Trust Across America-Trust Around the World™

It’s no secret that trust is either completely ignored or taken for granted in most organizations. In fact, usually its a pattern of systemic low trust, followed by a crisis, for the word “trust” to even make its way on to the organization’s radar. And then the wrong question is asked.  How do we “rebuild” trust (even though it never existed)? What a mess.

Why is this? These are the 5 most common excuses for ignoring trust:

1. Boards and C-Suites (in most organizations) have never considered trust as a business imperative or strategy.
2. Organizational trust is mistaken for compliance which is confused with ethics.
3. Organizational trust cannot be regulated. It’s voluntary.
4. When a trust breach occurs, often the punishment doesn’t fit crime so there is little deterrent for repeating the “crime.”
5. Trust is soft and can’t be measured. And that which can’t be measured, can’t be managed.

It’s #5 that perhaps bears the least weight. There are numerous measurements of organizational trust and trustworthiness. Trust Across America-Trust Around the World has aggregated 5 years of data proving the Return on Trust in public companies. Other global trust experts have validated assessment tools measuring the most important indicators of qualitative trust in leaders, teams, employees, etc.

Organizations choosing  to be proactive about trust must turn over the right rock to find the help they need. It doesn’t come from legal, compliance, risk, crisis management, CSR, sustainability, marketing or traditional leadership expertise. The only way to craft a trust-building strategy that “sticks” is by having the right people do it, and those are trust experts, no one else.

Taking trust for granted is like breathing…until the heart attack makes it impossible. Then the victim tries to find the best Band Aid to temporarily stop the disease when it could have been totally avoided. Leaders who choose to be proactive about trust have a huge advantage over their competitors. All the excuses in the world won’t change that.

Have you answered our June “Pulse” on Trust question? Today is the last day to vote. It will take no more than 30 seconds.

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

Did you know we have published 3 books in our award-winning TRUST Inc. series. They are yours when you join our Alliance.

Copyright 2015, Next Decade, Inc.

Earlier this year Dov Seidman, the founder and CEO of LRN, called for a leadership Apology Cease-fire via the NY Times Dealbook. As Dov explained,  “You need to earn back trust and change your behavior in a way that proves, without question, that you mean it.” He was speaking about authentic leadership apologies, containing specific components outlined in the article. That was in February and since then Dov has been searching for examples. He reported on his findings early in September, having identified one authentic apology back in 2008. It came from a political leader.

Last week I wrote about the “apology” offered by Home Depot’s CEO after the latest in a string of corporate data breaches. He must have missed Dov’s apology cease-fire request in February. I suppose the CEO of General Motors  and the CEO of GlaxoSmithKline did too.

The global crisis is not one of trust, but actually one of leadership. Until executives and their respective Boards or advisors learn how to build trust by incorporating it into their DNA and then placing trust on the daily docket, we will continue to hear empty apologies. Yes, culture change takes time, perhaps a year or eighteen months, and since bad behavior rarely gets punished, there is little to no incentive to alter the status quo.

The good news, industry is not destiny. There are many organizations with high trust environments. They are rewarded with increased profitability, more loyal stakeholders and long term enterprise sustainability, among other benefits.  And, most important, by building trust into their DNA, they rarely find themselves having to apologize at all.

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.

The other day I read an interesting article called “Gaining Their Trust” in Human Resource Executive Online.

According to this article,  HR leaders must earn the trust and respect of their C-Suite colleagues and board members.

Something about this doesn’t sound quite right.

Isn’t it the Board and C-Suite’s responsibility to lead with trust and then to extend that trust to not only HR leaders but all leaders?

We wrote about this extensively in our second book, TRUST INC., a Guide for Boards & C-Suites. In fact, 60 experts weighed in with 100 strategies for Boards & C-Suites to lead with trust with internal stakeholders.

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

READ WAVE #2 and #3 CAREFULLY!!!

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.)

The responsibility of gaining trust lies squarely with the Board and C-Suite, whose first priority should be in building relationships and ensuring alignment with their internal stakeholders, not the other way around.

Trust-focused organizations must:

• Have a well-defined mission, corporate credo and strong values
• Hire the “right” people who are aligned with those values
• Lead with trust.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

                                                                                                  Coming Soon!

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

Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.

Late last year Trust Across America-Trust Around the World  published the first in a planned series of award-winning books.  TRUST INC., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset brings together the wisdom of 32 experts. Six months later we released our second book, Trust Inc. A Guide for Boards & C-Suites. In this book, sixty experts have joined forces to offer 100 strategies.

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

This twenty-sixth essay brings advice from Edward Marshall, the President of The Marshall Group, Inc., a Chapel Hill, North Carolina collaborative leadership consulting firm that for 30 years has worked with senior leadership of Fortune 500 businesses to create collaborative leadership cultures that result in high trust and sustainable results. He has led over 150 engagements at companies like Marriott, Microsoft, Philips, and DuPont, work that has won awards and best practice designation. He developed The Collaborative Method(sm), a suite of leadership and culture change services. Edward has two business best-sellers, including Building Trust at the Speed of Change. He is also 2014 Top Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business and members of the Alliance of Trustworthy Business Experts.

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.  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 sixteenth essay marks the midpoint in our series and brings advice from Bob Vanourek, the former CEO of five firms from a start-up to a billion dollar NY stock exchange turnaround. He is the co-author of the award-winning book Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations. He is one of Trust Across America’s Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior and serves on its Steering Committee.  Bob’s website is www.triplecrownleadership.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. 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.  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 fifteenth essay in our series brings advice from Lea Brovedani the President of Sagacity Consulting. Lea’s work focuses on trust through the lens of Emotional and Social Intelligence in business and education. Her book TRUSTED – A Leaders Lesson was published in March 2013. She is a preferred partner with 6 Seconds, a Professional Speaker who travels throughout North America and a master facilitator delivering Train the Trainer programs.

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.

. 

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.

Yesterday’s post…. There’s a Reason Why We Call Them Trustees discussed why being an “absentee landlord” doesn’t work.

The second essay in our series was written by Robert Galford, Managing Partner of the Center for Leading Organizations and a Leadership Fellow in Executive Education at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. He is the co-author of The Trusted Advisor, The Trusted Leader, and Your Leadership Legacy. He is on the Faculty of the National Association of Corporate Directors, and is Chair of the Compensation and Governance Committee on the Board of Directors of Forrester Research. He is also a member of the Alliance of Trustworthy Business Experts (ATBE) and has been named a 2014 Top Thought Leader in Trustworthy Business by Trust Across America-Trust Around the World.

I hope you have enjoyed this next sneak peak into our second book. If this brief look behind the door has been helpful, follow this link to order both of our books 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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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.

We begin our series with advice from David A. Shore, PhD, a former associate dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, and the founding director of Harvard’s Trust Initiative; and his colleague Jona Raasch, CEO, The Governance Institute (TGI), a division of NRC, a member based organization with 1000+ healthcare organization membership.

I hope you have enjoyed this first sneak peak into the trust treasures contained in our second book. If this brief look behind the door has been helpful, follow this link to order both of our books 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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Should you wish to communicate directly with Barbara, drop her a note at Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.