Trust Across America-Trust Around the World™

Mark Your Calendars for Our Holiday Festival of Trust December 22

Join Barbara and Jordan Kimmel, the co-founders of Trust Across America, for a “virtual eggnog” on Trust Across America radio from noon to 1 PM EST on December 22.

This will be a fun filled hour with surprises and gifts. We will unveil our new website, bring you up to date on our programs, and count down the “Top 10 Companies in Trustworthy Business Behavior for 2010.”

And as a way of saying “Thank you” to our supporters, we will be giving away lots of books and “Trust Across America™ logo products. All you need to do is email us a question or comment about our programs that you would like us to address during the show (send questions or comments before December 20) and we will enter your name to win a prize.

Please email: barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

(US address must be supplied to receive a prize).

A quick run down on what’s going on at Trust Across America is provided below:

Week of December 12-Launch of new website at www.trustacrossamerica.com

December 22-Release of “Top 10 Most Trustworthy Companies” on Trust Across America Radio (noon-1PM EST)

www.voiceamerica.com/voiceamerica/vshow.aspx?sid=1713

December 29-Release of “Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior” at www.trustacrossamerica.com

January 2011

Company Trust Audits and Sector/Industry Reports Become Available at www.trustacrossamerica.com

Earlier today Jordan Kimmel interviewed Bob Eccles on Trust Across America radio. The archived interview will be available in the next 48 hours.

www.voiceamerica.com/voiceamerica/vshow.aspx?sid=1713

Robert G. Eccles first joined the faculty of Harvard Business School in 1979. After receiving tenure, he started doing research on corporate reporting, a topic which remains of great interest to him from a research, managerial practice, and public policy perspective. His book  One Report: Integrated Reporting for a Sustainable Strategy (with Michael P. Krzus) is the first book on this subject. This is the Amazon link.

www.amazon.com/dp/0470587512 tag=trustacrossam20&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0470587512&adid=1AM99F52MSMW1MTA2CMV&

Bob is a member of the Steering Committee of the International Integrated Reporting Committee (www.integratedreporting.org).

Jordan and Bob spent the hour talking about Integrated Reporting and why it is so timely. Highlights from the interview are reproduced below.

What is integrated reporting?

It is a single report produced by a company that combines material financial and nonfinancial data into one document.

Why is integrated reporting gaining in popularity?

Bob highlighted four main reasons:

1. Technology has made it easier for companies to share information with their stakeholders via their website.

2. Sustainability is becoming more mainstream.

3. The recent financial crisis has prompted companies to provide their stakeholders with added transparency.

4.  Companies are becoming more aware of the importance of corporate repuation as an intangible asset.

Who benefits from integrated reporting?

1. Employees

2. Customers

3. NGO’s

4. Investors

5. Society

What are the key challenges in implementing an integrated report?

1. Companies must gather information from many different (and often independent) silos within the organization.

2. Internal measurements of nonfinancial reporting are not well developed.

3. Companies are not always willing to be, or comfortable in being, more transparent.

4. CEO”s must embrace the integrated reporting concept.

5. A lack of clear integrated reporting standards makes auditing difficult.

But the good news is that, over the next year, there will be more examples of public companies issuing integrated reports and more groups will be developing standards and frameworks.

In mid-October a workshop entitled “Workshop on Integrated Reporting: Framework & Next Steps” was held at HBS and sponsored by their Business and Environmental Initiative. This culminated in the release this week of a new e-book on integrated reporting, reflecting the input and efforts of 64 workshop attendees. The Landscape of Integrated Reporting: Reflections and Next Steps is now available at the following link:

www.smashwords.com/books/view/30930

In summary, the development of corporate integrated reporting (IR) standards is potentially one of the great business innovations of the 21st century, and could be pivotal in restoring public trust in business institutions. We are all stakeholders in some way, whether as employees, customers, or investors. As such, we can all play a role in encouraging companies to adopt IR into their culture.

Professor Eccles can be reached for comment at reccles@hbs.edu

or you can direct questions and comments to:

 barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Thank you Professor Eccles and Jordan! Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Barbara Kimmel, Executive Director, Trust Across America

Any parent who has sat on the sidelines of a boy’s high school soccer game knows that the referee “controls” both the technical and behavioral components of the game. Sometimes the “calls” are accurate, sometimes not so much. But what happens when the referee fails to show up?

That scenario played out earlier this week in a game between two teams- one a big inner city group, and the other “smaller in stature” suburban group.

From the sideline parent’s perspective, it looked like trouble. Who could imagine these two groups facing off on a field with no referee? But since it was an “add on” to the schedule, and didn’t “count”, it was decided that the game would be played anyway.

The parent’s and coaches held their collective breath as the game began, and for the next hour, we waited for the “trouble” to start. It never did. Not only was there no trouble, but the two teams got along better than most. There was good sportsmanship and the boys were talking and laughing with each other during the game. The game ended in a 2-1 victory for the urban team, the boys shook hands, some “high-fived”,  and we all went home.

What is the moral of this story? The person in charge has the power, makes the “obvious” calls and shoulders the blame for conflict. When there is no person in charge, the obvious calls are mutually agreed on, and the not so obvious are talked out. This is a clear demonstration of the “roundtable effect” (a meeting of peers), in that nobody is above or below each other, and good decisions are easy to come by.

What are your thoughts? Drop me an email at barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

TRUST ACROSS AMERICA™ RELEASES FIRST FINDINGS FROM ITS STUDY OF TRUSTWORTHY BUSINESS PRACTICES IN PUBLIC COMPANIES

While there may be a continuing and complex trust crisis in America, our research shows that there is a direct relationship between business performance and trustworthy behavior. And while a universal definition of trust may not exist, it’s not really a problem,—it’s just the way things are. We love to put precise metrics in place that describe and explain, in linear and causal terms, things like human behavior. But reality doesn’t always cooperate. And because what can’t be measured also gets overlooked, trust, which is absolutely critical in business relationships, needs measuring.

