{"id":1476,"date":"2014-07-18T08:04:41","date_gmt":"2014-07-18T12:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/?p=1476"},"modified":"2014-07-18T08:04:41","modified_gmt":"2014-07-18T12:04:41","slug":"trust-in-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/?p=1476","title":{"rendered":"Trust in Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Late last year\u00a0Trust Across America-Trust Around the World\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0published the first in a planned\u00a0series of award-winning books.\u00a0<\/strong>The book,\u00a0TRUST INC. Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>brings together the wisdom of 32 experts and is divided into six chapters:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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  1. Why Trust Matters- read our blog<\/a> of July 18 to find out Why Trust Matters<\/li>\n
  2. Trust in Practice<\/li>\n
  3. Trustworthy Leadership<\/li>\n
  4. Building Trustworthy Teams<\/li>\n
  5. Restoring Trust<\/li>\n
  6. The Future of Trust<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Over a six day period, our blog will extract highlights from each chapter. Each one can serve as an excellent resource in helping leaders understand why trust matters, and provide tools for those who choose to implement trust building programs in their organization. In these five stories covering trust building from Apple, Inc. all the way to Africa, you will read how organizations have successfully built trust.<\/p>\n

    “In Apple We Trust”<\/strong>\u00a0Cynthia Figge<\/a> explores trust building under Apple’s new leadership.<\/p>\n

    In terms of company supremacy, Apple must surely rank near the top. They have maintained one of the largest market values for a public company and Fast Company named Apple as \u201cThe World\u2019s Most Innovative Company\u201d in 2012. What could be better? At the end of 2012 in a December 6th<\/sup> Business Week article. Apple\u2019s CEO, Tim Cook, said he would continue the company\u2019s focus on creating great products to enrich people\u2019s lives (\u201chigher cause for the product\u201d) under his leadership. He also noted that Apple would become more transparent to both make a difference and have others follow its leadership. For a company where secrecy has been sacred, was this a signal that transparency is being adopted as a business driver \u2013 perhaps ultimately an issue of customer loyalty and trust? Or was the external mounting pressure from Apple stakeholders great enough to change the company\u2019s course? Or both?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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    In\u00a0“Four Lock Box” <\/strong>John Gerzema<\/a> describes\u00a0the creation of a savings club in Kenya and how trust played a key role in its success.<\/p>\n

    The long-term payoff for Kenya could be seen in the rising health and education levels of the farm children who will soon be young adults. With its urban population growing at nearly five percent per year, Kenya will need more jobs in commerce and industry, and these positions require workers with sufficient schooling. However, many of today\u2019s adults in Kenya also need immediate access to work and incomes, and cannot devote years to study. For this segment of the population, one of the world\u2019s oldest aid groups\u2014Catholic Relief Services\u2014promotes a saving and lending scheme that serves people who are so poor that they cannot qualify even for the kind of microfinance loans popular in many parts of the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

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    In\u00a0“Brand Trust is the Foundation to Brand Loyalty” <\/strong>James Gregory<\/a> discusses\u00a0<\/strong>trust and brand loyalty using stories from Apple, AIG and BP.<\/p>\n

    Marketing professionals generally think of brand building as nothing more than a combination of product\/service packaging, public relations and advertising. In reality, the effort needed to build a trusted brand touches every aspect of a business. You can\u2019t just claim to be trustworthy; you must act and behave accordingly. Building brand loyalty through trustworthy behavior motivates audiences to continually select your brand over competitors, improving financial performance. Brand loyalty can also bolster your company\u2019s performance through economic shifts, public relations gaffes and even significant management changes.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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    In\u00a0“Trust the Great Economic Game Changer” <\/strong>Robert Porter Lynch<\/a> provides an eye opening essay on the auto industry. A great read for Mary Barra and GM’s Board of Directors.<\/p>\n

    One industry that\u2019s dear to everyone is the auto industry \u2013 the world\u2019s most visible and best-studied business sector. In 2009, General Motors and Chrysler both filed for bankruptcy and Ford came darned close. Being \u201ctoo big to fail,\u201d every taxpayer in the United States, through the action of the President, became an investor in GM and Chrysler through a bailout program (as taxpayers also did with the banks that failed).<\/em><\/p>\n

    What is not well known is that in the five year period leading up to the auto crisis, the \u201cBig Three\u201d U.S. automakers collectively had lost over $100 billion in the prior five years running up to the 2008 financial meltdown. The financial cataclysm did not cause their failure; it just put them over the precipice.<\/em><\/p>\n

    How could such large companies, staffed by highly educated management professionals, make such horrific mistakes? What really happened? What can we learn from this debacle?<\/em><\/p>\n

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    And finally Deb Mills-Scofield<\/a> shows\u00a0how Menasha Packaging Corp proved\u00a0“You Can’t Take 164 Years of Trust for Granted”<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    Menasha Packaging Corp (MPC), a 164 year old, 6th<\/sup> generation family business, has grown from making wooden pails in 1849 to a design-oriented packaging company that today delights customers, employees and their communities with over $1 billion in revenue.\u00a0 How? By leveraging their culture of entrepreneurship, collaboration, and autonomy based on trust and faith in each other.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

    In Menasha\u2019s history, there have been times of great trust and times of wavering trust.\u00a0 The early 1990s were a time of tension between many corporations and their unions.\u00a0 During that time, MPC, a strong believer in collaboration, started a formal team-based manufacturing program in their plants between management and plant workers, including union representatives. The output was increased innovation from the employees on the floor that improved productivity and the outcome was increased collaboration and trust.\u00a0 While this may be common sense to many of us today, it was not the \u201cnorm\u201d 20+ years ago.<\/em><\/p>\n

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    I hope you have enjoyed this sneak peak into the trust treasures contained in our book. Did I mention that the book has won both a Nautilus Business Book and Eric Hoffer Grand Business Prize Award? Tomorrow I’ll pull some similar gems from\u00a0Trustworthy Leadership<\/strong>. Check back with us soon.<\/p>\n

    If you have enjoyed this brief look behind the door,\u00a0follow\u00a0this link<\/a>\u00a0to order the book online.<\/p>\n

    Barbara Brooks Kimmel<\/strong>\u00a0is the Executive Director of\u00a0Trust Across America-Trust Around the World<\/a>\u00a0whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning\u00a0TRUST INC.<\/a>\u00a0book series. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.<\/p>\n

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    .\u00a0\"Print\"<\/a>\"ND<\/a><\/p>\n

    If you would like to communicate directly with Barbara, drop her a note at\u00a0Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com<\/a><\/p>\n

    Copyright \u00a9 2014, Next Decade, Inc.<\/p>\n

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