Trust Across America-Trust Around the World™

Donna Boehme recently shared a Wall St. Journal article by Ben DiPietro called I Wouldn’t Trust Us if I Were You.

A survey of 1,000 security and IT executives from around the world found 25% of respondents saying if they were a customer of their organization, they wouldn’t trust their company to store and manage their personal data…The research findings reveal some interesting contradictions between the perception and the reality of data security.

The article goes on to explore the findings from other data security surveys. But it was the comment at the end by Bruce K. that drove the point of today’s blog post home. Bruce writes:

Several years ago when I was working for a large international firm I found that the senior company execs that knew the least about IT were the most confident about their companies security and in many cases these were the companies that had the most porous borders. and data security controls.

Does the same apply to other important yet overlooked factors impacting organizational trust? Employee engagement, innovation, speed of decision making, and most important, profitability? As companies remain “stuck” in quarterly earnings and “compliance only” mentality, are senior execs ignoring the conditions that elevate organizational trust?

Data breaches are just one symptom of a diseased organization. Perhaps the impact of the others is not as deeply felt, but sometimes those are the ones that pose the largest threat to long-term success.

Our Trust Alliance has assembled a basic membership toolkit of organizational trust resources to help leaders in the best organizations get better by building trust into their long-term business strategy. The rest can continue to turn a deaf ear to trust and wait for the next data breach.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She runs the world’s largest membership program for those interested in learning more, and 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.

Should Brian Williams have been fired?

Two recent surveys conducted by the public relations firm of Edelman and the polling firm of Rasmussen Reports place public trust in media at historic lows. Edelman’s most recent global Trust Barometer shows a continuing decline in trust, down from 53% a year ago to 51% in 2015. Rasmussen’s poll of Americans is just slightly better.

The Williams incident is certainly not NBC’s first scandal. In fact, just a few days prior, another NBC debacle was swept under the rug in Washington. And let’s not forget Don Imus, Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, Mitt Romney and Martin Bashir to name just a few in recent years.

Does NBC think that firing Brian Williams is going to reverse this escalating decline of consumer trust in the media? According to NBC News President Deborah Turness, they do. Apparently, Brian has “a responsibility to be truthful and uphold high standards,” while the rest of the organization gets a free “pass.” Turness has had her hands full since joining NBC in 2013. And  for those who may have forgotten who owns the company, it’s Comcast, under the direction of Brian Roberts, another organization with more than just an occasional “oops.” In fact, Frank Eliason, the original “Comcast Cares” guy recently wrote this article about his former employer. If your bill came addressed to “Dear A–Hole would your trust in Comcast increase or decrease?

Can anyone else identify the real culprit here? Call it a lie, an embellishment, a mistake or a conflation, what Brian Williams did was wrong. But should NBC have fired him? Considering Williams is just one mangled car in a bad train wreck, how much responsibility lies with his boss and his or her boss’s boss? After all, aren’t they at least as much to blame as Williams, if not more so?

NBC has a problem with its culture. In fact, the entire industry does. Yet, that goes unmentioned by the people who have the power to change it.  Deborah Turness certainly didn’t mention culture when she fired Williams. And until she, Brian Roberts the remainder of the “C Suite” and the Board of Directors acknowledge their untrustworthy culture and take responsibility for affecting change, the industry will continue to lose the public’s trust. That’s the way trust works.

Brian Williams is just a symptom of a much larger problem. What is stopping the executives at NBC and every other media outlet from taking responsibility and charting a course to fix this systemic disease? The downward spiral of public distrust in media need not continue. Will the industry use the Williams incident as a culture wake-up call, before the public turns its back on it for good? What do you think?

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She runs the world’s largest membership program for those interested in learning more, and 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.

What would happen if the following prerecorded messages were made illegal?

Your call is important to us

Listen as our menu options have changed

We are experiencing unusually high call volume

And instead, a person with just a bit of education and who had a decent command of the English language, answered your call and said the following; “Hello Customer, I’m here to help you. This call will not end until you are satisfied with the outcome.”

How would the customer experience change? What would be the long-term impact on the business? As companies grow larger and their executives get greedier, they consciously choose to substitute good customer service to save money. Profitability wins while “efficiency” and customers lose. This is short-term thinking and it busts trust with those who keep the company in business.

Makes no sense? Of course not.