A 2008 paper written by the Economist Intelligence Unit entitled “The Role of Trust in Business Collaboration” concluded with the following statement:

“Even though best-practice corporate governance has been on the corporate radar for some time now, it seems that the trust element of governance, despite being so closely linked to ethics, has yet to become a business standard.”

We believe that many important concepts cannot be reduced to a single metric, and that is certainly true for trust. However, what can be defined and measured are various contributory components of trustworthy behavior in business—factors that we can all agree are definitely somewhere in the trust neighborhood. And when these factors are evaluated and aggregated, there are some encouraging results about companies that somehow seem to be “doing the right thing.” We may not be able to precisely measure trust; but that doesn’t mean we can’t rate it, test it, evaluate it, and above all—manage it. What we have recently done is removed the ‘yet’ out of the Economist’s description.

In 2007 we set a goal of developing a rigorous approach to better understanding and evaluating trustworthy business practices. We began laying a foundation for a trust ecosystem, and Trust Across America™ (TAA) was hatched. Through our professional relationships, LinkedIn group, and our radio show, we have spoken to dozens of academic and corporate experts and consultants across the wide range of specialized silos relating to organizational trust- ethics, integrity, reputation, ESG, CSR, accounting, and sustainability to get their feedback on this elusive concept of trust. From this collaborative effort, we have developed a methodology that we think approximates the most holistic and comprehensive definition and measurement of trustworthy corporate behavior to date. We named it FACTS™. It allows us to provide meaning, definition and measurement to both the business and behavioral side of trust.

FACTS™ is an acronym. It stands for:

Financial strength and stability
Accounting controls
Corporate governance and community impact
Treatment of Stakeholders and Transparency
Sustainability

We ran the FACTS model again historical public data for thousands of public companies from 1998-2009, and eliminated those that did not have complete data. In essence, our methodology analyzes hundreds of data points from three independent providers, and with equal weighting, arrives at a cumulative FACTS™ trust score for almost 2000 of the largest publicly traded companies. Currently, thirty nine companies reach the Gold Standard of 50 points or more in each of the FACTS data categories.

Some other noteworthy findings from this study:

•The company with the highest trust ranking (across sixteen sectors) is in the same industry as BP Global. We find this somewhat timely since it is a goal of TAA to have the most trustworthy companies share their best practices.

•The companies with the highest scores in all data categories come from six different industry groups, so no single industry dominates in the “trust” category.

•The retail sector has the highest average trust rating of the sixteen.

•When we rank the 1954 companies, the top 10% are almost evenly split between large and small (over and under $2 billion market cap).

•Only two hundred companies in the database scored above a “50” in sustainability efforts.

Over the next few weeks we will be populating the Trust Across America website Link to Website with the following material:

-An alphabetical listing of the names of all 1954 companies for which we have complete data.
-An alphabetical listing of the top 10% of all companies.
-Company specific and industry reports that will allow C-Suite executives to anticipate “surprises”, manage risk, and better protect their company’s reputation; provide a workable framework for enhancing organizational trust and reputation; and provide meaning, definition and measurement to both the business and behavioral side of trust..
-Reports for consumers and other professionals.
-Additional resources for public companies that wish to delve deeper into internal and external behavioral assessments.

We will also begin conversations with the media (both print and broadcast) about our findings and will start to contact some of the top companies for interviews and further involvement. Our mission is to highlight companies that are “doing the right thing”, refocus media attention away from the negative, and provide opportunities for companies to share best practices.

I look forward to your comments and feedback. The best initial method to communicate is via email: barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Barbara Kimmel, Executive Director Read more…

Charles Green, founder of Trusted Advisor Associates issued a white paper yesterday summarizing the results of their Trust Quotient Quiz that has been taken by over 12000 people. It’s an interesting paper. Here are some of the highlights:

Women rated themselves as just slightly more trustworthy than men.

Higher scoring industries include medical care, retail, banking, real estate and consulting.

We tend not to trust those who seem erratic or inconsistent.

Skill mastery and knowledge don’t seem to help in building trust.

Trust CAN be taught.

Listening and empathizing are more important in building trust than an advanced degree.

For the complete white paper, click here: Read full paper

This week Leslie Gaines-Ross took some time out of her schedule as one of America’s leading corporate reputation strategists to shed some light on her professional activities and the steps CEO’s must take to ensure a solid reputation. Read Complete Interview

Leslie is the author of the following books:

1. Trust is built over time but the process can be accelerated by acting in a beyond reproach manner.

2. Trust begets trust. Keep keeping your word.

3. If you want someone to trust you, show that you trust them first.

4. If someone says “trust me”, run as fast as you can.

5. It takes much more effort to rebuild trust than it does to build it the first time.

6. When in doubt, keep testing the trust (“Trust but verify”).

7. Trust is the union of many guiding principles including ethics, transparency, accountability and integrity.

8. Leaders, employees and customers control the public’s perception of trust in every business.

9. Trustworthiness can be measured both quantitatively and qualitatively, and while there will always be a margin for error, there is also always room for improvement.

10. As Charles Green at www.trustedadvisor.com likes to say “Trust your dog with your life, but not with your ham sandwich”. This applies to people as well.

Barbara Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America, a program of Next Decade, Inc. For more information please visit www.trustacrossamerica.com and listen in on our weekly radio show called Trust Across America at:
www.voiceamerica.com/voiceamerica/vshow.aspx?sid=1713