Trust Across America-Trust Around the World™

Successful leadership is not about being tough or soft, sensitive or assertive, but about a set of attributes. First and foremost is character. — Warren Bennis

Ask any group of people whom they trust and the two most common answers will be “parents” and “siblings.” Ask them why and they will talk about longevity, familiarity and shared experiences. Rarely will the answer to the first question be a coworker or a boss.

What makes families unique? Each has its own culture. But if the family culture is corrupt, so are the offspring. The same applies to organizations, regardless of their size, industry or composition.

Someone recently asked me if there were any “quick fixes” for low-trust organizations. My answer was simply “Diseases can’t be cured with Band Aids.” Trust takes time and it is built in incremental steps.

If you lead an organization and want to build trust into its DNA, it all begins (and ends) with you.

Start with an assessment of yourself:

• Are you trustworthy?
• Do you have integrity, character and values?
• Do you share those values with your family?
• Do you instill them in your children?
• Do you take your personal values to work?

Perform an organizational trust audit:

• Have you built trust into your organizational culture with the support of your Board?
• Is it reflected in your statement of values and credo?
• How do you practice it?
• How well do you communicate it?
• Can it outlive you?

Consider your internal stakeholders:

• Do you discuss trust daily?
• Do you encourage feedback?
• Do you share a consistent vision?
• Do you model openness and vulnerability?
• Do you use transparent decision-making?
• Do you ask for input?
• Do you have long-term trust-building goals and execute them well, one by one?
• Do you share every “Wow” moment in your organization?
• Do you communicate, communicate, communicate?

Consider your external stakeholders:

• Have you shared your vision and values in building a trustworthy organization?
• Have you identified the outcome(s) you are seeking?
• Have you defined your intentions for each of our stakeholder groups?
• Have you made promises that you will keep?
• Have you determined the steps you will take to fulfill these promises?

Remember, the fish rots from the head. Every problem in an organization, including low trust, can be traced back to its leadership.

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.

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.

In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher-  Dalai Lama

October is Tolerance Month 

according to Trust Across America’s

2014 Calendar

A trusted leader is open to new ideas that may not align with his own. Tolerance empowers stakeholders with ownership and leads to higher engagement at all levels.

During the  52 weeks of 2014 you can build trust in your organization by thinking about, discussing and following the advice of the experts. Below are weekly reflections on trust for October 2014.

• Week 1: Leaders committed to candor will create and build trust. LJ Rittenhouse, Rittenhouse Rankings

• Week 2: Trust produces trustworthy behavior, not the other way around. Carol Sanford, Author

• Week 3: Managers gain employees’ trust by discerning and distrusting impostors, bootlickers, and liars.Dr. Reuven Shapira, Western Galilee Academic College, Israel.

• Week 4: Higher performing organizations depend on the ability to predict the behavior of others accurately, requiring deep trust. David A. Shore, Harvard University.

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.

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
– Albert Einstein

Most leaders gauge their performance on metrics that “matter” to their Board of Directors like earnings growth, expansion, new products, acquisitions, cost savings, etc. But how much better would those KPI’s be if the man (or woman) in the ivory tower lead with trust?

Last week I wrote about The Blinder Effect at the Top. With Gallup’s research showing only 13% of workers as engaged, it’s not hard to conclude that most employees aren’t “feelin’ the love” and KPI’s suffer as a result.

It’s Monday morning. Do you know if you are leading with trust?

Record the following over the course of the week:

• Percentage of employees who arrive to work on time.
• Percentage of employees who call in sick.
• Percentage of employees who leave work early.
• Number of excuses for work not completed.
• Number of fires you need to extinguish.

Also count the number of times you:

• Come down out of your ivory tower and on to the shop floor.
• Ask an employee about their family and kids.
• Praise someone for a job well done or pat them on the back.
• Hold an impromptu celebration or an ice cream party.
• Ask for feedback.

Trustworthy leaders look up, walk around and engage with their employees. Practiced daily, your KPI’s will soar. This is the simple stuff, but it can’t be delegated.  As Nike says “Just do it!”

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.

