Trust Across America-Trust Around the World™

If a brand genuinely wants to make a social contribution, it should start with who they are, not what they do. For only when a brand has defined itself and its core values can it identify causes or social responsibility initiatives that are in alignment with its authentic brand story. Simon Mainwaring

We know that trust is built in incremental steps via a holistic approach that begins with leadership voluntarily choosing to make trust a business imperative. In other words, trust and trustworthiness become core values. Many companies, however, choose to view trust through the narrow lens of corporate social responsibility. They measure their good citizenship according to the number of boxes they check on the various independent surveys and standards of “proper behavior,” and then they use the awards and rewards in their messaging to their stakeholders. Sadly a good percentage of these programs in no way reflect the overall health of the company, and fall very short on gauging the trustworthiness of the organization. One need only look at some of the corporate names that rise to the top of annual “Best of CSR” lists to reach the same conclusion.

Over the past ten years much has been written and debated about corporate social responsibility programs and check the box practices:

2005 The Myth of CSR 

Corporate Social Responsibility A Study of Key Features, Benefits, Criticism and the Various Initiatives.

CSR, The Dangers of Doing the Right Thing

Corporate Social Responsibility: An Overview

At Trust Across America-Trust Around the World, we have been tracking the trustworthiness of almost 2500 public companies over the past five years using our proprietary FACTS Framework. In reviewing the data, what’s often clear is that many of the companies using CSR success as the gold standard of good business are falling far short in other areas of corporate health. Let’s not forget that Enron claimed to have one of the best CSR programs.

Where does CSR end and moral responsibility begin? Does CSR distract the public from asking deeper ethical questions. Does it similarly distract Boards of Directors and C-Suites?

Many claim that any corporate program that “betters” society is good, but not everyone agrees on what is “better” or good. We argue that the betterment of society is not enough. Core values hold the key.

It would behoove leadership to look deeper into trust as a holistic business imperative. Exercising does not ensure good health. Eating well, lowering stress and getting enough sleep are just as important.

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.

Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game. ~ Tony Allesandra

Who remembers Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the Telephone Operator from Saturday Night Live?

This past July I wrote a blog post called Sorry, Our Policy Doesn’t Permit It  that attracted lots of attention and followup notes. Today I have another customer service blunder courtesy of our local phone company.

Until this week I had not paid the bill for our office phone service for three months, simply because the online “Pay” button on the company website had disappeared and I had spent too much time looking for it.  The bill was now over $150.00, so it was time to make that dreaded customer service call. After pressing lots of buttons and codes, I was connected to “Jason” who quickly assessed the issue and advised me that I was connected to the wrong department.  He could not solve the “Pay” button problem but COULD take the payment over the phone, with a service charge of $4.00. When I told him I wasn’t interested in paying the service charge, but wanted to offer a suggestion, his response was simply “I don’t want to hear your suggestion as this call is being recorded. All I want to do now is transfer the call.” I told him that the recording of the call was all the more reason for me to make the suggestion, hoping that maybe someone would actually hear it! Every “Jason” should be given an $8.00/day discretionary allowance to accept a phone payment without the service charge. After all, what company wants to forego $150.00 to save $4.00?

Why is it so difficult for companies to provide excellent customer service? Is it poor leadership, low priority, too many policies, poor training, low pay, or all of the above? Why should I believe that this company cares about me as a customer? Why should I want to continue to do business with them? Why should I even care when apparently they don’t?

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.

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.

“One can’t assume that trust accrues automatically through the mere passage of time. It grows through incremental steps and deliberate actions.” Charles H. Green, Trusted Advisor Associates

This quote will appear on the cover of the third book in our award-winning TRUST INC. series. The book, TRUST INC., 52 Weeks of Activities and Inspirations for Building Workplace Trust will be published in November 2014 as an inspirational holiday gift.

