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.

Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.—

Adam Smith

Yesterday I was speaking with a friend who recently changed jobs and is now employed by a public company.  We were discussing how the new firm requires more dotting of i’s and crossing of t’s in justifying business expenses.  I immediately pictured Oz behind the curtain saying something to the effect of “Prove to me that all your expenses are justified,” and then I envisioned all the layers of bureaucracy (and payroll expenses) that feed this “control” process monster screaming, “We can’t trust you to do the right thing because our regulations don’t allow us to.”

And then today, another acquaintance wrote a piece on LinkedIn Pulse called Smart Compliance Doesn’t Require Mega-$ or Armies of People. I was excited when I first read the article’s title, but that quickly faded. Imagine having 10% of your employees dedicated to compliance? The author makes the argument that financial firms in particular need  “Smart, integrated compliance, risk and reputation management that creates organizational resilience and sustainable success.”

Taking this argument one step further, even in financial institutions, integrated compliance, risk and reputation management costs will be even lower when organizational trust is high. It may not be regulated, but that doesn’t make trust soft. In fact, quite the opposite. As we have recently shown in our new magazine TRUST!, industry is not destiny, even in financial services. What if we surveyed the financial institutions mentioned in this magazine issue to determine what percentage of their employees are dedicated to compliance, and how much their employees feel bogged down by bureaucracy? The business case for trust has already been made and I’ll bet the survey would further support it.

Good luck to those firms who are bogged down by bureaucracy and compliance. They are spending their money in all the wrong places. What do you think? If you work in compliance, risk or reputation management, please weigh in.

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.

When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality. 

Joe Paterno

Today I am excited to be one of the first to share a brand new research study from the Chartered Management Institute titled The Moral DNA of Performance and co-authored by one of our trust alliance members in the UK, Roger Steare. This is a fascinating report that further supports our business case for trust & ethics and concludes with the following:

Trust is an essential agent of social development and organizational sustainability. Robert Easton, Accenture

(from Trust Across America’s Weekly Reflections on Trust 2014)

Organizational Trust this Week is a new weekly feature that we began to write in October. We review the “trust news” of the week and report on the “Good,” the “Bad” and the “Ugly.” Each story contains a trust component and at least one lesson for organizations seeking to make trust a business imperative.

THE GOOD

Industry is NOT destiny, even in financial services. Our brand new magazine TRUST! tells the stories of the “good guys” who have built trust into the DNA of their organizations.

We often overlook the importance of testimonials, but in reality, they are a great way to build trust. Read more here.

Should business have a social purpose and what should be the role of trust? Includes an interesting graph!

And along the same theme of social purpose, short-termism and trust don’t make great bedfellows according to the CEO of Nestle.

THE BAD

What are the Best Five Ways to Break a Consumer’s Trust in a Brand?

Long-term trust cannot be built based on quarterly performance. Was Sanofi’s CEO Fired for the Right Reasons or Was He Just Having a Bad Quarter? 

Americans Report Declining Trust in Banks, but once you start reading the fine print, the headline is a bit misleading.

THE UGLY

The folks at Motley Fool put an interesting but not surprising twist on trust this week. If it doesn’t effect EPS, why should the public care?

OUR MOST POPULAR POST THIS WEEK

And finally, Trust Across America-Trust Around the World’s most popular post on LinkedIn Pulse this week. With trust industry is never destiny.

Send us your stories for consideration in future editions of Organizational Trust this Week: barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series 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.

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls. ~George Carlin

Today is Halloween, the second most lucrative holiday after Christmas, with Americans spending over $6 billion annually on costumes and candy.

Did you ever wonder about the origin of the phrase “trick or treat?” I hadn’t until today. For example, did you know that Halloween may have its roots in an ancient Celtic festival call Samhain? This article has all sorts of interesting facts about the holiday.

And if that doesn’t satisfy your appetite, you might want to read this one where the debate between who “owns” Halloween, the Celts or the Christians is explored in (maybe too much) depth.

All this information may leave you wondering what this post has to do with trust. In reality, it wasn’t all that easy to find the link, but the CDC will tell you in Halloween Health and Safety Tips.

Enjoy your day. I’ll be participating in a local “ghost walk” this evening to learn about all the haunted buildings in my community.

PS- Happy Birthday Mom!

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.

Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved–  William Jennings Bryan

Early this week we published the inaugural edition of TRUST! Magazine. It features stories of companies and leaders in the financial services industry who are NOT the bad apples we read about daily in the press. These stories contain dozens of best practices that can be emulated and replicated in companies that choose to put trust on their daily docket.

The people who contributed to this magazine are as diverse as the subject of trust itself- Jan Lynn Owen, a California Banking Commissioner, Brad Katsuyama, who’s name you may recall from 60 Minutes, Steven Mandis a former Goldman Sachs investment banker, Bruce Cahan a visiting scholar at Stanford University, Jack Hubbard, a member of our trust alliance, who has spent decades teaching bankers how to be trustworthy, and David Reiling the CEO of Sunrise Banks, to name just a few. These are the people who are leading the movement to change the way business is done. These are the people who not only talk trust but walk it too.

