Trust Across America-Trust Around the World™

It’s Week #30 of 2016. This latest article is part of a series drawn from our 3rd annual 2016 Trust Poster….now hanging in hundreds of offices around the world. Get yours today!

52 Ideas That You Can Implement to Build Trust

Lea Brovedani offers this week’s advice. Lea is a member of our Trust Alliance.

“If you can’t do something, admit it”

Being honest and authentic has a powerful affect on people you lead. Many leaders are afraid to show they don’t know something because they believe they will be viewed as less authoritative and knowledgeable.  The opposite is true. You are in charge because you have the competency to lead but it doesn’t mean you are expected to have all of the answers. As Kouzes and Posner state, “A leader must model the way”. If you want to have your followers be honest with you, it must start with you being honest with them.

By admitting you don’t have all of the answers and are willing to learn, you allow your team to disclose areas that need to be addressed, and isn’t that a good thing? 

Will you choose to implement this valuable advice in your organization this week? If not, ask yourself “why not?”

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the CEO and Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. Now in its seventh year, the program’s proprietary FACTS® Framework ranks and measures the trustworthiness of over 2000 US public companies on five quantitative indicators of trustworthy business behavior. Barbara is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine.

Copyright 2016, Next Decade, Inc.

It’s Week #26 of 2016. This latest article is part of a series drawn from our 3rd annual 2016 Trust Poster….now hanging in hundreds of offices around the world. Get yours today!

52 Ideas That You Can Implement to Build Trust

Robert Vanourek offers this week’s advice. Bob is both a Top Thought Leader in Trust and a member of our Trust Alliance. Bob has a brand new book out called Leadership Wisdom that I highly recommend.

Have the backs of people who act for what is right.

1. Seek those people out and tell them you appreciate their doing what’s right.
2. Tell your colleagues you appreciate that person who acted for what’s right.
3. Defend people who act for what’s right if they are attacked.
4. Set an example yourself of doing what’s right to encourage others to do so as well.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the CEO and Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. Now in its seventh year, the program’s proprietary FACTS® Framework ranks and measures the trustworthiness of over 2000 US public companies on five quantitative indicators of trustworthy business behavior. Barbara is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine.

Copyright 2016, Next Decade, Inc.

It’s Week #26 of 2016. This latest article is part of a series drawn from our 3rd annual 2016 Trust Poster….now hanging in hundreds of offices around the world. Get yours today!

52 Ideas That You Can Implement to Build Trust

Bart Alexander offers this week’s advice. Bart is both a Top Thought Leader in Trust and a member of our Trust Alliance.

Assume good intentions.

I once worked for a leader whose adage was:  “Screw me once, shame on you, screw me twice, shame on me.”  But do we always know when we’re getting screwed?

We often presume we know the intentions of our co-workers, competitors, advocacy groups, customers, clients, not to mention or friends and family.  Their actions and words both speak loudly to us.

So, how should we react to a rude comment, a put-down in an email, that looking down while I’m speaking to you, or that project that messes up everything I’ve been working on?  Don’t these behaviors signal bad intentions?

We react to other’s actions and words based on our own background and experiences.  But no other person on earth is just like us.  That ‘rude” comment may reflect the straight talk expected in another culture.  The “put-down” may have come from an analytical thinker who was presenting “just the facts.”  Those averted eyes may be a sign of respect.  That project may have been launched without realizing its impact on your work.

Trust depends on honest and authentic conversation, but sometimes we need to put aside our own cultural or style biases and assume good intentions.  We can react to our perceived insult or slight by being open and curious — “What did you mean by that?”  — shared without anger or judgement.  

This approach shines in negotiations.  When we’re open and curious, ask questions and listen, we learn not only the other’s position, but why they hold that position.  Mediators call this moving from position based bargaining — win or lose — to interest based negotiation — finding common interests and win-win solutions.

Of course, sometimes there are intentions and resulting actions that are, indeed, unethical or even evil.  That’s when my old bosses’ advice to watch your back may be necessary.  

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the CEO and Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. Now in its seventh year, the program’s proprietary FACTS® Framework ranks and measures the trustworthiness of over 2000 US public companies on five quantitative indicators of trustworthy business behavior. Barbara is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine.

Copyright 2016, Next Decade, Inc.

It’s Week #25 of 2016. This latest article is part of a series drawn from our 3rd annual 2016 Trust Poster….now hanging in hundreds of offices around the world. Get yours today!

52 Ideas That You Can Implement to Build Trust

Holly Latty-Mann offers this week’s advice. Holly is both a Top Thought Leader in Trust and an active member of our Trust Alliance.

Go public when expressing gratitude;

go private when expressing disappointment.

While cultural differences do exist regarding response to positive public recognition, no company on record has ever lost an employee due to discomfort with public praise. David Sturt (HBR, November, 2015) shared findings that employees in the USA, India, and Mexico tend to revel in it, while those from Australia and the UK enjoy it with less fanfare. When publicly acknowledging the Japanese, Germans, and French, small-scale publicity is more appropriate.   

