Trust Across America-Trust Around the World™

Regardless of the size of the organization, it’s no secret that every “buck” stops on the CEO’s desk and trust is no exception. A CEO who fails to “model” trust cannot build or maintain a sustainable business. So while the following “10 T’s of Trustworthy Leadership” may seem somewhat obvious to you, they may not be to your CEO. Share them the next time your team meets and deliver a copy of this blog to the CEO’s office. If he or she doesn’t thank you for it, you’re probably working for the wrong leader.

#1 Trustworthy- Very simply, a culture of trust cannot exist with an untrustworthy leader. Trustworthy behavior must start at the top and flow down through every manager within the organization. Trust building tools should be incorporated into meetings. Management should reward those who model trust and CEO’s should regularly address all stakeholders about the steps being taken to build trustworthy behavior within the organization.

#2 Tools- and speaking of tools, there are many trust tools that CEO’s can utilize to build trust amongst their internal and external stakeholders. They run the gamut from metrics to assessments and online surveys. The results may be surprisingly good, or just the opposite. And if they are the latter, it’s time to get busy.  Either way, maybe it’s time to add a Chief Trust Officer to the staff. And remember, what can be measured can be managed.

#3 Treatment- The Golden Rule says to “treat others the way you want to be treated” and certainly holds true with trust. The CEO that extends trust to his/her stakeholders is more likely to have it returned.

#4 Teamwork- As we all know, teamwork leads to better decisions and better outcomes. Breaking down the silos to make trustworthy behavior the #1 priority in the C-Suite, should be on every CEO’s “to do” list. Trust should not be confused with compliance. Being “legal” is not the same as being trustworthy.

#5 Talk- Your stakeholders need to know what steps you are taking to build a trustworthy organization. Let’s face facts, quarterly numbers are no longer the “be all and end all,” and the evidence is building that one need not sacrifice “good numbers” for a trustworthy culture. Companies can simultaneously “do good and do well. “ www.trustacrossamerica.com/blog/?p=573

#6 Truth- for goodness sake, any CEO who wants to build a trustworthy organization, must always tell the truth. No company is perfect. It’s not necessary to air all the dirty laundry, just don’t lie about it.

#7 Time- Building a culture of trustworthy business does not happen overnight. It takes time, maybe even years. The CEO who invests the time to educate himself or herself about how to build trust among teams and with stakeholders, develops a plan, communicates and implements it, will be rewarded with greater stakeholder trust. And when the slip up occurs, those who “banked” trust will recover faster.

#8 Transparency- Merriam Webster defines “transparent” as characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business practices. Any CEO who thinks he/or she can still hide behind a veil of secrecy need only spend a few minutes on the social networks reading what stakeholders are saying about his/her company. Why not be proactive? It’s time to stop viewing transparency as a risk.

#9 Thoughtful- that’s not to say that stakeholders must know the company’s trade secrets or what the CEO had for dinner. But the CEO who thinks about building a trustworthy organization, might consider making “trust” more prominent through a well-developed communications strategy. It’s still the rare company that makes trust a priority, so if yours is one of the few that do, why not brag about it? Your stakeholders will thank you for it.

#10 Tweet- If Bill George sees a reason to do it, it’s probably time you did too!

online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444083304578018423363962886.html?mod=rss_Technology

Barbara Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America, the leading source of information, standards and data on trustworthy business.