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. ~ Aldous Huxley

We all know someone who has suffered a health scare and subsequently chose to get healthy. A new diet, exercise program and education in stress reduction. While most times the outcome is a holistically healthier individual, the choice is only made in the face of a crisis.

Five years ago Trust Across America-Trust Around the World developed a framework for organizational trust called FACTS. It operates off the same principles as holistic health. Our theory is a simple one. Just like the human body, all it takes for organizational failure is one diseased organ.

The healthiest people I know don’t wait for a crisis to get healthy. They practice it proactively. And in our research of over 2000 companies spanning 5 years, the most trustworthy companies follow the same strategy. Rather than reacting to a crisis, they build trust into their DNA. The healthy individual enjoys a longer and higher quality of life,  and the trustworthy company has greater profitability and longer-term sustainability. And while most people do not practice health proactively, neither do most companies.

Why not? As a CEO told me the other evening over a glass of wine, “I like that word trust. I never considered it as a business strategy.”

Don’t wait for the next crisis to get healthy. Build trust into your business agenda, and practice it proactively.  If you don’t know how, we can help.

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.

“One can’t assume that trust accrues automatically through the mere passage of time. It grows through incremental steps and deliberate actions.” Charles H. Green, Trusted Advisor Associates

This quote will appear on the cover of the third book in our award-winning TRUST INC. series. The book, TRUST INC., 52 Weeks of Activities and Inspirations for Building Workplace Trust will be published in November 2014 as an inspirational holiday gift.

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

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.)

Organizations cannot effectively build Wave 5 until the first 4 are constructed. Imagine waking up in the morning and putting your shoes on first. Yet that’s exactly what many organizations have done.

Said another way, building organizational trust cannot be accomplished via an a-la- carte menu. Choosing to start building trust at Wave 4 or 5, with the intent of using it as a short-term promotional or communications tool, rather than a long-term, ground up, incremental trust strategy is a bad choice. Planning and executing a corporate citizenship or corporate social responsibility program without first mastering self trust, relationship trust, stakeholder trust and market trust eventually backfires. And when the crisis strikes, the weak trust foundation crumbles. We see evidence of this almost daily. Some of the biggest names in CSR also happen to be some of the greatest trust & ethics violators. Just pick up the newspaper on any given day. In this age of increasing transparency, these organizations are fooling no one but themselves.

So my advice today to all organizations, but particularly corporate America, get dressed before you put on your shoes.

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 seventeenth essay brings advice from Ellen Hunt. Ms. Hunt joined AARP as the Director of Ethics & Compliance to assist the organization with establishing its Ethics & Compliance Program. Her responsibilities include building trust and helping the organization and its employees make ethical decisions. Any opinions expressed by Ms. Hunt are solely her own and are not made on behalf of AARP.

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 twelfth essay in our series brings advice from  Linda Locke, a corporate reputation management expert and Senior Vice President at Standing Partnership. Locke previously served as the group head and senior vice president for Reputation and Issues Management for MasterCard Worldwide. Linda is a 2014 Top Thought Leader in Trustworthy Business and a member 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.

A quick reference on what’s been covered so far this month:

August 1: There’s a Reason Why We Call Them Trustees explains why being an “absentee landlord” doesn’t work.

August 2: Kill the Evening Before Dinner and take a small group of front line employees to dinner instead.

The third essay in our series is from a speech delivered by Pär Larshans, the Chief Sustainability Officer at Max Hamburger Restaurants, a Swedish, family owned fast-food company, that employees many workers with disabilities. He speaks regularly on leadership, sustainability and human rights and also lectures on behalf of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Swedish Institute.  He is 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.

Did you know that Trust Across America-Trust Around the World (TAA-TAW) facilitates a group called The Alliance of Trustworthy Business Experts (ATBE)?

This is a vetted membership group (annual fee to join.) We formed at the end of 2012 to meet the need for an organized team of cross-functional professionals (trust, leadership, teamwork, culture, ethics, compliance, customer service, CSR, branding, reputation, crisis repair, etc) who would work collaboratively to help organizations build trust. Among our members are CEOs and former CEOs, C-Suite executives, consultants, academics, NGOs, nonprofits, and even the media. We all have one trait in common. We know that trust works!

