Trust Across America-Trust Around the World™

Trustworthy businesses are also more profitable. There is simply no reason NOT to implement long-term strategies for increasing organizational trust starting today.

How can your organization elevate its level of trustworthiness?

Hint: It starts with the leader.

#1 Trustworthy leadership – Very simply, a culture of trust cannot exist with an untrustworthy leader. Trustworthy behavior must start at the top and carry down through every manager in an organization.

#2 Transformation – Productivity and execution begin when the CEO creates a set of values and goals that are shared, accepted and adopted by all stakeholders (employees, customers, suppliers, vendors, shareholders, etc.) CEOs should regularly address all stakeholders about the steps being taken to build trustworthy behavior within the organization. Trust should not be confused with compliance, CSR or PR. Being “legal”, having a CSR program or “advertising” your trustworthiness, are not synonymous with being trustworthy.

#3 Tools – There are many trust tools CEOs can use to build trust with their internal and external stakeholders. These run the gamut from metrics and assessments to online surveys. The results may be surprisingly good, or just the opposite. And if they are the latter, and really bad, it’s time to get busy. And maybe time to add a Chief Trust Officer to the C-Suite to oversee the implementation of long-term trust building strategies.

#4 Treatment– The Golden Rule says to “treat others the way you want to be treated.” This certainly holds true for trust. The CEO that extends trust to his or her stakeholders is more likely to have it returned. Trust fundamentally works by a series of reciprocating actions between the truster and the trusted.

#5 Teamwork – Teamwork leads to better decisions and better outcomes. Teams create trust, and trust creates teams. Breaking down silos, and in particular exhibiting trustworthy behavior in the C-Suite, should be on every CEO’s priority list. Teams whose members trust each other escalate both innovation and decision-making.

#6 Talk – Your stakeholders need to know what steps you are taking to build a trustworthy organization. Quarterly numbers are no longer the “be all and end all.” In fact, evidence is mounting that a trustworthy culture and “good numbers” go hand in hand. As mentioned earlier, long-term trustworthy behavior is more profitable – every quarter – than short-term changes that don’t “stick.”

#7 Truth – Truth-telling is at the core of trust. Any CEO who wants to build a trustworthy organization must have an extremely comfortable relationship with the truth. No company is perfect and it’s not necessary to air all the dirty laundry – just don’t lie about it or intentionally mislead. In times of crisis, a habit of truth telling yields particularly good returns. The absence of such habits can be disastrous.

#8 Time – Building a culture of trustworthy business does not happen overnight. It takes time, maybe even years – but not decades. The CEO who invests the time to educate himself or herself about how to build trust with teams and stakeholders — then develops a plan, communicates and implements it – will be rewarded with greater stakeholder trust. When a slip-up occurs, those who “banked” trust will recover faster.

#9 Transparency – Merriam Webster defines “transparent” as visibility or accessibility of information, especially with business practices. Any CEO who thinks he or she can still hide behind a veil of secrecy need only spend a few minutes on social media reading what their stakeholders are saying. In today’s world, transparency is no longer the risk – opacity has become the risk. Transparency must exist inside and outside the company. Communications and social media have roles to play here, but the fundamental is that transparency  builds trust.

#10 Thoughtful – Not all stakeholders need to know the company’s trade secrets, or what the CEO had for dinner. But if your company is serious about increasing trustworthiness, consider engaging all your stakeholders in rich, thoughtful conversations. Don’t approach them as constituencies to be maneuvered, managed or massaged. Instead, view them as vital contributors to a better organization by letting them into the conversation. To be a thoughtful company with a thoughtful strategy, trust the stakeholders to be thoughtful.

These suggestions are among dozens outlined in our award-winning TRUST Inc. book series. For your own personal well-being, and that of your organization, stop talking about trust and do something about 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 and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

Our 2015 Poster, 52 Weeks of Activities to Increase Organizational Trust is available to those who would like to support our work by making a small donation.

Copyright 2015, Next Decade, Inc.