She is also the self-designated Tribal Chief of The Alliance of Trustworthy Business Experts (#trusttribe)

trustacrossamerica.com/cgi-bin/alliance.cgi

Barbara was recently named one of 25 Women Changing the World 2012

You can follow her on Twitter @BarbaraKimmel and direct comments to

Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

What were the most trustworthy business sectors in 2010? We recently ran this question through our FIDES ™ computer software. We bundled all the companies in our database (almost 3000), sorted by sector and pressed “go!” Here are the top 5 sectors- there are 16 in total:

Basic Materials– lead by Lubrizol (www.lubrizol.com) and Eastman Chemical (www.eastman.com)

Oils-Energy– lead by Hess (www.hess.com)

Utilities– lead by Pinnacle West Capitol Corp. (www.pinnaclewest.com)  and Oge Energy (www.oge.com)

Consumer Staples– lead by Avon Products (www.avoncompany.com)

Auto-Tires-Trucks– lead by Cummins Inc.  (www.cummins.com)

Our data incorporates five key drivers of trustworthy business behavior: Financial stability/strength; Accounting conservativeness: Corporate integrity; Transparency and Sustainability. We call this FACTS (tm).

One of the goals of Trust Across America is for the top trustworthy companies to start sharing best practices with their peers.

Do you have any questions or comments? Email me at barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Earlier today Jordan Kimmel interviewed Bob Eccles on Trust Across America radio. The archived interview will be available in the next 48 hours.

www.voiceamerica.com/voiceamerica/vshow.aspx?sid=1713

Robert G. Eccles first joined the faculty of Harvard Business School in 1979. After receiving tenure, he started doing research on corporate reporting, a topic which remains of great interest to him from a research, managerial practice, and public policy perspective. His book  One Report: Integrated Reporting for a Sustainable Strategy (with Michael P. Krzus) is the first book on this subject. This is the Amazon link.

www.amazon.com/dp/0470587512 tag=trustacrossam20&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0470587512&adid=1AM99F52MSMW1MTA2CMV&

Bob is a member of the Steering Committee of the International Integrated Reporting Committee (www.integratedreporting.org).

Jordan and Bob spent the hour talking about Integrated Reporting and why it is so timely. Highlights from the interview are reproduced below.

What is integrated reporting?

It is a single report produced by a company that combines material financial and nonfinancial data into one document.

Why is integrated reporting gaining in popularity?

Bob highlighted four main reasons:

1. Technology has made it easier for companies to share information with their stakeholders via their website.

2. Sustainability is becoming more mainstream.

3. The recent financial crisis has prompted companies to provide their stakeholders with added transparency.

4.  Companies are becoming more aware of the importance of corporate repuation as an intangible asset.

Who benefits from integrated reporting?

1. Employees

2. Customers

3. NGO’s

4. Investors

5. Society

What are the key challenges in implementing an integrated report?

1. Companies must gather information from many different (and often independent) silos within the organization.

2. Internal measurements of nonfinancial reporting are not well developed.

3. Companies are not always willing to be, or comfortable in being, more transparent.

4. CEO”s must embrace the integrated reporting concept.

5. A lack of clear integrated reporting standards makes auditing difficult.

But the good news is that, over the next year, there will be more examples of public companies issuing integrated reports and more groups will be developing standards and frameworks.

In mid-October a workshop entitled “Workshop on Integrated Reporting: Framework & Next Steps” was held at HBS and sponsored by their Business and Environmental Initiative. This culminated in the release this week of a new e-book on integrated reporting, reflecting the input and efforts of 64 workshop attendees. The Landscape of Integrated Reporting: Reflections and Next Steps is now available at the following link:

www.smashwords.com/books/view/30930

In summary, the development of corporate integrated reporting (IR) standards is potentially one of the great business innovations of the 21st century, and could be pivotal in restoring public trust in business institutions. We are all stakeholders in some way, whether as employees, customers, or investors. As such, we can all play a role in encouraging companies to adopt IR into their culture.

Professor Eccles can be reached for comment at reccles@hbs.edu

or you can direct questions and comments to:

 barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Thank you Professor Eccles and Jordan! Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Barbara Kimmel, Executive Director, Trust Across America

INTERVIEW WITH MARK CHUSSIL FROM ADVANCED COMPETITIVE STRATEGIES (PART I of II)

This week we had Mark Chussil from Advanced Competitive Strategies join us on our radio show. Since he had only begun to share his thoughts on trustworthy business behavior during the show, I decided to ask some follow up questions. Due to the length of this blog, this is Part I. Part II will follow.

