Which sounds better? High stress, meaningless relationships, frequent job loss and suspicion OR well-being, great friendships and frequent promotions?

We’ve all heard the expression “Happy Wife, Happy Life” but how about “High Trust, It’s a Must” or “Low Trust Go Bust!.” I contend that being trustworthy will not only make you happy, but wealthier in many ways than you are today.

What do we mean by being trustworthy? Let’s use this very simple definition.

Act with integrity and always keep your word.

First, let’s talk about the inherent risks of being untrustworthy: 

It takes more time and  psychological energy than it’s trustworthy counterpart and results in:

• High stress
• Low energy
• Frequent job loss
• Meaningless relationships
• Low levels of creativity
• High levels of suspicion among friends, family and coworkers
• High barriers to communication due to lack of honesty and broken promises
• Poor and slow decision making
• High transaction costs
• Win/lose situations

On the flip side, here are ten great reasons to be trustworthy:

• Psychological well-being
• Meaningful friendships and business relationships
• Faster, more efficient decision making
• Greater personal effectiveness in groups
• Greater support for your decisions
• Career promotions
• Win/win opportunities
• Role modeling trustworthy behavior
• More time for creativity and relaxation
• More money in your pocket (people want to do business with those they trust)

Be trustworthy. The benefits are far greater than the alternative. What do you think? Leave a comment.

Barbara Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World and the “Tribal Chief” of the growing Alliance of Trustworthy Business Experts. She is also the editor of the award-winning crowd sourced book series TRUST INC. In 2012, Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Who Are Changing the World.”

2013 represented a pivotal year for our program.

Perhaps we have finally pushed the proverbial trust “boulder” to the top of the hill!

Highlights from the first year of our Campaign for Trust included:

Changing our name to Trust Across America – Trust Around the World, reflecting our global membership and presence.

Initiating the following programs:

• Launched our Alliance and issued our first press release
• Published the first 2 editions of the Directory of Trustworthy Business Experts
• Filmed the first round of our Trust Talks Video Series
• Initiatied our Series of Building Trust Reports
• Crowd-sourced the Building Trust in Community Leadership Report
• Brought our Alliance Members together to create Trust Workshops
• Announced the first round of our Case for Trust Challenge
• Held two Trust Breakfast Roundtables in NYC at the CFA Institute and Edelman
• Published our Trust Bibliography
• Published  Trust Inc., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset

What’s coming up in January?

We started the year with a great writeup in Investor’s Daily

We will announce our 2014  4th Annual Top 1oo Thought Leaders on Jan 14

We will be holding a planning retreat on Jan 17 (more info following meeting)

Let’s make 2014 the Year of Convening and Collaborating!

Suggestions, comments or questions?

Please contact me, Barbara Kimmel, Executive Director barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

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

Has the time come for a

Revolution

                             in Leadership?

Become a Trust “VIP”

Values– define and communicate your values

Integrity- be honest and moral in your relationships

Promises- be accountable and deliver on all promises, small or large

VALUES          INTEGRITY         PROMISES

Come join us as we make 2014 the year of Trustworthy Leadership.

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

Editor: Trust Inc. Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset

Trust Inc.

Collaboration leads to better decision-making, and by working together, people can achieve extraordinary things.

On a personal level, collaboration:

• Improves communication skills
• Stimulates critical thinking
• Enhances self esteem
• Builds confidence
• Motivates individuals to take risks
• Builds self-control
• Allows for evaluation of personal values and goals
• Builds empathy
• Teaches to listen with respect
• Develops conflict resolution skills

As a group, collaboration:

• Increases productivity
• Speeds up decision-making
• Encourages creativity
• Simplifies workflows
• Pools skills and resources
• Fosters diversity
• Increases profitability
• Brings balance to decision-making
• Encourages win/win situations
• And most importantly, builds trust

So the next time someone asks you to collaborate, perhaps you won’t need to ask “What’s in it for me?”

How do you normally respond when someone asks you to collaborate?

I don’t eat cookies, except for Mallomars. I love Mallomars. They take me back to my childhood. I ceremoniusly pull off the tops and eat the cookie separately. I wait for Mallomar Week every year and then I indulge in a box (or even two)!

So when I walked into our local chain supermarket earlier today with one of my teenage sons (he also has the Mallomar excitement gene) and we were greeted with an ENORMOUS display of Mallomars, we high-fived each other and added two boxes to the shopping cart (at $1.99 a carton). And then we read the fine print. “Sale is in effect for 4 days from September 11 through September 15 (today is September 8).  And my son said, “That’s deceptive advertising” just as one of the store managers walked past, and he must have heard the comment.

He politely asked if he could help and I explained the issue to him. At first he “pretended” (I’ll tell you why I chose that word in the next paragraph) not to understand until I pointed out that anyone who bought the cookies between now and  September 11 would not do so at the advertised price. And not only did he agree, but he immediately removed the signs; and my son and I felt like we had all won (including the store manager for doing the right thing) and we had all done a good deed for the shoppers who would have mistakenly paid full price before the sale date.

And then we went shopping, discussing how people can, and do act with integrity and will admit their mistakes…until I realized that I had forgotten the tomatoes, which were on display next to the Mallomars, where the signs had been put right back up, as soon as we walked away.

And that, my friends, is today’s story about trust, or lack thereof. And when I finally do buy that box (or two) on Wednesday, I bet they won’t taste quite as good as in the past. The bitter taste of today’s experience may linger for a while.

Shame on all the companies that try to “put one over on their customers.” Remember, without your customers, you have no business.

