Trust Across America-Trust Around the World™

Leaders and their organizations must earn trust before they can build it.

Failure to earn trust leaves the enterprise vulnerable to countless risks. —

Barbara Brooks Kimmel

Trust building can be implemented through the following sequence of actions and initiatives. We call this the VIP Trust Model.

• VISION & VALUES: Leaders identify, with input from all stakeholders, the organization’s principles or core values. Why does the organization exist and what does it stand for? Write a meaningful credo with buy-in from all silos.
• INTEGRITY: Practice and regularly communicate the moral principles and purpose of the leadership team and the organization. Hold training for employees in leading with trust in their behaviors and interactions. Lose the “sales scripts.”
• PROMISES & PROCESS: Ensure that leadership is held accountable for doing what they say they will do, and for regularly communicating the vision, values and promises to all stakeholders. Make this a daily function of your corporate responsibility team in collaboration with compliance and communications.

Implement ways of doing things that translate the principles above into organized group behavior. Internally this includes the hiring and training of employees, structure of meetings, transparency of/fair personnel policies, how decisions are made and accessibility to leadership. With external stakeholders (vendors, customers, community, etc.), trust can be enhanced using quantitative measurement, benchmark and screening “tools” like Trust Across America’s FACTS® Framework.

About the Author:

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 2,000 U.S. public companies on five quantitative indicators of trust. Barbara is also the editor of the award-winning TRUST INC. book series and a Managing Member at FACTS® Asset Management, a New Jersey registered investment advisor.

Nominations are now open for the 7th annual Top Thought Leaders in Trust.

Copyright (c)  2016, Next Decade, Inc.

It’s Week #29 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

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

Listen with the intent to be influenced.

Listening is one of the most valuable skills a leader can employ to build trust, yet it’s also one of the most under appreciated and least developed leadership competencies.

Most leaders would agree that listening is important and they even understand many of the basics, even if they don’t practice them: don’t interrupt, give the speaker your undivided attention, ask open-ended questions to draw out more information, and paraphrase occasionally to ensure understanding. These are all necessary and valuable skills.

What’s more important, however, is your mindset and attitude about listening. You should listen with the intent of being influenced. Most of us listen with an agenda. We enter a conversation with a preconceived idea of where we want the conversation to go and the desired outcome we’re trying to achieve. That signals to the other party that what they have to say really doesn’t matter much because we’ve already made up our mind about the final decision. That’s demoralizing and erodes trust with the people we lead.

Instead, listen without an agenda. Open yourself to be influenced by what the speaker has to say. Look for opportunities to incorporate their ideas and suggestions into the final outcome. Listening in this way builds trust because it communicates to the speaker that he/she is important and what they have to say is valuable and worthy of consideration. Listening with the intent to be influenced also causes us to speak less, which is the major roadblock to effective listening.

My grandpa was fond of saying that the Lord gave us one mouth and two ears and we should use them in that proportion. Listen with the intent to be influenced and watch trust blossom in your relationships.

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

Be transparent about what’s working and what’s not. 

Whether you’re internal or external stakeholders, everyone appreciates and responds better to honesty. The impulse to “cover up” things that are not working so well is strong.

Leaders fear that if their initial decision is not panning out well, they will lose the confidence of their stakeholders. If you try to “sweep problems under the rug” or “fudge” on your reporting, this will be true.

If instead, you openly, candidly admit an error of judgment or acknowledge unanticipated events that make no longer valid what was a correct determination under different circumstances, your stakeholders will respect and trust you even more.

They will know they can count on the accuracy of your information when you share positive updates and they will be more likely to support your efforts regardless of outcomes at any specific moment.

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 #27 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

Taina Savolainen offers this week’s advice. Taina, a Finnish professor, is both a Top Thought Leader in Trust and a member of our Trust Alliance.

Tell people help is available and it’s okay to ask for it. 

• Encourage people to get help.
• Give support when someone is willing to build or repair trust.
• Show appreciation to those who are taking the first step.
• Commit yourself to lead people to find the special support or help they need.  

Will you choose to implement this valuable advice in your organization this week?

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 #21 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

Davia Temin is a Trust Alliance member, a Trust Across America Top Thought Leader and a contributor to our Trust Inc. book series. She offers this week’s idea:

Say what you do, do what you say.

Reliability, dependability, integrity — these are the essential building blocks of trust. Sounds simple, yet they are so difficult to achieve day in, day out. 

Under-promising and over-delivery is the ticket, of course.  

Whether we are tempted to over promise because of enthusiasm, a lack of operational expertise, expediency, or duplicity, the results are the same — distrust is created. And once there is distrust, rebuilding trust becomes almost impossible without a significant shaming, and transformation, of the organization. 

So if you seek to build trust, don’t promise what you can’t deliver, either in your ads, your speeches, your press releases or in your town halls. Stick to what you can deliver. The public is so jaded by hyperbole, they will most likely appreciate and respect your honesty. And even if they do not, you will know you have done the right thing… And that counts for a lot. 

Thank you Davia. 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 #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.