Barbara: Mark, tell us a little about your background.

Mark: I am the Founder and CEO of Advanced Competitive Strategies See Website Link, and author of Marvelous Techniques: Essays on Going Beyond Strategy as We’ve Known It Nice Start: Questions Only You Can Answer to Create the Life Only You Can Live

I lecture and consult globally about strategic thinking, business war games, and strategy simulation. My work has appeared in Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. And finally, I earned an MBA at Harvard and a BA at Yale.

Barbara: Why do companies engage in untrustworthy behavior?

Mark: No one gets up in the morning saying “My job today is to screw up the world. If I make people miserable, if I hurt the general well-being, if I damage our civilization in even the slightest way, then I can go to sleep with the satisfaction in a job well done.” Most people want to do good things, but when we work for a company, we are bound, in a keep-my-job way, to “do good” according to the company’s definition of “doing good.” We do what we’re paid to do.

Barbara: On your blog you have an essay called “What You Pay For.”Read Blog PostIs that what you mean?

Mark: Yes. The customer gets what he or she pays for, and companies are our customers when it comes to employment. If the customer, the company, pays you for sales growth, it will get sales growth from you. It may also get profits or innovation or social responsibility, and it may also get shortcuts or bribery or non-compliance with safety regulations, but those are side effects.

Barbara: Presumably a trustworthy company cares about more than just sales growth.

Mark: Yes, a trustworthy company will care about other metrics too, such as impact on the environment, fair treatment of employees, customers, and suppliers, and living up to its word. The point is that compensation programs — what companies pay for — are tremendously important. Perhaps one way to identify trustworthy companies is to find out what they pay for.

Barbara: What else can we look at besides compensation programs?

Mark: Look also at how they work. Kaiser Permanente, the big HMO, is proactively using data on medical tests. Over the last 15 years they identified 450 patients with new or recurring cancers or abnormal biopsies who would not otherwise have been found. I’m one of their customers, and that proaction is one reason why. See “What the Doctor Missed”Read Full Article

Barbara:The Wall Street Journal had an another article on automobile safety. See “What’s Safer A Chevy or Mercedes?”Read Full Article

I think you blogged about it, in “Who Doesn’t Like Airbags?”Read Blog Post. The auto industry has often resisted mandatory safety improvements, even going back to seat belts, as well as fuel-economy standards. Now they compete on safety features and fuel economy. What happened?

Mark: Regulations forced some good behavior, such as publicizing crash-test results so customers would have the information they need to compare car models. Plus, Lee Iacocca, who used to run Chrysler, decided to stop resisting safety improvements and, instead, make safety a selling point. The resulting competition directly benefits customers.

Barbara: Why did Mr. Iacocca do that?

Mark: I don’t know. Did he change his mind because he saw there was money to be made or because he wanted to save people’s lives? Do we care about the answer?

Barbara: Are you saying that it doesn’t matter why a company does good things? What, then, does it mean to be “trustworthy?”

Mark: At one level I don’t care why a company does good things. I want Delta to fly me safely from one place to another. I don’t care if they do it because they’re afraid of punishment if they fail, they don’t want to lose customers (perhaps literally), or they think it’s honorable to keep their customers safe. Does it matter if I give to a charity because I like the charity or because I think the donation will get me into heaven?

Barbara: But the threat of punishment seems to happen when a company has proven itself untrustworthy.

Mark: I agree. We expect “trustworthy” to have some connection to good motives and intentions, not merely following the rules. A company that demonstrates good intentions makes us trust that it will not deceive us or put us at risk. We’re all sadly familiar with the opposite kind of company.

Barbara: So let’s talk about a company’s motives and intentions. Is it reasonable to expect a company to behave well?