What about shame-based management via public chastisement? Not all employer humiliation or harassment is illegal as long as the verbal abuse is unrelated to demographics (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity). Perhaps that explains the high prevalence of managers belittling coworkers publicly on job performance, yet across all cultures, such behaviors are shown to compromise trust in management, for which statistical evidence clearly points to a compromised bottom line (bit.ly/1WBOBp6).

A final note:  Company morale goes respectively up or down when a single person is publicly honored or dishonored, and the literature is prolific with studies showing strong positive correlations among morale, productivity, and revenue.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the CEO and Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. Now in its seventh year, the program’s proprietary FACTS® Framework ranks and measures the trustworthiness of over 2000 US public companies on five quantitative indicators of trustworthy business behavior. Barbara is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine.

Copyright 2016, Next Decade, Inc.

It’s Week #19 of 2016. This latest article is part of a series drawn from our 3rd annual 2016 Trust Poster….now hanging in hundreds of offices around the world. Get yours today!

52 Ideas That You Can Implement to Build Trust

Ben Boyd is the President of Global Practices & Sectors and C.E.O. Canada & Latin America at Edelman (he is also a Trust Alliance member) and offers this week’s suggestion:

“Trust must have an active steward within the enterprise who is respected and empowered to challenge assumptions and timelines.”

The value of Trust is clear, with 68% of people saying they chose to buy from trusted companies and 59% willing to recommend companies they trust to friends and colleagues (2016 Edelman Trust Barometer). Building and maintaining trust, however, is becoming increasingly complicated as stakeholder expectations increase and all aspects of company behavior and societal impact are scrutinized and discussed. Edelman sees five fundamental trust-building attributes that must be managed in order to meet those expectations.  These attributes span a broad array of functions within an enterprise; they are: engagement, integrity, purpose, products and operations.

Operationalizing a trust-building effort across these attributes requires an active steward championing the cause and in many trusted organizations, the Chief Communications Officer plays that role.  Convening and collaborating with the executive leadership team to ensure trust is central in every business decision, the CCO supports organizational integrity.  Of course, actively managing the attributes to protect and build trust is everyone’s responsibility with ultimate accountability landing with the CEO. 

Thank you Ben. We hope our readers heed this week’s advice.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the CEO and Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. Now in its seventh year, the program’s proprietary FACTS® Framework ranks and measures the trustworthiness of over 2000 US public companies on five quantitative indicators of trustworthy business behavior. Barbara is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine.

Copyright 2016, Next Decade, Inc.

I am happy to share our 2016 Trust Bibliography update curated by Bob Easton, an Accenture partner and long time friend of Trust Across America. Now at 84 pages, it is perhaps the largest living bibliography of its kind, and a tremendous asset to those who acknowledge trust as an intentional business strategy and competitive advantage.

Thank you Bob for your commitment.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the CEO and Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. Now in its seventh year, the program’s proprietary FACTS® Framework ranks and measures the trustworthiness of over 2000 US public companies on five quantitative indicators of trustworthy business behavior. Barbara is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine.

Copyright 2016, Next Decade, Inc.

It’s Week #17 of 2016. This latest article is part of a series drawn from our 3rd annual 2016 Trust Poster….now hanging in hundreds of offices around the world. Get yours today!

52 Ideas That You Can Implement to Build Trust

Nadine Hack a member of our Trust Alliance  and 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner offers a simple suggestion:

Be inclusive in your decision making

In our ever-more connected world, growing exponentially more so because of social media, people expect to be engaged rather than dictated to. This always has been true: it’s just more obvious now.

So, be open to the possibility you can learn as much from those you lead as they might learn from you. Involve them as early as possible in analyzing information to make truly informed decisions.

Territorial ego-based leadership is the opposite: keep strategies and activities secret, maintain control by keeping everyone else “in their place” and share as little as possible.

Yet, leaders who recognize that even the new intern can have a breakthrough “genius insight” are genuinely secure and do not have to dominate. They also get the best out of their teams.

Thank you Nadine. We hope our readers heed this week’s advice.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the CEO and Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. Now in its seventh year, the program’s proprietary FACTS® Framework ranks and measures the trustworthiness of over 2000 US public companies on five quantitative indicators of trustworthy business behavior. Barbara is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine.

Copyright 2016, Next Decade, Inc.

It’s Week #15 of 2016. This latest article is part of a series drawn from our 3rd annual 2016 Trust Poster….now hanging in hundreds of offices around the world. Get yours today!

52 Ideas That You Can Implement to Build Trust

Charles H. Green a Trust Alliance member and a Trust Across America Lifetime Achievement Award Honoree offers a very simple suggestion:

“Be a role model”

A lot of things in business can be achieved through business cases, behavioral goals, and incentives. 

Trust is not one of those things.

