Trust is the outcome of principled behavior. It’s always interpersonal and it’s always about people. If you want to intentionally build trust into your leadership strategy in 2024, stop talking and start acting. These are some tried and true strategies to get you started in the new year.
Trust cannot be delegated. Understand who “owns” trust:
Trust must be modeled, practiced and reinforced daily. Leaders must act first: Trust takes time and is built in incremental steps. It always begins with you. If you do not model trust do not expect it in return.
Have you stopped to consider that your employees may not trust you?Find out why your employees don’t trust you: The fix may be easier than you think, but only if you are open to learning.
And finally, if you are spending money on building trust with your customers while taking employee trust for granted, you are violating the most basic tenets of trust. As a leader, you may see short term positive results, but over the long term employee engagement will continue to stagnate. Remember, trust is always built from the inside out.
Barbara Brooks Kimmel is an author, speaker, product developer and global subject matter expert on trust and trustworthiness. Founder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World she is author of the award-winning Trust Inc., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset, Trust Inc., 52 Weeks of Activities and Inspirations for Building Workplace Trust and Trust Inc., a Guide for Boards & C-Suites. She majored in International Affairs (Lafayette College), and has an MBA (Baruch- City University of NY). Her expertise on trust has been cited in Harvard Business Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Thomson Reuters, BBC Radio, The Conference Board, Global Finance Magazine, Bank Director and Forbes, among others.
3. The words trust, trustworthy and trusting do not have the same meaning and cannot be used interchangeably.
4. There is no trust “box” that can be checked.
5. Perception of trust does not equal trust.
6. There is no oxytocin “trust molecule.”
7. Trust cannot be regulated or “technologized.”
8. The most “popular” social media names in trust are not the most knowledgeable. They just have bigger budgets.
9. Using trust words du jour does not equal action. (Brand trust is not trust.)
10. Reducing quantifiable risk does not increase trust.
Barbara Brooks Kimmel is an author, speaker, product developer and global subject matter expert on trust and trustworthiness. Founder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World she is author of the award-winning Trust Inc., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset, Trust Inc., 52 Weeks of Activities and Inspirations for Building Workplace Trust and Trust Inc., a Guide for Boards & C-Suites. She majored in International Affairs (Lafayette College), and has an MBA (Baruch- City University of NY). Her expertise on trust has been cited in Harvard Business Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Thomson Reuters, BBC Radio, The Conference Board, Global Finance Magazine, Bank Director and Forbes, among others.
Contrary to what many executives are lead to believe, trust is not a “soft” skill. In fact in today’s challenging business environment it may mean the difference between survival and failure. Trust impacts an organization in multiple ways, from profitability to workplace stress and wellness, stakeholder relationships, regulatory costs and beyond. The following represents some of the more current and less biased research/surveys supporting the business case for trust:
Companies that actively and consistently build trust amongst consumers across their entire spectrum of brands gain greater marketing efficiency. They face fewer headwinds in marketing and selling their products and services, have more effective advertising due to higher believability, and can charge a premium for their products. Ipsos Mori Trust the Truth, September, 2019
Accenture Strategy Global Consumer Pulse Report surveyed 24,877 consumers worldwide about their evolving expectations towards companies. Lack of trust costs global brands $2.5 trillion per year. This compares to $756 billion lost by U.S. companies and 41 percent loss of clients. 2017
Research shows that 30% of a company’s value is at risk where trust is broken with the public and external stakeholders. Those CEOs who have a proactive approach to crisis planning view simulation training and drills as an investment. They also see it as a way to test and build the trust and confidence of their teams. It hones and develops leadership and communication skills, builds coherence and cross-functional support. McKinsey & Company research in Connect: How companies succeed by engaging radically with society 2015 – John Browne, Robin Nuttall, Tommy Stadlen
Employee Engagement:
According to Gallup, when employees don’t trust organizational leadership, their chances of being engaged are one in twelve. But when that trust is established, the chances of engagement skyrocket to better than one in two. A highly engaged workforce means the difference between a company that outperforms its competitors and one that fails to grow. Currently 31% of the working population are engaged. Taking into consideration three Gallup measures of employee engagement this year, the overall percentage of engaged workers during 2020 is 36%. July, 2020
The level of trust in the work environment is also associated with increased adjusted odds of having cardiovascular disease. International Journal of Environmental Research, 2019