Mark: Professors Jay Lorsch and Rakesh Khurana of the Harvard Business School wrote an article called “The Pay Problem.”Read Full Article They say corporations have shifted their focus from “stakeholders” to “shareholders.” Stakeholders can include customers, employees, and society in general; shareholders means just the people who own shares in the company. When we evaluate decisions in terms of effects on stakeholders, we look more broadly than when we think only of shareholders.

Barbara:Mark: I believe it means we have more need of government regulation, and I think that recent events ranging from the financial crisis to the BP oil spill show why. We need rules to ensure that the shareholders-perspective does not go too far. That’s why we have anti-trust laws, the FAA, FDA, and FTC, minimum fuel economy rules, and so on. Those solutions might have been controversial when they were first put in place, but just try to take them away now.

Barbara: You mentioned regulations, which are enforced with fines and other actions. An article in Newsweek, “Do Fines Ever Make Corporations Change” (September 13, 2010), suggested that fines won’t make corporations change because they are tiny relative to the size of the companies. Do we get untrustworthy behavior because fines are too low?

Mark: Perhaps fines are too low, and perhaps inspections are too infrequent or lax. An option might be for fines to go up as a company accumulates offenses, just as insurance companies raise our rates if we get into too many accidents or we face more years in prison for repeated offenses. But those are punishments. We really want to prevent bad behavior, and there are reasons why companies may think it’s profitable to risk take chances.

Barbara: Why?

Mark: One reason is that companies generally don’t quantify the value of their reputations, so they don’t know until it’s too late (and maybe not even then) how much it hurts to have their name dragged through the mud. A second is that human beings underestimate the odds of a bad event; “it won’t happen to us.” A third is that there’s little incentive to be the first one to play fair. Managers can clearly see, or think they see, the costs of playing fair, and it’s harder for them to see the benefits.

Barbara: It’s important to level the playing field or to have vigorous competition.

Mark: I agree. Regulations level the playing field so no one has extra costs. I’ve worked with executives who want stronger regulations so that they can do what they know is right without making themselves uncompetitive. And Lee Iacocca’s move, being the first to embrace safety features, was important because he changed the calculus for the other automakers. They could see the costs of falling behind.

PLEASE READ PART II

TRUST ACROSS AMERICA™ RELEASES FIRST FINDINGS FROM ITS STUDY OF TRUSTWORTHY BUSINESS PRACTICES IN PUBLIC COMPANIES

While there may be a continuing and complex trust crisis in America, our research shows that there is a direct relationship between business performance and trustworthy behavior. And while a universal definition of trust may not exist, it’s not really a problem,—it’s just the way things are. We love to put precise metrics in place that describe and explain, in linear and causal terms, things like human behavior. But reality doesn’t always cooperate. And because what can’t be measured also gets overlooked, trust, which is absolutely critical in business relationships, needs measuring.

A 2008 paper written by the Economist Intelligence Unit entitled “The Role of Trust in Business Collaboration” concluded with the following statement:

“Even though best-practice corporate governance has been on the corporate radar for some time now, it seems that the trust element of governance, despite being so closely linked to ethics, has yet to become a business standard.”

We believe that many important concepts cannot be reduced to a single metric, and that is certainly true for trust. However, what can be defined and measured are various contributory components of trustworthy behavior in business—factors that we can all agree are definitely somewhere in the trust neighborhood. And when these factors are evaluated and aggregated, there are some encouraging results about companies that somehow seem to be “doing the right thing.” We may not be able to precisely measure trust; but that doesn’t mean we can’t rate it, test it, evaluate it, and above all—manage it. What we have recently done is removed the ‘yet’ out of the Economist’s description.

