Trust Across America-Trust Around the World™

When leaders bust trust, employees play all sorts of games, and I don’t mean the video or tennis variety.

In my first post-college job, the “leaders” were intolerable jerks.

They defaulted into leadership by being company founders. One couldn’t keep his eyes (or his hands) to himself, while the other was insecure, abusive and lazy. Both thought nothing of lying to employees or clients. They also believed that if they threw enough money at their employees, they would earn their loyalty and respect. These two were a good match until one outsmarted the other and the partnership dissolved.

The office manager (also the head of HR and everything else) took care of all the “soft stuff.”

The problem was she also lacked leadership skills. She played favorites, made dumb rules and ultimately had no say in the owner’s decisions.

“Game playing” became the office norm. Among the games:

1. Four day weekends
2. The hour-long lunch break was always taken, plus a few more
3. The water cooler was the most popular gathering spot
4. Friday couldn’t come fast enough
5. 9AM turned into 9:30 and 4:30 became the new 5PM
6. Minimal effort was exerted. Through observation, I once calculated that the average employee spent less than 3 hours each day productively working.
7. Many employees treated their clients the same way they were treated
8. Turnover was very high and people quit without notice
9. Employees spent hours on personal phone calls
10. Loyalty was nonexistent, and employees often left their jobs to work for clients (including me.)

Any of the above sound familiar? What, other than more regulation, has changed in workplaces over the past 20 years?

Employees take their cues from their leader. Leaders who want to avoid game playing in their organization must not only be trustworthy but also make elevating internal trust their first priority.

For more information on elevating trust in your team or organization please visit our website and read more about our diagnostic AIM Towards Trust, now being used in companies worldwide.

For inquiries contact:

Barbara Brooks Kimmel, CEO and Cofounder

barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright 2019, Next Decade, Inc.

Leaders should never take trust seriously.

After all, trust is just one of those “soft skills” that needs no particular attention, especially from leadership. For your next corporate event, instruct your communications department to hire a stand up comic to cover that “stuff” and provide the script in advance. Make sure it’s “compliance approved” and that your Board members attend.

1. Never trust a tree. They are always shady.
2. My trust issues started when my Mom said “come here, I’m not gonna hit you!”
3. Raisin cookies that look like chocolate chip cookies are the main reason I have trust issues.
4. Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
5. I got trust issues because people got lying issues.
6. It’s funny how trust disappears when you are looking for the TV remote. Me: “Do you have the remote?” Him: “No.” Me: “Stand up.”
7. People say I have trust issues. I don’t believe them.
8. Watch who you trust. Even your teeth bite your tongue now and then.
9. I don’t trust these stairs. They are always up to something.
10. I am pretty sure the definition of trust is giving your friend your phone without clearing the history.

I take no credit for any of these one-liners. I’m way too serious about trust! Our new diagnostic AIM Towards Trust doesn’t deliver any jokes. Instead, it provides a baseline measurement from which to improve trust in any team or organization. It’s designed for trustworthy leaders who embrace trust as an intentional business strategy, not a joke.

Contact us for more information: barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright 2019, Next Decade, Inc.

What gets measured gets managed – Peter Drucker

In preparation for the first anniversary of Tap Into Trust, we have been running an anonymous one question/one minute survey to identify the primary causes of low trust in organizations. The results may surprise you and provide insight into what needs fixing.

Which of these 12 trust principles do you consider the weakest in your organization?

Transparency? Integrity? Respect? None of those would be correct.

• Truth
• Accountability
• Purpose
• Integrity
• Notice
• Talent
• Openness
• Transparency
• Respect
• Understanding
• Safety
• Tracking

Take the survey and find out.

Remember, You can’t manage what you haven’t measured.

Trust is always internal and must be built from the inside out. Everything else is simply “perception of trust.”

Learn how you can bring this trust diagnostic into your team or organization.

For more information contact:

Barbara Brooks Kimmel, CEO and Cofounder Trust Across America-Trust Around the World barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright 2019, Next Decade, Inc.

Trust Across America has been writing about Wells Fargo and making public suggestions to leadership on how to fix the Bank’s low trust since 2016, apparently to no avail.

The recent “trust building” communications “horse and pony” show was predictably a huge and expensive fail.  Anyone with even a basic understanding of organizational trust knows that trust is internal and must be built from the inside out, not through a PR campaign. So now the sudden resignation of the current CEO comes as no surprise to us, nor does the appointment of the “interim” CEO who “by chance” happens to be a lawyer.

Over the weekend we asked members of our cross functional Trust Council to weigh in on the actions required to right what appears to be a sinking ship. We appreciate the thoughts of our Council members who took the time to weigh in.

Acknowledge trust as a hard asset: Do not assume that trust is a “soft skill” and do not attempt a fix via exclusive input from legal and compliance. Form a cross-silo team to attack low trust with the support of the “right” Board members, possibly necessitating some “reshuffling” at the highest level. In other words, clean house.

Make trust building the first priority: A foundation of trust must be built before culture can be fixed. 

Be accountable: Embrace responsibility and accountability and avoid the deadly Watergate sin of tip-toeing up to the line but not crossing it, perpetuating the sense of cover-up. You’ve got to own it—and then some.

Measure what matters: Assess the current level of stakeholder trust and use this baseline to begin attacking the weaknesses. What can be measured can be managed.

Practice and reinforce values: Saying or printing them is mere cant. You’ve got to propagandize them, talk about them in application to specific instances, hold leaders accountable for a quota of such applications.

Model humility: Place truth-telling ahead of personal or professional gain.

Be transparent: Reject hidden agendas and be transparent wherever and whenever possible.

Hire and fire: Nothing builds trust faster than firing and hiring people. Hire/fire/promote on visible demonstrations of the bank’s values. Cull out the middle managers who still think they can get away with hiding unethical behaviors. 

Erase fear: Drive out fear and ensure every voice is heard and every trust breach is fully investigated. “The absence of fear is the incubator of trust.” Reward moral character and reinforce candor.

Track performance:  Define and scorecard performance against both values and value.

Perhaps the most difficult question came yesterday when someone asked me “Who would want the job of CEO?” That’s a tough one. Hiring another banker may not even be the best solution as finance is not generally considered an industry to exhibit high trust behavior. Regardless, the hope is that whoever the brave soul is who steps in to take the position begins their tenure by first acknowledging that trust is internal and must be elevated from the inside out. Only then can the required culture work begin.

PS- CNN just (attempted to) weigh in on how the bank can end the crisis. They may want to go back to the drawing board and craft a followup article.

For more information and tools to elevate trust, head over to our website at www.trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright 2019 Next Decade, Inc.