It’s unusual for people to “unsubscribe” from our mailing list so when someone did last week, they were kind enough to leave a note that simply said “Content is not Relevant to My Job.” As often happens, curiosity got the best of me so  I “Googled” the person’s name to find out what kind of job they hold. Turns out it’s a relatively high HR position in a major bank.

Is it a surprise that this person works for a major financial institution? Judging from the actions of many of these companies over the past six years, I would venture a guess that the vast majority of employees in this industry feel the same way as my “unsubscriber.” They have been brainwashed into believing that “compliance” and “trust” are synonymous. Trouble is, they aren’t. Compliance is about staying just to the right side of “what’s legal” whereas trust is completely voluntary. It’s simply about doing right and acting with character, competence and consistency. It’s a “leadership thing,” and it must start at the top.

The best companies know this and they are the most profitable.

We wrote about some of them in the fall issue of TRUST! Magazine. (Scroll to bottom of page)

The rest are hiring more compliance staff and unsubscribing from “trust.” Here’s a list of 119 compliance openings just at JP Morgan. Some people never learn.

Regardless of the industry, is trust relevant to your job? If not, why not?

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.

Our 2015 Poster, 52 Weeks of Activities to Increase Organizational Trust is available to those who would like to support our work by making a small donation.

Copyright 2015, Next Decade, Inc.

Is loneliness at the top a trust buster? You bet. But don’t believe me, just read this Wall Street Journal article and pay particular attention to #3.

We must not forget that our organization’s leaders are humans first and executives second. How can we expect leaders to be trustworthy when rising in the ranks impedes the growth of trust?

I’ve spoken to CEOs who joke about how lonely it is at the top, but I never stopped to think about why. Imagine getting to where you are only to find that you are forced to trust fewer people as more try to take advantage of your position?

If building organizational trust rests squarely on the shoulders of leadership, this Catch 22 must be overcome. Leaders can start by availing themselves of the myriad of resources (many free) to avoid the “loneliness trap” by building organizational trust in incremental steps.

Trust Across America-Trust Around the World has spent six years sourcing trust tools and bringing them together on our website- books, magazines, videos, reports, speakers, and even a master research bibliography. If you are the leader of an organization and feeling the “loneliness at the top” and diminishing trust, please stop by. If you can’t find what you are looking for, drop us a note at barbara@trustacrossamerica.com . We’ll be glad to help (no strings attached.)

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.

Our 2015 Poster, 52 Weeks of Activities to Increase Organizational Trust is available to those who would like to support our work by making a small donation.

Copyright 2015, Next Decade, Inc.

The World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos is in full swing, and as Sebastian Buckup, the Director of the Program’s Development Team reports, the world has lost trust in:

Progress

Markets

Government

Few would disagree, but on closer read, one will not find the word “leadership” mentioned until the discussion on government. I will continue to contend that the world has not lost trust in progress, markets or government, for that matter. The world has lost trust in the leaders who are impeding progress and innovation, fostering inefficiency in markets and placing their governmental “power” before the best interests of the people who elected them.

The world is not facing a crisis of trust, but rather one of untrustworthy leadership. Until the focus shifts from inanimate objects like progress, markets and government to the human beings behind these institutional walls, the global trust crisis will continue unabated.

On Monday, and for the fifth year, Trust Across America-Trust Around the World will be announcing its Top Thought Leaders in Trust, a group of approximately one hundred professionals who collectively hold the key to reversing the cycle of mistrust in all organizations, via the “human” approach.  And while a few are even in attendance this year at Davos, no one individual can change the course of this negative trust trajectory.

Imagine if this Top Thought Leader group convened in Davos (or maybe even somewhere warmer) with the sole intent of tackling the real crisis and building the tools leaders need to put trust back in their organizations. That’s the meeting I want to attend. How about you? How can we make that happen?

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.

Our 2015 Poster, 52 Weeks of Activities to Increase Organizational Trust is available to those who would like to support our work by making a small donation.

Copyright 2015, Next Decade, Inc.