In 2007 we set a goal of developing a rigorous approach to better understanding and evaluating trustworthy business practices. We began laying a foundation for a trust ecosystem, and Trust Across America™ (TAA) was hatched. Through our professional relationships, LinkedIn group, and our radio show, we have spoken to dozens of academic and corporate experts and consultants across the wide range of specialized silos relating to organizational trust- ethics, integrity, reputation, ESG, CSR, accounting, and sustainability to get their feedback on this elusive concept of trust. From this collaborative effort, we have developed a methodology that we think approximates the most holistic and comprehensive definition and measurement of trustworthy corporate behavior to date. We named it FACTS™. It allows us to provide meaning, definition and measurement to both the business and behavioral side of trust.

FACTS™ is an acronym. It stands for:

Financial strength and stability
Accounting controls
Corporate governance and community impact
Treatment of Stakeholders and Transparency
Sustainability

We ran the FACTS model again historical public data for thousands of public companies from 1998-2009, and eliminated those that did not have complete data. In essence, our methodology analyzes hundreds of data points from three independent providers, and with equal weighting, arrives at a cumulative FACTS™ trust score for almost 2000 of the largest publicly traded companies. Currently, thirty nine companies reach the Gold Standard of 50 points or more in each of the FACTS data categories.

Some other noteworthy findings from this study:

•The company with the highest trust ranking (across sixteen sectors) is in the same industry as BP Global. We find this somewhat timely since it is a goal of TAA to have the most trustworthy companies share their best practices.

•The companies with the highest scores in all data categories come from six different industry groups, so no single industry dominates in the “trust” category.

•The retail sector has the highest average trust rating of the sixteen.

•When we rank the 1954 companies, the top 10% are almost evenly split between large and small (over and under $2 billion market cap).

•Only two hundred companies in the database scored above a “50” in sustainability efforts.

Over the next few weeks we will be populating the Trust Across America website Link to Website with the following material:

-An alphabetical listing of the names of all 1954 companies for which we have complete data.
-An alphabetical listing of the top 10% of all companies.
-Company specific and industry reports that will allow C-Suite executives to anticipate “surprises”, manage risk, and better protect their company’s reputation; provide a workable framework for enhancing organizational trust and reputation; and provide meaning, definition and measurement to both the business and behavioral side of trust..
-Reports for consumers and other professionals.
-Additional resources for public companies that wish to delve deeper into internal and external behavioral assessments.

We will also begin conversations with the media (both print and broadcast) about our findings and will start to contact some of the top companies for interviews and further involvement. Our mission is to highlight companies that are “doing the right thing”, refocus media attention away from the negative, and provide opportunities for companies to share best practices.

I look forward to your comments and feedback. The best initial method to communicate is via email: barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Barbara Kimmel, Executive Director Read more…

Today I received a “Dear Barbara” email from the Marketing Manager of a company I have never heard of. The first sentence read “I know you have been anxiously waiting to see the full program for the (Blah Blah Blah University and Conference) and it’s finally here!

Nicole whoever you are, next time you think it’s okay to address me by my first name, and tell me that I have been anxiously awaiting your email when I have never heard of you or your company, remember that I have the power to put all future spam from your organization on “block”. That’s one great feature of the internet.

And may I humbly suggest that before your next email promotion, study the definitions of the words trust, authenticity and integrity.

This email exchange could be the “Poster Child” for how not to “do” customer service. Names have been deleted to protect the offender.

Me: Today I opened a box of (Name of Company) 12 Taco Shells. Much to my surprise, there were only 10 shells in the box. The UPC code is XXXXX XXXXXX. It seems like you have a quality control problem. My address is _____________ if you would like to send me the $2.39 that I paid for 12 taco shells.

The Company’s Response: Subject: RE: Taco shells

To ensure that our staff conducts itself in a manner that reflects the high regard that we have for our customers, we’ve notified the proper department of your complaint.

If you send the receipt or the proof of purchase with the attached Refund Request form, we will reimburse you for the objectionable product. In the meantime, I’m sending the enclosed coupons because we value your goodwill and would like to give you the opportunity to try our products again. If you have questions or comments in the future, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

We appreciate your time in bringing your concern to our attention and apologize for this problem.