When it comes to trust, we put outsized importance on integrity. A policy violation may be looked at askance, yet be quickly forgiven. A violation of trust, however, is not forgotten.  

In matters of trust, it’s not what you say, it’s what you do.  In no other realm is role-modeling more important. When someone acts in both trustworthy and trusting manners, we trust them.  But when someone says, “trust me,” we automatically become suspicious.  And when a leader doesn’t walk the trust talk, we don’t hesitate to call them hypocrites.

Be the trust you claim to want to see in your organization. Be a role model.

Thank you Charlie. We hope our readers heed this week’s advice.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the CEO and Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. Now in its sixth year, the program’s proprietary FACTS® Framework ranks and measures the trustworthiness of over 2000 US public companies on five quantitative indicators of trustworthy business behavior. Barbara is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine.

Copyright 2016, Next Decade, Inc.

It’s Week #9 of 2016. This is our latest article in a series of  ideas to elevate trust in your organization, drawn from our 3rd annual 2016 Trust Poster….now hanging in hundreds of offices around the world. Get yours today!

52 Ideas That You Can Implement to Build Trust

Bill George one of our 2016 Top Thought Leaders in Trust, and a Lifetime Achievement Award winner offers this:

“Encourage risk-taking and celebrate “good failures” as opportunities to learn and move forward.”

Think of the most challenging moment in your life. Perhaps it was a time when a loved one passed away, or you had a personal health crisis. Whatever it was, it was a period of crisis for you — but also a moment that caused you to reflect deeply on who you are and what is truly important in your life.

Risk-taking helps us bump into these moments. Often, people avoid risks because they fear failure. But, failing doesn’t mean “you’re a failure” unless you allow it to. The best leaders reflect on their mistakes and learn from them. What separates people who learn from their mistakes from people who don’t? It’s all about their mindset.

In my HBS class “Authentic Leadership Development,” one of the survivors of the famous 1972 plane crash speaks about the importance of reframing failure. He shares the metaphor of the oyster pearl. When sand grates against the oyster, its natural reaction is to cover up the irritant to protect itself with a substance called nacre (mother-of-pearl), which eventually forms the pearl itself.

Celebrating “good failures” helps us turn difficult moments into pearls and builds trust. At IBM in the 1960s, an employee made a mistake that cost the company $10 million. When the employee spoke to the CEO, Tom Watson Sr., he expected to be fired. Watson replied, “Are you serious? We just spent $10 million educating you!” Acts like these help your team learn from their mistakes. Even more important, they make others feel comfortable taking risks.

With all of life’s uncertainties, we need to accept what life brings us and to use each experience as an opportunity for personal growth. If we do, we’ll encourage positive risk-taking. As Sven-Goran Eriksson put it, “The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.”

Thank you Bill. We hope our readers heed your advice.

It’s not too late to catch up on our weekly series…..

Week #1 Kouzes & Posner 

Week #2 Bob Vanourek

Week #3 Barbara Kimmel

Week #4 Mark Fernandes

Week #5 Doug Conant

Week #6 Roger Steare

Week #7 Nan Russell

Week #8 Stephen M.R. Covey

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the CEO and Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. Now in its sixth year, the program’s proprietary FACTS® Framework ranks and measures the trustworthiness of over 2000 US public companies on five quantitative indicators of trustworthy business behavior. Barbara is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine.

Copyright 2016, Next Decade, Inc.

Have you ever seen Trusted Advisor Associates Trust Equation? I’ve pulled it directly from their website with permission from Charles H. Green, a Trust Alliance member and one of our Lifetime Achievement Award Winners.

The Trust Equation uses four objective variables to measure trustworthiness. These four variables are best described as: Credibility, Reliability, Intimacy and Self-Orientation.

We combine these variables into the following equation:

TQ stands for Trust Quotient. The Trust Quotient is a number — like your IQ or EQ — that benchmarks your trustworthiness against the four variables.

In my opinion, and maybe Charlie’s too, nothing busts trust faster than a high denominator. All the credibility, reliability and intimacy in the world can’t fix that all too frequent “out of control” self-orientation.

Whether your work is in consulting, sales or any other profession requiring people skills, consider the possibility that the other individuals sitting at the table are familiar with Charlie’s Trust Equation. They are seeking signs of high self-orientation and it may just be the personality trait that kills the deal. Here’s ten signs to look for:

1. Focus on the “I” instead of the “We”
2. Failure to ask (or ask for) questions
3. Interrupting
4. Talking more than listening
5. Lack of transparency
6. Need for recognition
7. Taking all the credit
8. Having a win/lose perspective as opposed to a win/win
9. Bending the truth
10. Making excuses

It’s never too late to lower your self-orientation if it’s impeding your ability to succeed. What do you think?

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the CEO & Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help responsible organizations build trust. She facilitates the world’s largest membership program for those interested in the subject. Barbara also serves as 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 2016, Next Decade, Inc.