Research from 2018 suggests that “trust and perceived support are both significant predictors of mental and physical health, job satisfaction and turnover intentions. However, the support at the team level is a more important predictor, while trust is a stronger predictor at the organizational level. Italian Society of Occupational Medicine, 2018
According to PwC, when we look at employees, 22% have left a company because of trust issues and 19% have chosen to work at one because they trusted it highly. In other words, one out of five of your employees who leave don’t do so primarily for a better salary or position. They leave because they don’t trust your company. PwC Trust in US Business Survey, August 2021
Improved Stakeholder Relationships:
Only 7 percent of Americans believe that major company CEOs have high ethical standards, and only 9 percent have a very favorable opinion of major companies. Only 42 percent Americans trust major companies to behave ethically, down from 47 percent last year. Public Affairs Council, 2018
Regulatory Costs:
The Competitive Enterprise Institute reports that The cost of Federal Regulations is approaching $2 trillion annually. To put that number in perspective, if U.S. regulations were an economy, it would be larger than Canada’s entire GDP and the eighth largest in the world. The regulatory state costs more than the U.S. government collects from income taxes. It’s almost equal to all corporate pretax profits earned in 2016. Investor’s Business Daily April 19, 2021
Barbara Brooks Kimmel is an author, speaker, product developer and global subject matter expert on trust and trustworthiness. Founder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World she is author of the award-winning Trust Inc., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset, Trust Inc., 52 Weeks of Activities and Inspirations for Building Workplace Trust and Trust Inc., a Guide for Boards & C-Suites. She majored in International Affairs (Lafayette College), and has an MBA (Baruch- City University of NY). Her expertise on trust has been cited in Harvard Business Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Thomson Reuters, BBC Radio, The Conference Board, Global Finance Magazine, Bank Director and Forbes, among others.
Did you ever buy a product from a company you didn’t trust? The decision sits in the craw of your throat. Uncomfortable, but perhaps without a choice, the process moves forward with the hope that you will be proven wrong, and everything will be okay this time. But unfortunately, your instincts are usually proven right. After all, there is a reason why a company hasn’t achieved trust with you. They are not trustworthy.
Trustworthiness is a vital component of every corporate interaction. It is the lubrication of commerce. Without trust in the organization, the company will ultimately cease functioning effectively or efficiently.
Building trust between the company and its customers starts with the CEO. Still, it is also the responsibility of every individual in the company where contact is made with the consuming public. Trust takes time to build but can be lost instantly if communication isn’t sincere or the intention isn’t authentic. Trust is vital to the health and vitality of the corporation, and it needs to be embedded in the company’s DNA.
Consciously think about your interactions with the products or services you purchase daily. For example, consider your level of trust at the point of sale when you offer your credit card to complete the transaction. Not every purchase will be made with 100% confidence in the company and ask yourself what they might do differently to gain your trust. That kind of critical thinking and planning puts companies on the path of utilizing trust to build it into a valuable intangible asset that can be measured and managed for value creation.
Will management invest in building a trustworthy organization?
Trust is an intangible quality that exists between individuals. Trustworthiness is organizational trust, which is an intangible asset of the company. Trustworthy companies, in my opinion, will benefit from higher revenue and a greater cash flow multiple (premium investors are willing to pay for a share of stock) than peer companies with lower trust scores. This belief is based on thirty years of proprietary quantitative research called the Corporate Branding Index® (CBI), which found that individuals like to buy from and invest in companies they deem familiar and favorable.
The research conducted in the CBI examined descriptive attributes quantitatively and longitudinally over time among an audience of impartial observers. This study included thousands of interviews conducted annually among hundreds of companies, which created a rock-solid benchmark for evaluating how intangible assets impacted the corporate brand and financial performance of the firm, including the stock price. In addition, corporations utilized the study to understand how business decisions affect the corporate brand and, ultimately, the company’s long-term financial performance.
The attributes measured in the CBI included overall reputation, perceptions of management,investment potential, and a culture of innovation. When measured together, these attributes were utilized to predict financial performance when all other financials are held constant. In addition, the models were proven effective for decision-making and examining “what if” questions of importance to the CEO and board of directors.
Is trust measurable and manageable?
