we will be featuring 31 essays from our second book. Each stands alone as an excellent resource in guiding Boards and C-Suites on driving a trust agenda at the highest level in the organization, and provides tools for those who choose to implement trust-building programs in their organization.

This twenty-fourth essay brings advice from Tom McCoy, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary at CH2M Hill. Tom is also the retired Executive Vice President, Legal Affairs, and Chief Administrative Officer of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., where he served in leadership for 16 years.

Forward-Thinking Boards

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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Should you wish to communicate directly with Barbara, drop her a note at Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.

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

What do pickles, kindness and employee engagement have in common? Read on.

This morning my younger son was packing up to head to Vermont for a few days with a friend and his family. He had just returned from the bagel shop with a Baker’s Dozen and a container of cream cheese to share during the trip. On his way out the door I remembered that last evening I had brewed up our first batch of summer refrigerator pickles from our bounty of organic garden cucumbers. (For those of you who think pickles must be made in a crock and “cooked” for months, there’s a shortcut that actually tastes better and only takes 3 or 4 days. Think “crunchy” and Google “garlic dill refrigerator pickles.)”

I suggested to my son that he take a jar to his host family. His response surprised me. He said he believed one kind gesture (the bag of bagels) was sufficient. I reminded him that you can never do too many nice things for others.

Same applies to leaders in any organization. Who in the C-Suite is tasked with doing the “right” thing and keeping everyone happy, the equivalent of a Chief Kindness Officer? It all starts with the CEO.  How often do you hear about companies doing nice things just because they want to, as opposed to well crafted PR campaigns or corporate window dressing? Some do. Howard Schultz at Starbucks just announced a program to pay college tuition.

According to Gallup, only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. Do you think building kindness into the corporate culture might raise that engagement? Acts of kindness build trust. They make for good business.

I have compiled a short list of the various ways leaders can build trust through deliberate acts of kindness.

• Set long-term goals and establish a benchmark
• Put trust high on the agenda every day
• Create an intentional culture
• Hire the right people who are aligned with that culture (don’t forget to let HR know)
• Communicate openly
• Support advancement
• Catch someone doing something right every day, announce it and reward it
• Tell the truth
• Park your ego at the door and do more listening than talking
• Come down out of your ivory tower and on to the shop floor
• Keep your word
• Offer to buy lunch, bring a jar of pickles, and sit down at the table.

Start today. Set some long-term employee engagement goals and put trust high on the daily agenda. Let me know the outcome.

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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Drop her a note at Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.