The Great Trust Gap

•  The shaming of Sir Shifty: Sir Philip Green branded 'the unacceptable face of capitalism' by furious MPs
• Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn has resigned following the revelation that the firm manipulated US diesel car emissions tests……
• MPs' expenses: A scandal that will not die
• Tesco sales tumble on horsemeat scandal
• Cycling cheat Lance Armstrong has been fined $10 million for doping lies
• Banking…. Three weeks that changed the world

Recognise these headlines? And probably many more…..

Sir Philip Green was last week branded the 'unacceptable face of capitalism' in a scathing report. It reveals how the tycoon 'systematically' plundered hundreds of millions from BHS before leading it to disaster. The billionaire enriched his family for more than a decade through a series of shady property deals, awarding himself fat dividend cheques and starving the retailer of investment, MPs concluded….

• Sir Philip Green starved 88-year-old chain of investment
• Sold to a 'manifestly unsuitable' bankrupt – who stuck 'hands in the till'
• The inquiry found he then blamed everyone but himself for the collapse
• MPs blasted a web of companies designed to help him and wife avoid tax

It’s amazing to still see leaders of huge companies like BHS and VW etc. displaying such low trust behaviours and actually trying to deceive people. Surely they must understand the damage this causes to brand value, share price, employee engagement and customer loyalty? It seems not in some cases, nearly every month we continue to see ‘miss-trust’ headlines in the press.

Over the past few years we’ve been inundated with scandals in the press featuring people in senior positions displaying toxic and untrustworthy behaviour. The Jimmy Savile inquiry highlighted a worrying lack of accountability within the BBC and even the police. Edward Snowden’s data-privacy whistleblowing suggested the governments not only don’t trust us, but we shouldn’t trust them. And the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, declared that trust “screeched out of the parking lot” in 2008 and banks need to undergo deep cultural change to restore public confidence.

Frankly, these scandals of mistrust come as no surprise to most of us. Which I think is sad.

This year’s Edelman Global Trust Survey interviewed 31,000 business people across 26 different markets and found that banks and financial services are the least trusted organisations of all. The same negative feedback has been found for leadership; only 38% of people trust what a CEO is saying about their own organisation.

The symptoms of mistrust – hostile gossip, fruitless meetings and incompetent leaders - are daily realities for many in the workplace. Yet high trust is a key characteristic of profitable and sustainable businesses. Trust not only provokes customers to buy, it encourages employees to stay loyal and turns process-clogged organisations into lean, mean collaborative machines.

Trust is not a soft issue for organisations, it hits companies bottom line.

Do the Maths

Let’s start with the bottom line. How many of you would buy a car from a dodgy second hand salesman? How many of you trust Phillip Green? What is the fallout going to be for Top Shop? How many of you would buy a VW right now! Or a pension from a company going bust? Customers simply won’t buy from a company they don’t trust.

Trust brings a massive internal saving too. High trust organisations are more efficient. People are honest about their struggles and get the support they need. Tough conversations are had, decisions are made, and meetings actually work,

 Internally, costs go down. Externally, sales go up. Here are some startling stats:

•  There are 53% less sick days in organisations with high trust
• People are 87% less likely to leave an organisation with high trust
• Out of a survey of 300,000 leaders in over 60 countries, 89% of people put ‘honesty’ as the main trait they wanted to see in their leaders
• The relationship with your boss is cited as the number one reason people leave an organisation
• The CIPD quarterly report found that only 36% of employees trust senior leaders and 58% had adopted a ‘not bothered’ attitude for work

In short, trust is not a soft issue. It directly affects your financial success.

Lack of trust is obviously a huge organisational issue; in fact, I think it is the most important challenge we currently face. So the big question becomes: what can we do about it?

Start noticing the unquestioned low trust behaviours that happen within our businesses every day. Immerse yourself, become a trust detective. Begin by spotting how common, and commonly accepted, low trust behaviours are. Here are my suggestions for some good places to look: 

1. Corridor conversations – It’s amazing how often there’s silent consensus ‘in the room’, followed by long and angry dissections outside the room with zero accountability or action.
2. Gossiping – We all hate the thought of people whispering behind our back. But be honest: How many times have you heard or participated in a good gossip?
3. Self-serving decisions – People may claim that their decision is the best thing for the company, but their true motives are crystal clear.
4. Do as I say, not as I do – My personal bugbear! Leaders talking the talk but failing to walk the walk are all too common. This is a trait of many organisations that score ‘superficial’ on the trust barometer, where leadership is a title, not a behaviour.
5. Incompetent leaders - How many of today’s leaders lack either the technical competence or the people skills to do what is expected of them? If you have a culture of high trust with continual feedback and development, it’s not such a problem. But in low trust organisations people work around their incompetence in a miasma of fear.
6. Meeting mania - Low trust manifests in general ineffectiveness. Too many people are involved in decisions for fear of ‘leaving someone out’. Decisions are constantly deferred in case they are wrong. Everyone fights their own corner. Inertia ensues.
7. Low accountability - Blaming others, not owning up to mistakes, not holding poor performance to account, silos, inter-department warring…you know the drill.