There’s a new game in corporate America, it’s called the “word” game, and it’s simply a smoke screen masking a larger and holistic issue of low trust as illustrated in the following quote:   Words sometimes serve as a smoke screen to obscure the truth, rather than as a searchlight to reveal it. (author unknown) One need only spend a few minutes scrolling through LinkedIn to witness this “new era” word game being played. These are among my favorites:

1. Mindfulness
2. Engagement
3. Culture
4. Autonomy
5. Centricity
6. Disruption
7. Talent
8. Empowerment
9. Wellness
10. Emotional Intelligence

According to those who play this game best, these words represent the path to organizational salvation and success. There’s only one problem. They are wrong and they don’t. Trustworthy organizations cannot exist without a trustworthy leader, and they can’t be built “around” the leader. Instead, he or she must willingly accept the hammer, hit the nails and make sure they are straight. The hammer can’t be delegated to HR or middle management.

Trustworthy leadership “lingo” hasn’t changed. It’s always been and will always be about character, competence and consistency with some generosity thrown in for good measure. Or as we like to say, trustworthy leaders are VIPs: Values, Integrity & Promises kept.

If implemented, some of the “word game” strategies above may provide a temporary bandage for a festering wound, but sooner or later the infection will return.  Organizations run by trustworthy leaders don’t need new age lingo, they just need integrity. Sometimes “old” and proven works best.

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.

Our 2015 Poster, 52 Weeks of Activities to Increase Organizational Trust is available to those who would like to support our work by making a small donation.

Copyright 2015, Next Decade, Inc.

Has CEO compensation destroyed trust in corporate America?

Will the real root cause of the destruction of trust please stand up. While many blame Wall Street and the financial meltdown in 2008, trust began to gasp for air many years earlier. The financial meltdown just added a nail to the coffin.

Trust had a quick descent  in the 1990’s with the explosion of stock option grants and an increased focus on shareholder value. In fact, By 2000, stock options accounted for more than half of total compensation for a typical S&P 500 CEO.

Over the 14-year 1992-2005 time period, the average US S&P 500 company awarded over €1 billion worth of
options to its executives and employees (or €500 billion across all 500 companies). Moreover, the average S&P 500 company transferred through options approximately 25.6% of its total outstanding equity to its executives and employees (Murphy, Jensen and Wruck (2011).

And lest we forget the accounting scandals like Enron, Sarbanes Oxley, pay for performance, options backdating and Dodd Frank, perhaps sealing the fate of trust for good. Unfortunately, regulation is punitive and does little if anything to create value or trust. For those interested in read more about the global history of CEO compensation and it’s impact on trust, this is an excellent paper.

A more recent July NY Times article written by Eduardo Porter called Motivating Corporations to Do Good contains the following:

In 1993, some 20 percent of executive compensation was based on stock, according to Lynn Stout of Cornell Law School. Today, equity accounts for about 60 percent of the remuneration of executives at companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. With so much money tied up in stock options and the like, it is not surprising that executives will do almost anything to give their share price a boost regardless of what costs this might incur after their options have vested. (and regardless of how much trust must be compromised along the way)

And finally, as described in this September article in The Week, written by James Pethokoukis, most US companies and their CEO’s are stuck in the short-term and quarterly earnings mentality, again both killers of trust.

The Silver Lining

In a recent blog post called The Good News About Leadership  Bob Vanourek describes more enlightened versions of capitalism that are emerging and go beyond the “maximize shareholder value” mantra that is becoming increasingly obsolete and discredited. He references this article in McKinsey Insights called Redefining Capitalism.

Have We Yet to See Any Examples Of CEOS Embracing a New Way of Thinking about Trust?

Yes indeed! I wrote about the Top Ten CEO Trust Stories of 2014 in this recent post. It includes examples from enlightened CEOs like Howard Schultz at Starbucks and Capital One’s Richard Fairbank.

Perhaps there is still a ray of hope for trust to make a comeback in corporate America, but it won’t be through increased regulation and mandatory rules. After all, trust is voluntary.  Let’s see what happens in 2015.

Our library of our own award-winning books and many others on building organizational trust can be accessed here and provide a good starting place for learning more about the subject, especially if you are an enlightened CEO, or want to be one.

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.

Copyright 2015, Next Decade, Inc.

There is no doubt that trust is broken in most organizations. If you doubt the validity of this statement, here’s a quick test.