In compiling this magazine, I was reminded again and again that industry is not destiny. Similar to the NFL, the good players have their reputation’s tarnished by a handful of thugs.

Five years ago, Trust Across America-Trust Around the World developed the only holistic, quantitative measurement of the trustworthiness of public companies. We call it our FACTS Framework and we have been carefully tracking individual company and industry performance since then. The “trust trends”, and even the risks we see, are very different than what some of the companies choose to talk about, and what the opinion polls would have you believe. Companies that rise to the top of our model have similar DNA, regardless of their industry. Their thinking is holistic and “long-term” and they crush their competition.

Trust begins with trustworthy leadership at the Board & C-Suite level. We’ve published two award-winning books on the subject with a third out in November. Trust is built over time and in incremental steps. It doesn’t matter what the industry. The steps are the same. If trust is considered a business imperative, it is built into the corporate credo, vision and values, and practiced every day by everyone. It is reinforced at every opportunity.

No company is perfect, but trust ALWAYS begins with the internal actions of leadership. Don’t believe for a minute that industry is destiny. Not yet convinced? Read our magazine and see for yourself.

PS- An early observation based on sales… the majority of buyers are not US based. What does that tell you?

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series 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.

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.

Lay a strong foundation of trust or make a costly fix in the future. You decide.  Barbara Brooks Kimmel

Over time, homes built on weak foundations develop structural issues- cracked walls, crooked floors, leaky roofs. Organizations are no different.

Yesterday I was speaking with someone who holds a senior position in a startup company. I asked him whether trust is being built into the DNA. After he rolled his eyes, he said “the “team” was too busy for that.” I cautioned that the road ahead could be very bumpy and inefficient, and that long-term success was questionable. Then I turned my back and rolled my eyes!

Building trust into the business strategy at the startup stage increases efficiency (more timely, less costly) and is so much easier and less expensive than making the repairs later on.

These are three steps startups can take to build a foundation of trust. We call this our VIP Model (Values, Integrity, Promises Kept).

Vision & Values: Leaders must collaboratively identify what the organization wants to achieve. Why does it exist and what does it stand for? Bring the team together to write a statement of values or a corporate credo. Discuss it weekly. Modify as required. Don’t know where to start? Here’s a sample. We can direct you to other resources as well.

Integrity: Model openness and vulnerability; use transparent decision making; listen carefully; ask for input; don’t bite off more than you can chew; don’t exaggerate or make false claims; communicate and then communicate again.

Promises: What are the goals and intentions for each of your stakeholder groups? What promises can you make and what steps do you need to take to fulfill them? Do not make promises you can’t keep.

Don’t wait to build trust into your organization’s DNA. The stronger the foundation, the lower the likelihood of cracked walls in the future.

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.

A warm smile is the universal language of kindness. William Arthur Ward

There are several frameworks and models of trustworthy leadership. Some describe the “three C’S” of Character, Competence and Consistency, while another substitutes “consistency” for compassion. Randy Conley, the Vice President of Client Services & Trust Practice Leader for The Ken Blanchard Companies, and one of our Alliance members, employs the ABCDs as a model (Able, Believable, Connected, Dependable.) At Trust Across America we like to say that trustworthy leaders are VIPS’s (Values, Integrity and Promises kept.)

Yesterday a colleague shared this Harvard Business Review article discussing the work of behavioral science researchers at Princeton (Amy Cuddy and Susan Fiske) and Lawrence University’s Peter Glick.  Simply, the most influential traits of great leaders are warmth and strength. The difficulty comes in deciding which comes first, and if you are like me, you will be surprised at the findings.

Why are these traits so important? Because they answer two critical questions: “What are this person’s intentions toward me?” and “Is he or she capable of acting on those intentions?” Together, these assessments underlie our emotional and behavioral reactions to other people, groups, and even brands and companies. 

When considering the most important traits of those who lead with trust, which do you think comes first, warmth or strength?

Drop me a note at Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com or leave a comment.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series 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.

Organizational Trust this Week is a new feature beginning with the “Good” and ending with the “Ugly.” Each story contains a trust component and at least one lesson for organizations seeking to make trust a business imperative.

THE GOOD

Industry is NOT destiny, even in financial services. Our new magazine TRUST! tells the stories of the “good guys” who have built trust into the DNA of their organizations.

This article gets right to the heart of trust as a business imperative. Trust: The Must Have for the 21^st Century Leader

Five Ways Elite Teams Must be Lead (including trust & loyalty)

Five Powerful Habits of Extraordinary Leaders (a trusting workplace is key)

THE BAD

The word “expert” has always intrigued me. After all, what is an expert? Why Don’t Americans Trust Experts?

Splitting the Roles of Chairman & CEO are good for companies (and good for trust) so why the resistance?

THE UGLY

Academic fraud is a tough “trust nut” to swallow. Negligence or Worse?

OUR MOST POPULAR POST THIS WEEK

And finally, Trust Across America-Trust Around the World’s most popular post on LinkedIn Pulse this week. One CEOs Advice About Trust

Send us your stories for consideration in future editions of Organizational Trust this Week: barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series 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.