ALLIANCE OF TRUSTWORTHY BUSINESS EXPERTS: OUR FIRST FIVE INITIATIVES

We are pleased to announce the formation of our Alliance Steering Committee and five initiative task forces. 

1. Community Ambassadors: Increasing the Global Dialogue on Organizational Trust

2. Trust Talks™: Delivering Expert Content, Speakers and Panels on the Topic of Organizational Trust

3. The Trust Project™: Constructing a Framework and Master Database for Trust: A General Framework with Customized Components for Specific Organizational Needs

4. Making the Case for Trust: Proving the Correlation Between Trustworthy Behavior & Organizational Leadership Success

5.Generational and Cultural Trust: Exploring Generational and Cultural Trust Synergies and Differences

For additional information: Barbara Kimmel, Executive Director, Trust Across America – Trust Around the World

and visit our Alliance to learn more.

Email: Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

1. Our name changes to Trust Across America – Trust Around the World, reflecting our global expertise and program reach
2. Our membership expands to almost 20 countries
   
3. Our Alliance members organize into task forces to tackle five early initiatives in our Campaign for Trust
4. 46,000+ page views in May! Organizational trust is a global concern and a popular subject
5. Our book, Trust Inc.: Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset is now available for preorder 
   
6. Construction of a master Framework of Organizational Trust (for use in any organization regardless of size) is underway
7. Trust Talks™ launches: Delivering speakers and panels for worldwide events
8. Trustworthy businesses continue to outperform their less trustworthy peers bit.ly/111ZtjV
9. Community Ambassadors to our Alliance are joining us from around the world
10. A Google search of the term “trustworthy business” returns the first 4 listings to us!

Collaboration is a powerful tool, especially in addressing and advancing a global issue like trust!

For more information, please contact Barbara Kimmel, Executive Director, Trust Across America – Trust Around the World

Email: mailto:Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Who is tweeting on trustworthy business? Here are just some of the “Best of the Best!”

Patricia Aburdene   @paburdene

Randy Conley  @RandyConley

Kellie Cummings @Kellcummings

Charles Feltman @CharlesFeltman

Linda Fisher Thornton @leadingincontxt

Robert  Galford  @RobertGalford

Bahar  Gidwani @CSRHub

Charlie Green @CharlesHGreen

Jim  Gregory @CoreBrand

Parveen  Gupta @ParveenPGupta

Nadine  Hack  @NadineHack

Stewart  Hirsch @Stewartmhirsch

Michael  Hopkins @mjdhopkins

Noreen Kelly @NoreenJKelly

Kimmel, Barbara @BarbaraKimmel

Jim  Kouzes  @Jim_Kouzes

Deb Krizmanich  @Powernoodle

Mike Krzus @mikekrzus

Par Larshans   @PLarshans

Greg Link  @CoveyLink

Linda Locke  @Reputationista

Eric Lowitt  @ericlowitt

Elsie Maio  @Soulbrand

Jon Mertz @thindifference

Deb Mills-Scofield @dscofield

Carol Sanford  @carolsanford

Omer Soker @OmerSoker

Frank Sonnenberg @FSonnenberg

Roger Steare @RogerSteare

Davia Temin @DaviaTemin

Robert Vanourek @BobVanourek

Bob Whipple @Rwhipple

Who should be added to this list. Drop me a note and let me know. barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Barbara Kimmel, Executive Director, Trust Across America

www.trustacrossamerica.com- Leaders in information, standards and data, and the “Who’s Who of Trustworthy Business”

Once upon a time, in the land of gardens, also known as New Jersey, a somewhat small “Jersey Girl” named Barbara (Barb to her good friends) had a rather tall vision to change the world, or at least the conversation.  Barb believed that if she could increase the dialogue around trust, particularly in business, it would spring eternal- similar to Jersey’s blueberries- and the trust crisis would subside.

And so Barb began to knock on the doors of corporate America (and businesses in lands far away) to politely inquire about trustworthy business practices. Oddly, the response was not what she expected to hear. “We are big business. We are trustworthy. We are beating our quarterly earnings and expanding globally. We give to charities. The trust crisis is not out problem. You are just one person named Barb from NJ. Go away with your “soft words.”  Go knock somewhere else.”

And so she did because Barb had changed her middle name from Jane to “Tenacity” right around the same time that she turned 39 for the third year in a row. She knocked and knocked and did not give up until the right people started to listen-and even offered to help. And then she came up with an idea- if one rather small woman from NJ could get some “trust lovin’”, imagine how much 100 men and women, or 1000, or even a million could attract? And so she started a movement- A Campaign for Trust, and she invited everyone who didn’t slam the door to join her-  (except the mainstream media because they are still stuck on bad news)!

And in a few months, eyebrows around the world began to “raise” as did the roster of alliance members, almost 200 from 13 countries and counting. Men and women from academia, consulting, the “alternative” media, and even a few from “big business” (including some CEO’s) signed up to help. They weren’t exactly sure what “signing up” meant, but they trusted Barb enough to know they wanted to be part of this particular movement- because without trust, what else really matters?

Do you want to be part of the problem or part of the solution? Do you want to learn more about what Barb and the band of “trustnicks” are up to?

Read more about our alliance here.

trustacrossamerica.com/cgi-bin/alliance.cgi

PS- Barb’s teenage son cautions about trying to be funny about trust. It’s a serious subject. Barb disagrees. She thinks trust can be funny and fun, and serious too! What do you think? Email her at barbara@trustacrossamerica.com