If you are interested in learning about our history, you can read the original press release announcing our initial 2-year Campaign for Trust via Reuters News, and review a list of our original 25 founding members.

We’ve come a long way in less than 2 years, and have expanded to almost 100 members from around the world.  The TAA-TAW website attracts thousands of visitors every day, with well over 100,000 page views per month, and growing daily.

While there are many benefits of joining the group, these are some of the more tangible.

1. Referral Network: A growing network of speakers, panelists and experts that Trust Across America has booked for events
2. Introductions: to other members with similar and complimentary objectives
3. An opportunity to showcase your work: in Trust! (The Magazine) (coming this Fall)
4. Write a report: for one of the most visited pages on our site: Building Trust Reports
5. Produce a video: for our Trust Talks™ series
6. Add your work to our living bibliography: (the most comprehensive of its kind) Constructing a Framework for Trust
7. Participate in regional events: via our Circles of Trust
8. Trust Inc. Books: participate in our book series The third book was announced to our members last week.
9. Join the Alliance of Trustworthy Business Experts Tribe (with an audience reach of almost 1 million)
10. Ask the Alliance: Provide expert commentary for the media (see example)

And finally, you can read what our members are saying.

Please consider joining us as we enter the second phase of our organizational trust journey.

**Note: The Alliance will be closed to new members when we reach our goal of 100 active participants. We will then initiate a waiting list.

Have a question? Feel free to contact me: 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. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.

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Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.

We’ve all heard them, those annoying robot recordings and canned phrases that companies and their customer service “professionals”  have adopted because it’s what “policy” dictates. I would love a seat at those policy meeting tables to remind management that without customers, business ceases to exist.

Here’s a short list of my favorite first hand trust-busters and the way my brain translates them:

CSR: “I understand how you feel”

ME: No you don’t. You think that by saying “I understand how you feel” that I feel better, but actually you haven’t resolved the problem so I feel worse.

CSR: Sorry, but this is our policy.

ME: You’re not sorry at all. You’re giving me a stock answer because that’s all your company permits you to say.

CSR: “I’m doing the best I can.”

ME: Well then I feel sorry for YOU because you’ve set your own bar very low.

CSR: Hobbily gobbily gobeldy gook. (The CSR is not a native English speaker and I can’t understand a thing they are saying.)

ME: This company doesn’t care enough about it’s customers to ensure that their reps speak English well enough to be understood.

CSR: “We can’t give you a time when we will be there.”

ME: You don’t value my time so customer service is clearly not a priority.

CSR: Our computers are very slow today.

ME: Funny, every time I call you, you tell me the same story. Please suggest to management that the computers be fixed.

And the best one:

CSR: You’re not the first one to call and complain about this.

ME: Then let me calculate the gross time wasted by all the callers instead of just my call. And now that I have finished my calculations, I  feel better knowing that you are letting all your customers down and wasting all their time, not just mine.

And I can’t help but recall of all those times I’ve dialed, listened to the recording, entered  the info and account numbers, sat on hold and then the CSR finally picks up… and the call is disconnected.

Certain kinds of companies are famous for poor customer service. Health insurers, utility and cable companies and airlines come to mind first. Also, all the local businesses that deliver appliances and the like. The remainder of companies, get it “right” more often than wrong, but it’s probably because we never need to call them.  And in some cases like utilities, we have no choice but to do business with these companies, and they know it. We are a captive audience.

What this tells me is that the “right” leaders are absent at the policy meetings (probably because they are too busy putting out fires.) The company is not customer focused and therefore not trustworthy. Management is more concerned with lining their own pocketbooks than in meeting the needs of all their stakeholders, including their customers. Their focus is short-term and they are fooling no one but themselves, and the lack of customer focus is usually indicative of more serious underlying and systemic problems, starting with untrustworthy leaders. As a consumer, I avoid these companies whenever I can. We all have choices (most of the time). Whenever possible, choose to give your business to those who don’t train their CSR’s to give stock answers to real concerns, and who apparently have no respect for the people who ultimately pay their salaries, their customers.

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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Drop her a note at Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright © 2014, Next Decade, Inc.