1. Do you look forward to getting up and going to work in the morning? Now ask the person sitting next to you the same question.
2. What was the level of employee turnover in your organization in 2014?
3. Do you like your boss, or does he like himself more? When was the last time he/she spoke TO you instead of AT you?
4. Has trust as a “business imperative” ever been discussed at a staff meeting?
5. Can you list the three most important values in your organization?

Get the picture? The good news…. if leadership hasn’t woken up to the value of trust, appoint yourself as the Chief Trust Officer today, start instilling some trust in your organization, and chances are, you will like your job more by the end of 2015. Your colleagues will thank you and maybe your boss will wake up too! It’s a win/win for all.

Late last year we published the 3rd book in our award-winning TRUST Inc. series. It’s called TRUST Inc. 52 Weeks of Activities and Inspirations to Build Workplace Trust . We also published a year-end companion poster with 52 ways to increase organizational trust, as recommended by some of the world’s leading experts, and members of our Trust Alliance.

The first activity can be completed in less than one hour. It’s called “Listening for Leaders” and was written by Charles H. Green, one of the world’s foremost authorities on trust-based relationships.

This is a brief introduction to the activity:

Objective: Concretely demonstrate to leaders a way of interacting with others that increases influence through empathetic listening.

Requirements: 3 persons, each with a particular “difficult client/colleague” situation.

30 – 40 minutes elapsed time.

Can be done in multiples of three persons, with a strong facilitator

Process overview: The exercise is done in three iterations. Each of the three gets a chance to role-play:

Person A. a difficult client of their own

Person B. an advisor or follower of the difficult client/colleague

Person C. an observer

Each iteration proceeds as:

a. 60 seconds for the “client/colleague” person to describe the situation – out of role character

b. 4 minutes for the role-play – in character

c. 3 minutes debrief, led by the observer

This activity also includes Notes to Facilitators, Debrief Instructions & a Wrap Up.

Interesting idea?  It’s the first of 52. Get the book, print the poster and hang it on your wall. Start your new career as the Chief Trust Officer in your organization today. There’s no reason to wait for the boss to do it. I dare you!

If you need help along the way, visit our website for free resources on building organizational trust. We can even recommend a local expert to visit and share their expertise.

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.

Copyright 2015, Next Decade, Inc.

We all know that startup businesses have high failure rates. Just how high is open to debate but this graphic, showing them by industry, is worth a look. Trust holds the key to long-term business success and profitability, yet it remains the most frequently ignored business strategy. Without trust as a foundational element, the chances for long-term business survival are little to none.

Yesterday someone asked me to enumerate, from a “trust” perspective, ten sure-fire business failure warning signs. I’ll bet several are present in your organization.

1. Trust is taken for granted or viewed as a soft skill. There is no Chief Trust Officer (not to be confused with ethics or compliance. Trust is voluntary while compliance is regulated.)
2. Your corporate credo or core values are nonexistent, or the ones in place are simply “words” tossed up on a website.
3. Goals have yet to be defined, shared or agreed upon. Nor has a course been plotted with a one, three and five-year plan.
4. Leadership is focused on survival and short-term profitability only, instead of a unique corporate value proposition and the customer.
5. The “leader” lacks leadership skills. Worse yet, he is a total jerk and everyone knows it but him.
6. There is not a single woman in sight on the executive leadership team.
7. Everyone is a boss and no one is held accountable, resulting in a lack of consistency and a great deal of finger-pointing.
8. Board members are “Yes men” for the CEO, and “yes” they are all men.
9. There is lots of talk and little action, and everyone is always “very tired” from all the “hard” work.
10. A well-defined hiring strategy has not been implemented resulting in misalignment and inefficient staffing.

How many of these are present in your startup? Each one is an indicator that your business will fail.

We have published a brand-new 2015 poster listing 52 weekly actions you can take to build trust and secure and ensure long-term business success, drawing on expert advice from around the world. A donation of $10.00 (minimum $5.00) might hold the key to your long-term business success. Make the investment for the good of your organization and all your stakeholders. See you in 18 months!