Stephen M.R. Covey speaks frequently about the 5 Waves (Incremental Steps) of Trust:

WAVE 1: Self Trust (personal credibility)

WAVE 2: Relationship Trust (behavior with others)

WAVE 3: Stakeholder Trust (alignment with internal stakeholders)

WAVE 4: Market Trust (external reputation)

WAVE 5: Societal Trust ( global citizenship- social consciousness, corporate citizenship, and corporate social responsibility.)

Organizations cannot effectively build Wave 5 until the first 4 are constructed. Imagine waking up in the morning and putting your shoes on first. Yet that’s exactly what many organizations have done.

Said another way, building organizational trust cannot be accomplished via an a-la- carte menu. Choosing to start building trust at Wave 4 or 5, with the intent of using it as a short-term promotional or communications tool, rather than a long-term, ground up, incremental trust strategy is a bad choice. Planning and executing a corporate citizenship or corporate social responsibility program without first mastering self trust, relationship trust, stakeholder trust and market trust eventually backfires. And when the crisis strikes, the weak trust foundation crumbles. We see evidence of this almost daily. Some of the biggest names in CSR also happen to be some of the greatest trust & ethics violators. Just pick up the newspaper on any given day. In this age of increasing transparency, these organizations are fooling no one but themselves.

So my advice today to all organizations, but particularly corporate America, get dressed before you put on your shoes.

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 ninth essay in our series brings advice from Professor David Grayson CBE, Director the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility, Cranfield School of Management, UK. Professor Grayson was named a 2014 Top Thought Leader in 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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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. 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.

Are we moving into a new age of “transparency” in corporate America?

Let’s review a bit of history.

The term “corporate responsibility” has enjoyed a shelf-life of over 50 years, since the 1960s to be exact. Some argue that CSR is merely window-dressing, or an attempt to pre-empt the role of governments as a watchdog over powerful multinational corporations (Wikipedia) and it’s hard to believe that almost thirty years have passed since “greenwashing”  came into vogue in a big way.

The term greenwashing was coined by New York environmentalist Jay Westervelt in a 1986 essay regarding the hotel industry‘s practice of placing placards in each room promoting reuse of towels ostensibly to “save the environment.” Westervelt noted that, in most cases, little or no effort toward reducing energy waste was being made by these institutions—as evidenced by the lack of cost reduction this practice effected. (Wikipedia)

Now we’re staring to not only hear but also see a new “trend” in corporate communications. It sort of sounds like transparency via the social networks but it’s disingenuous. It lacks the right “feel.” Here’s a few recent Tweets that caught my attention.

Here are a few basic tips for storing and prepping vegetables & melons monsantoblog.com/2014/05/27/keeping-your-salad-safe-and-tasty-proper-care-of-your-salad-ingredients/ … #nationalsaladmonth

AmeriHealth NJ @AmeriHealthNJ · 18h

#Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. A #healthybreakfast can help you stay focused all day! #Good4U bit.ly/1csnKRk 

General Motors @GM · May 19

Last year, GM saved $162 million in combined energy costs at an industry-leading total of 63 facilities worldwide. #sustainability #CSR

Are you seeing the same pattern that I see?

Let’s talk about vegetables, breakfast and energy costs instead of  Roundup, escalating insurance premiums and culture change.

Are companies genuinely interested in being more transparent, or have they found a new “short-term thinking” PR loophole via social media? My guess is the stumbling block lies with the legal and compliance folks, whose focus on what’s legal always seems to trump what’s right. But in reality, consumers don’t want to hear about washing vegetables as much as they do about culture, values and authenticity.

That’s the stuff that trust is made of. The rest is just more noise in an increasingly noisy world.

Barbara Kimmel, Executive Director, Trust Across America-Trust Around the World

What do you think? Do you have examples of companies that are using social media in the ways that really matter, the ways that will bring trust back from the sidelines? Email me at barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Trust Inc.

What stops companies from building a culture of authentic long-term trust? As transparency increases, so does the ability of every citizen to look behind the curtain, with the click of a Google search.

I’m not trying to win a popularity contest with this blog post, at least not with corporate America. But hey, ask most C-Suite folks about trust issues in their organization and they won’t hesitate to emphatically tell you they have not a single one.