Barbara Brooks Kimmel, CEO of Trust Across America, has developed a consistent way of measuring trustworthiness that is consistent, independent, longitudinal, and reliable. These are the elements required in building independent variables when valuing intangible assets.
Trustworthiness as an intangible asset that can be managed and measured for value creation. Trustworthiness is a collective perception of an entity from the perspective of every audience that is important to the entity. Key audiences include employees, customers, investors, media, and local communities. While the research methodology between the CBI and Trust Across America differs, the overall concept and top line findings run parallel. As a result, I believe trustworthiness is a powerful intangible asset that significantly impacts the company’s brand and, ultimately, its financial performance.
Trust is the most vital intangible asset of any personal or business relationship. Trust is a primary component of every interaction, quietly influencing and persuading every decision. Trust is a delicate but persuasive intangible that can sway important and valuable assessments. Any perceived breach of trust will end a negotiation no matter how sweet the deal is being considered. Trust is the final trigger for most business investments, as an individual can contemplate the cost/benefits of a purchase for hours. Still, the commitment is made to the actual purchase because the buyer trusts the seller.
Building trust creates a premium value for product brands and enterprise value for the corporate brand. Trust is the most valuable intangible asset and can be managed like any other asset. Having a clear vision and training employees to communicate consistently over time is the best way to build the value of trust.
Customers want to buy from companies they can trust. Investors want to invest in companies they trust. The media would like to write articles about companies that give them the straight scoop. Employees want to work for a trustworthy company. What every stakeholder has in common is a desire to be treated with honesty and respect, which is the essence of trust. Therefore, understanding how to measure and manage trust makes good business sense.
Dr. James R. Gregory founded NYLAQ Advisors – Managing Intangible Assets for Value Creation. Jim also serves as chairman emeritus of Tenet Partners, a global brand innovation and marketing firm based in New York, NY. With 40 years of experience in advertising and branding, Jim is a leading expert on corporate brand management and is credited with developing strategies for measuring the power of brands and their impact on a corporation’s financial performance. Most notable of the tools that Jim has developed is the CoreBrand Index (CBI), a quantitative research vehicle that continuously tracks the reputation and financial performance of over 800 publicly traded companies across 50 industries. For additional information, please visit www.NYLAQ.com
Investopedia offers this summary: Environmental criteria consider how a company safeguards the environment, including corporate policies addressing climate change, for example. Social criteria examine how it manages relationships with employees, suppliers, customers, and the communities where it operates. Governance deals with a company’s leadership, executive pay, audits, internal controls, and shareholder rights. The conversations around the role of “S” (how companies treat their stakeholders) and “G” (how they are governed) have recently come into focus and for good reason.
What do we mean by a “trust deficit.”
At Trust Across America-Trust Around the World (TAA-TAW) we consider trust as the “outcome of principled behavior.” If the principled behaviors are absent, a trust deficit is created.
What is Causing the ESG Trust Deficit?
Reading the current headlines one might concluded that the ESG trust deficit is “all political.” That one side wants ESG and the other does not, and so one group is “right” and the other is “wrong.” But while politicizing ESG may be convenient for some, blaming politics ignores the root causes of the trust deficit (the behavioral ones), and they are plentiful.
The Employee Perspective
According to the Public Affairs Council members of the public don’t trust corporate CEOs as much as they trust the companies these CEOs lead: 47% place a lot of trust or some trust in major companies to behave ethically but give CEOs poor marks in this area. Only 7% believe CEOs to have high standards for honesty and ethics, and almost half (47%) believe their standards are low. October 2020
And Gallup recently reported that low employee engagement costs the global economy $8.8 trillion or 9% of global GDP.
The Sustainability Perspective
Elaine Cohen, a leading global voice in sustainability and reporting offers the following:
For me, the ESG Trust Deficit shows up as publicly stating a commitment to ESG but not following through with actions:
inconsistencies between what the company talks about in its (financial) annual report and its sustainability report
lack of integration of ESG as part of the business strategy
lack of clear ESG targets and transparent report of progress against targets while declaring a strategic approach to ESG or sustainability
lack of understanding of the financial implications of ESG impacts
public commitment but poor performance against commitments
lack of Board understanding or and visibility on sustainability matters
lack of accountability for Board members for ESG matters
The Governance Perspective
Lawrence A. Cunningham an authority on corporate governance, corporate culture, and corporate law has this to say: The traditional “G” in ESG refers to allocation of corporate power among and between directors, officers and shareholders. The “E & S” (and now the “P” for political) is a nouveau addition addressing allocations of corporate power to other constituencies as well, especially fellow citizens, employees, and customers. Among the pairs between traditional governance and nouveau ESP some are (1) mutually compatible in theory (so both can possibly be implemented without necessarily compromising), (2) mutually exclusive and (3) mutually compatible in theory but often not in practice (the nouveau ES focus crowds out traditional G priorities). The related classifications in the following infographic are subjective judgment rather than scientific truth but they illuminate the changing landscape and stakes.
What does this chart reveal about the role and value of trust? Walking through the exercise and sensing the variability and uncertainty of the practices and priorities will likely raise questions for many readers about the compatibility of the nouveau ESP practices with fundamental notions of trust.
The Leadership Perspective
Finally, Barton (Bart) Alexander who has worked to effect positive change from senior executive positions within government, Fortune 500 corporations and NGOs weighs in on a third cause of the ESG trust deficit.
The longstanding cycles of labeling and then criticism of the labeling are just in another phase. We used to have corporate citizenship, then corporate responsibility, then shared value, then ESG, then purpose. Each creation of the “new framework” says the old one is misdirected and incomplete. Even governance for a long time was just about the basics of transparency and accountability. In one of the current cycles, we have ESG being criticized as PR oriented, then Woke, and now we have green hushing as much as green washing.
Companies are challenged to meet investor expectations amidst pressure to adhere to environmental and social imperatives. Taking a stand exposes them to accusations from both sides — being too slow and prioritizing “woke” issues over profits.
In conclusion, thriving companies adhere to sound business strategies, without succumbing to polarized debates. Their sustained success depends not only on short-term profits, but on building value for all of their stakeholders, starting with their employees. They need not exaggerate nor hide what they are doing — their results speak for themselves. Senior executives who make principled behavior a priority tend not to “take stands” or make bold claims via corporate communications about their purpose or the organization’s positive environmental and social programs. Instead they simply choose to do the right thing without much fanfare.
For Trust AcrossAmerica-Trust Around the World (TAA-TAW) this is not a new revelation. When we built our FACTS® Framework over ten years ago to evaluate the trustworthiness of public companies, we recognized the need to create a holistic model of principled organizational behavior that gave equal weight to the E, S and G. This was long before ESG became a “household name.” The FACTS® Framework is an acronym that includes five drivers or indicators of trustworthy business behavior. Read more at the link.
One solution to the ESG Trust Deficit: Our Trust 200 Index
TAA-TAW maintains an index of our FACTS® Top 200 most trustworthy public companies. The Index is updated daily. The twelve year performance against two benchmarks (iShares Russell 1000 Value ETF (IWD) and SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) ETF) is shown below (as of August 3, 2023) and the results speak for themselves. Over time the most trustworthy companies outperform.
Why? The best leaders create long term value through principled behavior which builds trust instead of breaking it. They know it begins with integrity which enables trustworthy leaders to attract and retain top talent who then willingly owns and model the values flowing from the top. These values then organically tend to extend to all stakeholders. Said another way, trust is built over time and in incremental steps by the actions of trustworthy leaders, not through weak or politicized ESG “programming” or “talk.” The public has watched these misdirected messages backfire time and again, resulting in an accelerating erosion of trust. And this is why the ESG trust deficit exists.
The trustworthiness of an organization is determined equally by its environmental, social and governance structure and practices, incorporating not only shareholder interests but those of other stakeholders as well, beginning with employees. ESG programs don’t create or fix trust, but principled behavior will do both.
Barbara Brooks Kimmel is an author, speaker, product developer and global subject matter expert on trust and trustworthiness. Founder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World she is author of the award-winning Trust Inc., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset, Trust Inc., 52 Weeks of Activities and Inspirations for Building Workplace Trust and Trust Inc., a Guide for Boards & C-Suites. She majored in International Affairs (Lafayette College), and has an MBA (Baruch- City University of NY). Her expertise on trust has been cited in Harvard Business Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Thomson Reuters, BBC Radio, The Conference Board, Global Finance Magazine, Bank Director and Forbes, among others.
Are you building a family foundation of trust? Have you taught your kids about trust? If you are like most parents, the answer is “No.”Yet the family is where trust training begins.
You might say “Trust cannot be taught. It’s something we take for granted, always assuming it is present.” In reality, trust is a learned competence. As Stephen M.R. Covey reminds us ,”It is something that you can get good at, something you can measure and improve, something for which you can “move the needle.”
Sadly, mistrust is also a learned behavior.
An infant’s psychosocial development begins with the trust versus mistrust stage according to psychologist Erik Erikson’s theory. Beginning at birth and lasting until your child is around 18 months old, it is the most important period of your child’s life, as it shapes their view of the world as well as their overall personality.
Children raised by consistently unreliable, unpredictable parents who fail to meet these basic needs eventually develop an overall sense of mistrust. Murphy G, Peters K, Wilkes L, Jackson D. Childhood parental mental illness: Living with fear and mistrust.
Mistrust can cause children to become fearful, confused, and anxious, all of which make it difficult to form healthy relationships. This, in turn, can lead to poor social support, isolation, and loneliness.
Think about the trust impact on your kids when they hear you say the following at home:
Children should be seen and not heard
Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about
Can’t you ever do anything right?
Why can’t you be more like________?
Do as I say, not as I do.
And these trust-busting words are just the tip of the iceberg. How about children learning trust/mistrust by example?
Are you disrespectful to your spouse in the presence of your kids?
Do you make yourself physically and emotionally available when family members and friends need you?
Do you keep your word and your promises?
Do you tell the truth?
Do you act like a bully or insist on winning at all costs?
Do you take the time to listen?
As children grow older, trust is further eroded in school when teachers abuse their power through verbal humiliation, yelling, and even bullying. And certainly on the ball fields by coaches who exhibit abusive and mistrustful behavior towards their athletes to attempt to ensure the “win.” Even your children’s friends can be a source of early lessons in trust and mistrust depending on their own family values and home environment. Whether you are a parent, a teacher or a coach, as Warren Bennis put it, “Leadership without mutual trust is a contradiction in terms.”
Have I convinced you that trust is a learned competence?
If asked today, what would your children say about your family’s values? Is trust one of them? The window of opportunity to teach you kids about trust closes quickly. Take the opportunity while you still can. If you are looking for a list of trust building behaviors, you may find this to be a good starting place.
Barbara Brooks Kimmel is an author, speaker, product developer and global subject matter expert on trust and trustworthiness. Founder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World she is author of the award-winning Trust Inc., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset, Trust Inc., 52 Weeks of Activities and Inspirations for Building Workplace Trust and Trust Inc., a Guide for Boards & C-Suites. She majored in International Affairs (Lafayette College), and has an MBA (Baruch- City University of NY). Her expertise on trust has been cited in Harvard Business Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Thomson Reuters, BBC Radio, The Conference Board, Global Finance Magazine, Bank Director and Forbes, among others.
Tracking and addressing the behaviors that build or weaken trust in teams and organizations has the following benefits:
Elevating employee engagement & retention
Reducing workplace stress
Enhancing decision making
Increasing innovation
Improving communication
Reducing costs and increasing profitability
Is progress being made?
The growing interest in our Tap Into Trust campaign has brought almost 180,000 people to our universal principles, available in 16 languages. We are also running the largest global (one minute/one question) anonymous survey on workplace trust, with the goal of determining which of our 12 principles of trust are the WEAKEST in teams and organizations and whether they change over time. The anonymous survey can be taken here and the results of hundreds of respondents viewed upon completion.
Building a trust based team or organization is not one size fits all. It happens in 3 stages. We use AIM as the acronym.
ACKNOWLEDGING that trust (the outcome of principled behavior) is a tangible asset
IDENTIFYING the behaviors that are weakening and strengthening trust
MENDING the behaviors and tracking them over time
We call this AIM Towards Trust, and the framework is being adopted by enlightened leaders in organizations of all sizes and across industries, providing a path forward to high trust.
Elevating trust in teams and organizations requires specific personal and interpersonal principles and skills.
There is no “one size fits all” or check the box fix.
Barbara Brooks Kimmel is an author, speaker, product developer and global subject matter expert on trust and trustworthiness. Founder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World she is author of the award-winning Trust Inc., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset, Trust Inc., 52 Weeks of Activities and Inspirations for Building Workplace Trust and Trust Inc., a Guide for Boards & C-Suites. She majored in International Affairs (Lafayette College), and has an MBA (Baruch- City University of NY). Her expertise on trust has been cited in Harvard Business Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Thomson Reuters, BBC Radio, The Conference Board, Global Finance Magazine, Bank Director and Forbes, among others.
I remember speaking with Greg Link when he and Stephen M.R. Covey were writing their book Smart Trust.
That was 10 years ago
What has changed? In essence accountable leaders who have assumed responsibility for trust continue to reap the rewards. But sadly, over the past decade not many have chosen this route. Instead, the majority of businesses are simply checking boxes and little more. Why? These activities are relatively fast, easy and can be delegated. Put the “trust” label on the program and check the box. Now the communications team has some great talking points. Brand trust, purpose trust, AI trust, digital trust, ESG trust, etc. The list is endless. Who benefits from this approach? Consultants, speakers, academics, media and NGOs who have all joined forces in monetizing “perception of trust.” Who loses? Boards, business leaders, employees, customers and most other stakeholders.
In Smart Trust Covey and Link discuss 5 actions
Choose to believe in trust. …
Start with self. …
Declare your intent and assume positive intent in others. …
Do what you say you’re going to do. …
Lead out in extending trust to others.
These actions are a great starting point for business leaders, and there are many time tested strategies that will result in smart trust. Paradoxically, while trust is more important than ever, the majority of those who have the power to elevate it are choosing all the wrong approaches. I call that a dangerous win/lose proposition.
In the words of Covey and Link There is a direct connection between trust and prosperity because trust always affects two key inputs to prosperity: speed and cost. In low-trust situations, speed goes down and costs go up because of the many extra steps that suspicions generate in a relationship, whereas two parties that trust each other accomplish things much quicker and, consequently, cheaper. The authors call high trust a “performance multiplier.” High trust creates a dividend, while low trust creates a wasted tax.
Whether you choose to be part of the trust problem or part of the solution, here are a few indisputable facts:
Trust takes time and it is built in incremental steps.
Trust building is an inside out, not an outside in activity.
Trust ALWAYS starts with leadership.
As Bill George said in his testimonial for Smart Trust… Nothing is more important than building trust in relationships and in organizations. Trust is the glue that binds us together. Everywhere I go I see a remarkable loss of trust in leaders, and once lost, trust is very hard to regain. I feel this loss is tearing at the fabric of society, as so many people love to blame others for their misfortunes but fail to look in the mirror at themselves.
Barbara Brooks Kimmel is an author, speaker, product developer and global subject matter expert on trust and trustworthiness. Founder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World she is author of the award-winning Trust Inc., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset, Trust Inc., 52 Weeks of Activities and Inspirations for Building Workplace Trust and Trust Inc., a Guide for Boards & C-Suites. She majored in International Affairs (Lafayette College), and has an MBA (Baruch- City University of NY). Her expertise on trust has been cited in Harvard Business Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Thomson Reuters, BBC Radio, The Conference Board, Global Finance Magazine, Bank Director and Forbes, among others.
“A recent study by McKinsey found that those companies listed in Standard & Poor’s 500 was 61 years in 1958. Today, it is less than 18 years. McKinsey believes that in 2027, 75% of the companies currently quoted on the S&P 500 will have disappeared.” While some might question this conclusion or argue that disruptive technology is primarily to blame, maybe lack of trustworthiness is the real culprit.
Every year Trust Across America-Trust Around the World creates a “Top 10” Most Trustworthy Public Company list. The 2022 list can be found here. Four of the companies were founded in the 1800s and all but one has been in business for more than 18 years. The average life span of the ten companies is 77 years. Could it be that the most trustworthy companies are not only great innovators, but also tend to stay in business because they are well governed?
Some of warning signs of poor governance and low trustworthiness may surprise you.
Trust is taken for granted and viewed as a soft skill. Either leadership never discusses it, or worse yet attempts to delegate it.
There is a new chief in town who holds the title of Chief Trust Officer but it is not the CEO (see #1 above) as it should be, and the job description is similar if not identical to the Chief Risk Officer. Trust building and risk mitigation skillsets are not one and the same and trust always starts at the top.