Want to learn more about building organizational trust? Our award-winning 3-book TRUST Inc. series that can be ordered here,

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.

Copyright 2014 Next Decade, Inc.

Last week an acquaintance reported on the ten biggest reputation disasters of 2014-  City of Ferguson, Flight MH370, Ray Rice, Bill Cosby and so on…. The focus remains on the negative under the premise that “bad news sells.” I’m tired of these stories. They serve no purpose other than to attract “eyeballs” and perpetuate negativity. How about you?

Not all is gloom and doom. When I launched Trust Across America-Trust Around the World more than five years ago, one of our objectives was to redirect attention to the “good guys.” There are plenty of them, but their stories continue to get hidden amongst the bad news. The list below is not about philanthropy or CSR. It’s about trustworthy leadership values and their impact on all stakeholders, not just shareholders.

These are….

The Ten Best CEO “Trust” Stories of 2014 (not necessarily in rank order)

#1 David Reiling, CEO at Sunrise Banks Answers the Toughest Questions about What Makes a Trustworthy Leader in our new magazine TRUST!

#2 Starbucks Howard Schultz “Comes Out” on Building Trust, and Why it May Decide the Future of their Organization… and a bit more detail here

#3 Nancy Lyons of Clockwork in Minneapolis Redefines Employee Engagement

#4 Elon Musk at Tesla Shares His Patent Secrets with His Competitors. Read why.

#5 Capital One’s Richard Fairbank Has a People Centered Vision. His company also made our Top 10 Most Trustworthy Company List for 2013.

#6 Trade Joe’s Employees Dance in the Aisles for Autism

#7 Herve Humler Announces Ritz Carlton as First Founding Partner at Impact 2030

#8 Marathon Call at Zappos Shows the Value Tony Hsieh Places on Customer Service

#9 Rick Holley CEO of Plum Creek Timber Gives Back Bonus, Says He Doesn’t Deserve it

#10 When Good Guys Finish First, The Second Coming of Market Basket CEO Arthur T. Demoulas

Let’s celebrate these trustworthy leaders and the companies they run. Let’s work together to continue the “trust trend” in 2015.

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.

Sometimes my friend “Karma” plays the most interesting tricks on me, as she has done this week with this classic corporate “trust tug of war.”

On Monday I wrote a blog post called CEOs “Suck” at Trust.

Soon after, my friend Corey Dubrowa at Starbucks reminded me that not all CEOs are created equal, and shared this recent video of Howard Schultz describing the future of corporations and their trust imperative.

I remain a big supporter of Howard because of his focus on trust. His name has been included among our Top Thought Leaders for several years, and I wrote about him back in 2011 in a CNBC blog called “We Need More People Like Howard Schultz”

And then this morning, Karma came knockin’ with an article in my inbox called Corporate Governance Issues for 2015 written by another acquaintance Holly Gregory. It begins with this sentence: “Governance of public corporations continues to move in a more shareholder-centric direction.” Holly describes the push, pull and pressures companies face in meeting the short-term demands of shareholders and long-term value creation.  At the end of Holly’s article she touches on the role of the corporation in rebuilding trust, from a somewhat philosophical perspective.

So which one will it be in 2015? Do we slog through another year of misdirected Boards and CEOs focusing on the short-term needs of shareholders, or will more follow the example being set by Howard Schultz?

I’m hanging my hat with Howard. As has been proven, again and again, the best companies are those with a long-term stakeholder value perspective. They are not sacrificing profitability for trust, in fact, quite the opposite. The business case for trust has been made. Enlightened companies have Boards and CEOs who get that. The rest allow themselves to remain caught in that ever present net of short-termism.

I want to do my part to help reverse this seemingly never-ending cycle of mistrust in business. I will repeat the offer I made on Monday. For the remainder of the month of December, any public company CEO or Board Member who emails me at barbara@trustacrossamerica.com with their name, title and US company address will be sent our complete three-book award-winning TRUST Inc. series at no cost, with no strings.

PS- I am a proud long-term Starbucks shareholder! Keep up the good work Howard.

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.

Copyright 2014 Next Decade, Inc.