Last week I attended an event featuring two guest speakers (also sponsors) from large global companies in different industries. At the end of their respective speeches everyone in the audience applauded loudly except for me, and one other attendee. The other attendee “gets” trust like very few others. Based on their professional credentials, it’s understandable. Think nurse or military leader.

What made these speeches so excruciatingly painful?

First the canned, compliance-approved content, and second, the cult-like focus on the corporate responsibility programs of both organizations. While Trust Across America’s FACTS® Framework shows us that no company is perfect, both of the sponsor firms have recently paid massive fines for, let’s (politely) say, ethics violations. Not the first fine for either, and probably not the last, and just a mere “blip” on the quarterly earnings radar. So whom are they kidding? Judging from the applause, the vast majority of the audience.

As transparency increases, so does the ability of every citizen to look behind the curtain, with the click of a Google search.  All it takes is a few minutes and a curious mind. Corporate responsibility is an important component of a trustworthy organization but it’s only one component. I’m not suggesting that companies air their dirty laundry in public. What I am suggesting is that they stop using the corporate responsibility officer as a public relations pawn.  It may work now, but it is a short-term, unsustainable strategy.  When the next ethics “oops” occurs, it may be the one that brings down the house, and nobody is going to care about the organization’s philanthropic efforts.

What if the C-Suite were to lead with a culture of trust by creating a long-term trust-building strategy and sent their CR officer into the field to talk about that instead? What if they discussed the company’s values statement or corporate credo, and how it meets the needs of all their stakeholders?  What’s stopping companies from building their culture around authentic long-term trust? Is it the legal department?

And finally, the cherry on the weekly “trust cake” is contained in this article in which the author suggests that telling the truth undermines trust.

Next week is the start of spring. It’s also my birthday. Maybe the cake will be a bit less stale. Maybe the most popular flavor will change from artificial vanilla-coating to trust.

For more information on building trust in your organization you can read our new book, Trust Inc., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset.

Trust Inc.

How does one say “Thank you” to friends and colleagues who have helped foster trustworthy relationships?

We hope you enjoy our 2014 Weekly Reflections on Organizational Trust, another collaborative effort of the contributors to our new book  Trust Inc., our Alliance of Trustworthy Business Experts, and friends of Trust Across America – Trust Around the World. (Listed alphabetically)

If you are receiving this gift, we know that trust is important to you, and we hope you will share it with your audience.

Thank you to all who have assisted Trust Across America – Trust Around the World in building organizational trust.

May we continue to make progress in 2014.

With much gratitude and trust!

Barbara Brooks Kimmel

PS- This poster prints 11×14.

 2014TrustPoster

Basic human decency- has it disappeared? It certainly seems that way- and perhaps this is why trustworthy business behavior has too.

My holiday wish for all of you is to consider the following professional business practices and share them with your team, every month beginning in January.  Together we can begin to rebuild human decency in 2013 and collectively elevate the level of trust in business. Naïve? – Maybe, but certainly worth a try.

January–  Promises: If you make a promise, keep it.

February– Behavior: Practice what you preach.

March– Accountability: If you say you are going to do something, follow through.

April– Obligations: If you owe someone money, pay them. Don’t hide behind your legal department.

May– Integrity: If you are told something in confidence, don’t betray it.

June– Teamwork: Have your colleague’s back.

July– Respect:  Be on time for the meeting or the phone call.

August– Honor: Your handshake should be worth as much as a written contract.

September– Humility:  Be humble. Don’t brag about how much money you make and all the toys you bought with it.

October– Social Responsibility: Practice good corporate social responsibility regardless of whether a “program” is in place to do it.

November– Selflessness: Think of others before yourself.

December– Trust:  Don’t forget that trustworthy business is not about quarterly earnings and international expansion, but rather about “doing the right thing.”

Barbara Kimmel, Executive Director

Trust Across America

You may direct questions or comments to Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com