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.
The Culture is the Secret Sauce
In announcing his resignation in the New York Times, Greg Smith said that culture was vital to Goldman Sachs’s success and was “the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our clients’ trust for 143 years.” The scandal du jour that was once served as an appetizer has now increased the public’s appetite to devour corporate reputations as the main course. This requires the Board and C-suite to be the master chefs of the secret sauce. The key ingredients are integrity and honesty. You must come to the table with these ingredients, use them to guide your decisions, and stand before the organization as a model for ethical behavior. To be successful, you must make the secret sauce seep through the organization. It must bubble down from the boardroom to the mailroom and rise back up again. It must be everywhere.
Anything less, any substitutions, simply will not do.
On how to be the example see Scott Killingsworth, Modeling the Message. Available at SSRN:
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.
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.
August 3: In Head of Business- Hope for the World we introduce the Winston “V” Model.
August 4: Reputation vs. Trust and why leaders should care more about the latter.
August 5: C-Suite Must Speak With a V.O.I.C.E. of Trust, a new communications model.
August 6: It Ain’t What You Do (It’s the Way You Do It) discusses an organization’s core values and traits.
August 7: Superficial CEOs and Their Boards talks about the fiduciary responsibility of board members.
August 8: Headline: Be the Leaders Others Will Follow we learn about consistency between actions and words.
August 9: Towards a Mindset for Corporate Responsibility requiring a shift in mindset on the part of boards.
August 10: Warning: Don’t Drown in the Slogan Swamp explores the (mis)use of slogans in corporate America.
August 11: Trust in the Boardroom in creating competitive advantage.
August 12: Three Ways to Build Trust and organization that are blind to the dialogue.
August 13: Lead from the Front explains why it’s important to remove the filters between leaders and employees.
August 14: Building Trust For Boards & C-Suites and why published scientific evidence is important.
August 15: (Trust) Communication & the Hiring Process discusses engaging employees in the decision.
August 16: CEO Tip: Trust Your Board as Your Ally emphasizes the importance of trusting partnerships.
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.
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