Think about the calls you have placed to your health insurer, cable company, phone provider, even your doctor’s office. Check out the salaries and bonuses of those at the top of these organizations and then ask yourself how much YOU matter. The business of doing business is to serve customers, not the other way around. Leaders who choose to make their customers a low priority are not worthy of your 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 runs the world’s largest membership program for those interested in learning more, and 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.

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.

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.

According to newly released data from the 2015 Edelman Trust Barometer the world has witnessed “an alarming evaporation of trust across all institutions, reaching the lows of the Great Recession in 2009. Trust in government, business, media and NGOs in the general population is below 50 percent in two-thirds of countries, including the U.S., U.K., Germany and Japan. Informed public respondents are nearly as distrustful, registering trust levels below 50 percent in half of the countries surveyed.”

“There has been a startling decrease in trust across all institutions driven by the unpredictable and unimaginable events of 2014,” said Richard Edelman, president and CEO, Edelman

Many global experts claim that “trust” is the issue of the decade and they may be right. Our society continues to be plagued by breaches of trust in business, government, academia, medicine, sports and the media, to name just a few.  But behind every trust violation is an individual or a team that has allowed it to occur. There is no doubt that low trust comes with hard costs to society and its citizens.

Is There a Silver Lining? Yes indeed. Many thought leaders are placing trust on their daily docket and teaching others through their actions and words.  On January 26 via TRUST! Magazine winter issue, Trust Across America – Trust Around the World will be releasing its 5^th annual Top Thought Leaders in Trust, recognizing approximately 100 global trust researchers, consultants, writers and/or business leaders. Today we announce 15 honorees that have been continuously recognized by our program for their thought leadership over the past five years, and are receiving our Lifetime Achievement Award.

Please join us in congratulating the following outstanding individuals:

Patricia Aburdene

Hank Boerner

Stephen M.R. Covey

Jed Emerson

Leslie Gaines Ross

Robert Galford

Mary Gentile

Bill George

Charles H. Green

Jim Kouzes

Linda Locke

Edward Marshall

Jeffrey Seglin

Frank Sonnenberg

Robert Whipple

Well done ladies and gentlemen!

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.

Did you know that Trust Across America-Trust Around the World is celebrating the 2nd anniversary of the formation of its Alliance of Trustworthy Business Experts? This global group includes corporate executives, consultants and academics from a variety of silos- leadership, innovation, compliance, teams & HR, entrepreneurship, etc. The common thread is a shared interest in elevating levels of trust within organizations.

Our members are prolific writers. Some of them have shared their “best” 2014 suggestions on building organizational trust. If you are doing more than just “talking trust” and actually “walking it,” don’t miss this!

Articles & Blog Posts

Nan Russell offers 5 Tips to Fix Your Broken Communications and Build Trust

Deb Mills-Scofield asks Are You Just a Leader or a Just Leader?

Mark Fernandes shares his thoughts on what it is like Inside the Walls of a Values-Based Leadership Organization

Taina Savolainen on Trust & Innovation Interplay

Barbara Brooks Kimmel’s Most Popular Article of the Year asks the question, What Quote Does Trust the Most Disservice?

Bob Vanourek explores how to Learn to Trust Your Own Judgement

Charles H. Green offers advice on What to Do When Others Abuse Your Trust

Donna Boehme weighs in on GM’s DIY Compliance

Linda Fisher Thornton reminds us that in Building Trust We Must Know What to Weed Out

Lea Brovedani reviews what happens in  Messing Up and Keeping Trust

Books

In 2014:

Trust Across America-Trust Around the World added two new books to it’s award-winning TRUST Inc. book series:

TRUST Inc., a Guide for Boards & C-Suites

TRUST Inc., 52 Weeks of Activities & Inspirations for Building Workplace Trust

Carol Sanford’s The Responsible Entrepreneur: Four Game Changing Archetypes for Founders, Leaders and Impact Investors, is the WINNER of the Best Entrepreneurship Book of 2014 via 800CEOREAD.

Karin Hurt’s Overcoming an Imperfect Boss discusses ways to elevate trust at work.

Bob Whipple wrote Trust in Transition, Navigating Organizational Change

Magazines

Did you know that we released the first issue of our quarterly magazine TRUST! in the fall of 2014? Our next issue will be out at the end of January,

Posters

Finally, we have created a poster for 2015 called Weekly Activities to Increase Organizational Trust. For a small donation, you can download this poster and help build trust in your organization in the coming year.

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.