Sincerely,

(Name of Company)
Customer Service Department

Me: Dear (Name of Company): There were no coupons attached to your email, only a refund form.

May I also suggest the following:

1.Change the word “complaint” to “inquiry”.
2.Change the word “objectionable” to “product in question”.
3.Do not make it difficult for customers who take the time to write to you to obtain coupons or refunds. A UPC code should be satisfactory.
4.Have an actual “person” sign your email responses.
5.Remember that without customers, you have no business 

This week Linda Locke from Reputare Consulting shared some thoughts and observations from the Reputation Institute’s Annual Conference in Rio. We thought our readers would be interested in Linda’s insights.

Notes from the Reputation Institute’s Annual International Conference on Corporate Reputation, Brand Identity and Competitiveness

Linda Locke
6.16.2010

Linda Locke is the principal of Reputare (rep-u-ta-re) Consulting, a corporate reputation consulting practice. She began the firm after a 14-year career at MasterCard International where she oversaw global reputation management as SVP and group head. She is a regular speaker on corporate reputation and recently spoke at the Reputation Institute’s 14th annual international conference on Corporate Reputation, Brand, Identity, and Competitiveness. Its theme was:
The Sustainability Imperative: A strategic role for reputation management.

Q. Why did you go to Rio?
A. I thought the theme was very timely given the current business environment. I think the notion of sustainability as a core organizing focus for rebuilding trust is a relevant one, but the definition varies widely.

Q. Do you think sustainability should be the key focus for a business wishing to rebuild trust?
A. Americans often define sustainability differently than other parts of the world. We tend to think of nature and the environment, whereas many others define it as connected to social justice. But as we coalesce around the idea of sustainability as a broader topic, I think it offers relevant framing for the intersection where what is good for business is also good for society. Outside the US, though, I think many people view the notion of sustainability as a challenge to free market capitalism.

Q. Give me an example of the definitions of sustainability
A. One speaker referred to sustainability as another name for democracy, and social and economic justice. One drew a venn diagram showing the intersection of humanism and capitalism.

Q. What are the implications of a sustainability strategy for a company wishing to build trust?
A. Charles Fombrun, the founder of RI, talked about how corporations wishing to build trust need to think about not what they want to say to the world but what the world wants to hear from us. Also a number of speakers talked about how making money is not an impediment to building trust – and the notion that stakeholders want companies to do both is a key issues.

Q. The Reputation Institute collects some interesting data on reputation and trust. Anything new at the conference?
A. For the first time RI created a global reputation Pulse report that identifies companies with the same global footprint, and then ranked the reputation of those companies. The study released showed that Google and Sony have the best reputations among the 25 or so companies rated.

Q. What are the obstacles to a company wishing to build trust?
A, One of the interesting ideas was from Professor Cees van Riel (Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University) who talked about the need to reduce fear. He called “corporate silence” an impediment as managers are often afraid they will lose face if they don’t know all the answers, and people lack courage to raise dissenting voices. Rebuilding trust will require companies to do the right thing, but also to do things right, according to Charles Fombrun, and that’s why internal alignment is a key issue.

Q. You have spent much of your career focused on financial services. That is an industry with severe trust issues. What do you think that industry needs to do to rebuild trust?

A. When I was in financial services I commissioned quite a bit of research on industry perception studies and what became clear in the US, and clear in many countries around the world is that banks should focus on two primary issues: ethics and fairness, as defined by the end users of banking services.

Linda Locke, Principal
Reputare Consulting
314.435.3428
linda.locke@reputareconsulting.com

This week Leslie Gaines-Ross took some time out of her schedule as one of America’s leading corporate reputation strategists to shed some light on her professional activities and the steps CEO’s must take to ensure a solid reputation. Read Complete Interview

Leslie is the author of the following books: