Trust Across America-Trust Around the World™

Barbara Brooks Kimmel  has just learned that her book,  “Trust Inc., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset” has received a 2014 Nautilus Silver award in business/leadership. Founded in 1998, the Nautilus Awards honor books promoting social or environmental justice. Former winners include Deepak Chopra, Barbara Kingsolver, Marianne Williamson, Eckhart Tolle and others.

“Trust Inc.” is the first in a series of crowd-sourced books containing dozens of essays written by experts in organizational trust and leadership including Stephen M.R. Covey, Kouzes & Posner, Patricia Aburdene and Ken Blanchard. The foreword is written by Timothy McClimon of American Express and the concluding chapter is written by Robert Easton of Accenture. Many consider the breakdown in trust to be the “issue of the decade” and this book is the definitive guide for any organization seeking to build trust with its stakeholders.

After graduating from Lafayette College with a degree in International Affairs, and receiving an MBA from Baruch in New York City, Kimmel worked as a consultant to McKinsey and then founded a communications firm in 1994, called Next Decade, Inc. whose focus has been on “simplifying complex subjects.” In 2009 she turned her attention to the subject of “trust” and launched  Trust Across America, a global program that provides trust tools, interactive presentations and workshops to organizations of all sizes. 

Trust, Inc., Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset is available from Amazon.com and the Barnes & Noble website. The next book, Trust Inc., A Guide for Boards and C-Suites will be published in May.

Trust Inc.

Last week we announced the results of our 4th annual “Most Trustworthy Companies,” ranking almost 2500 US based, publicly traded companies on 5 indicators of trustworthy business behavior. Utilizing our proprietary FACTS Framework, Trust Across America picks up where other lists leave off, analyzing Financial stability, Accounting conservativeness, Corporate governance, Transparency and Sustainability from several independent data sources.

The “Top Ten” companies are shown below.

#1 Manpower Group (MAN), human resource consulting firm

#2 Hormel Foods (HRL), food producer

#3 Jones Lang Lasalle (JLL), commercial real estate

#4 CA Technologies, Inc. (CA), computer software

#5 The Boeing Company (BA), aerospace

#6 CBRE Group (CBG), commercial real estate

#7 Capital One Financial Corporation (COF), bank holding company

#8 The Sherwin Williams Company (SHW), general building materials

#9 Lexmark International, Inc. (LXK), office equipment

#10 Delta Airlines (DAL), transportation

The full press release is reproduced here.

This week we compare the performance of this group to the S&P 500.

Are you surprised about the recent past performance of these companies against the S&P 500? We aren’t. The business case for trust has been proven once again.

One-year return for “Top 10” vs. S&P 500:  38.8% vs. 17.59%, or 120% higher.

Two-year return for “Top 10” vs. S&P 500:  65.74% vs. 33.29%, or 97% higher.

Five-year return for “Top 10” vs. S&P 500: 240% vs. 114.81%, or 109% higher.

*Returns do not include dividends but the yield is similar to the S&P 500.

*While the returns show past performance of the ten companies, a live portfolio being rebalanced monthly has a similar profile.

Investors can choose to support trustworthy companies who are doing business “well” and are also highly profitable. This creates a virtuous cycle whereby less trustworthy companies may be inclined to focus more on corporate culture and  less on quarterly returns.

For more information, tools and programs on building trust in your organization, please visit us at Trust Across America.

Who are America’s Most Trustworthy Public Companies for 2013?

Trust Across America picks up where the “other” list leaves off, looking at 5 indicator of trustworthy business from three independent data sources.

Here’s our latest press release.