The skillset of the “leadership” team needs a serious reset. For example, layoffs are a first line of defense.
Employee turnover is high but no one is asking why.
The company website contains lots of Kumbaya “words” that do not translate into action. Just ask the employees.
Strategies for elevating organizational trust and trustworthiness have never been discussed let alone described, shared or agreed upon.
Leadership focuses on survival and short-term profitability. In fact in many cases, compensation is directly tied to quarterly earnings.
Board diversity in gender and race are present but sorely lacking is diversity of thought or opinions.
A well defined/aligned hiring strategy has not been implemented resulting in cultural confusion and non engaged employees.
Expensive Short-term “perception of trust” programs/workarounds are abundant. (Hint: Think about whether the program can easily tick a box.)
Take a look at this infographic for some additional insights.
Elevating trust and trustworthiness does not require complex formulas. Most of these warning signs can be easily addressed given the right tools and resources, and a willingness to fix what is broken. Want to learn more about building organizational trust and trustworthiness? Our website provides an endless number of tools and resources.
Barbara Brooks Kimmel is an author, speaker, product developer and global subject matter expert on trust and trustworthiness. Founder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World she is author of the award-winning Trust Inc., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset, Trust Inc., 52 Weeks of Activities and Inspirations for Building Workplace Trust and Trust Inc., a Guide for Boards & C-Suites. She majored in International Affairs (Lafayette College), and has an MBA (Baruch- City University of NY). Her expertise on trust has been cited in Harvard Business Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Thomson Reuters, BBC Radio, The Conference Board, Global Finance Magazine, Bank Director and Forbes, among others.
Many models of (un)ethical decision making assume that people decide rationally and are, in principle, able to evaluate their decisions from a moral point of view. However, people might behave unethically without being aware of it. They are ethically blind.
As organizations are comprised of individuals, Ethical Blindness naturally extends into the workplace. Some business sectors appear to be more ethically blind than others, and this creates enormous enterprise risk.
Ethical blindness can be corrected, but only if leaders choose to be “tuned in” to the warning signs described below:
The Board of Directors has not established policies or procedures to elevate ethical and trustworthy behavior within their own team, nor with their internal and external stakeholders.
Leaders, unless they are ethically “aware” by nature, are not proactive about elevating trust or ethics as there is no mandate to do so. When a crisis occurs, the “fix” follows a common “external facing” script involving a costly and unnecessary PR campaign. A few years ago Wells Fargo ran a “building trust” television commercial providing a timely example of bad PR. Meanwhile internally, it was (and continues to be) “business as usual.”
Discussions of short term gains and cost cutting dominate most group meetings. The pressure to perform is intense and the language used is very strong.
The Legal and Compliance departments are large and growing faster than any other function.
The organizational culture is a mystery. No clear “ownership” of ethical or trustworthy business practices or decision-making exist. Nobody, including leadership, wants to take ownership for fear of finding out.
Discussions/training on ethics and trust rarely occur and when they do, they are lead by either the compliance or legal department and focus on rules and risk minimization, not ethics and trust.
Ethical considerations/testing are not part of the hiring process and fear is widespread among employees.
Is Ethical Blindness at the organizational level fixable? Absolutely. But the first order of business requires leadership acknowledgement and commitment to elevating organizational trust and ethics.
These 12 Principles called TAP, were developed over the course of a year by a group of ethics and trust experts who comprise our Trust Alliance. They should serve as a great starting point for not only a discussion but a clear roadmap to eradicating Ethical Blindness. As a recent TAP commenter said:
“An environment /culture that operates within this ethos sounds like an awesome place to me, I would work there tomorrow if I knew where to look for it.”
Barbara Brooks Kimmel is an author, speaker, product developer and global subject matter expert on trust and trustworthiness. Founder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World she is author of the award-winning Trust Inc., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset, Trust Inc., 52 Weeks of Activities and Inspirations for Building Workplace Trust and Trust Inc., a Guide for Boards & C-Suites. She majored in International Affairs (Lafayette College), and has an MBA (Baruch- City University of NY). Her expertise on trust has been cited in Harvard Business Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Thomson Reuters, BBC Radio, The Conference Board, Global Finance Magazine, Bank Director and Forbes, among others. For more information contact barbara@trustacrossamerica.com
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