Help! Trust has become an obsession.

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you will find many instances where trust seems to be playing a role in people business lives, and society. You might realise how much trust is appearing in diverse places, including some unexpected ones. You will also find one of the best recipes to build trust - if you're interested. By the way, thank you for your concern, but I don't really need help, I'm comfortable with my obsession.

?Warning: extra long post ?? (it's an obsession after all)

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Today, I am quite happy to confess two serious addictions: the first one is LinkedIn (more on this in a subsequent post), the second one: Trust. I have become obsessed with the building and erosion of Trust.

Welcome to the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon ??, otherwise known as frequency illusion. This phenomenon occurs when the thing you've just noticed, experienced or been told about starts appearing around you all the time. It gives you the feeling that out of nowhere, the subject is now surrounding you. And you're not crazy; you are actually seeing it more. But the thing is, of course, that's because you're noticing it more.

These days I do see Trust everywhere. Sometimes in obvious places, sometimes you have to look a little closer to notice it. The good news is I have done some of the closer inspection for you. ??

Trust is a topic increasingly being discussed

The most obvious proof that Trust on many people's mind: if you were to do the same quick Google Search, that I did last week-end, you'll see that it reveals more than 27 million results! ??

I have a personal theory that I would like for you to consider and challenge if need be: faced with vast and often conflicting information and data, we are being submerged by over-information, and are increasingly limiting our information sources to those we believe we can trust, narrowing our vision of the world.

In 2018, there's never been more data and more information being shared around the globe. I have forgotten the exact figures but I read recently that there will be more data produced and published online between now and 2020 than since the creation of Internet. You might have seen comparable infographics to the one below. They clearly show the unconceivable oceans of data that are created every minute. ??

In these vast oceans of data, how do you figure out where to turn - who can you believe? The credible and reliable sources of information that many relied upon historically can be hacked or may even be quite openly originating "fake news" to satisfy political agendas. ??

What makes a credible information source in our current society where we may not be able to instantly verify the veracity of information? How much are we influenced by social media algorithms that are feeding us the same sort of information we have shown to appreciate?

A natural consequence to me is that for the general public, it can be really difficult to be sure about the veracity, validity and value of the information you see, or being shown.

That's why in 2017 and 2018, we have seen a global implosion of Trust. That's the overarching finding from the Edelman Trust Barometer - potential one of the best measures of the global business climate, if you were to ask me.

"2017 was the year of global Trust implosion. In 2018, there is no sign of recovery. " Richard Edelman CEO

Forget Bitcoins! Trust is the new currency of our digital age

In this context, I'm not at all surprised that a few people have coined Trust as the new currency in the digital age.

??Bitcoins and digital currencies may be all the rage in recent times, but what if I was to tell you that the most fundamental value of blockchain technology is to create a system for a distributed digital source of Trust? Don't believe me on this one - check what some of the experts said. The Economist even dubbed Blockchain "the trust machine"! ??

Trust is also on the mind of our global leaders and politicians

I have spent a little bit of time going through some of the conversations and topics raised at World Economic Forum (WEF). The WEF is this annual event where all global leaders gather in a remote ski resort in the Swiss Alps to talk about rather serious issues, the topics of the time (and some suspect have a fair share of fun as well).

I focused on what was discussed for the period 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. It was with a sense of satisfaction that I found Trust as a regular topic there, as much as free trade, the digital economy and the rise of the GAFA. In a nutshell here is how the global discourse about Trust has evolved in the last few years.

• 2015: the focus was limited to preserving the "consumer" trust
• 2016: as reported in PwC's CEO survey, "The Quest for Trust, a central concern" (https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/ceo-survey/2016/landing-page/pwc-19th-annual-global-ceo-survey.pdf)
• 2017: concurring with the findings of the Edelman Trust Barometer results, and my personal theory, the multiplication of information and the skyrocketing influence of the digital world on society mean that creating trust is more difficult in a digital age, and this is particularly problematic for businesses (https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/ceo-survey/2017/pwc-ceo-20th-survey-report-2017.pdf)
• 2018: the details of what was discussed at Davos were still limited at the time I conducted my research for this article but trust was still referred to as "a vital commodity in business".

So I did find Trust relevant and a matter of discussion for our global leaders...

A solid counter argument to Trust being increasingly prevalent and influential in our society, has repeatedly come to me from people quoting the recent US elections. I too had found the reports of some of the events of the campaign, some of the speeches and reactions from the crowd ... puzzling to say the least. The question that was on many peoples' mind in Europe at the time was: how could anyone elect an individual that cannot be trusted, that is openly misleading and lying? ?? This is certainly what fuelled the disbelief in the eventual results.

Well - after some research on this one, I found a number of interesting articles, but the one below is probably the most concise and specific one with respect to Trust and Trump: the 2017 US elections were never really about whether people believed Trump said the truth - or not. It was more about the desire of many to shake up the White House. I guess he's been delivering on this one. ??

So it Trust really is a significant item for world leaders and politicians.

Trust in a digital age: the public scepticism and a governmental response

If you are located or doing business with the EU, there is a good chance you might have heard about the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (Regulation EU 2016/679). It is a Regulation by which the European Commission intends to strengthen and unify data protection for individuals within the European Union (EU).

It will become enforceable by the end of May 2018. If you've been hiding under a rock, there's still some (little) time left for you to do your homework.??

It also addresses export of personal data outside the EU. In the USA, this is what is referred to as personally identifiable information (PII). Data such as names, addresses, phone numbers, account numbers, and more recently email and IP addresses.

I'm no expert here, but based on my various conversations with cybersecurity, data and IT gurus, what was seemingly a good idea full of common sense on paper (minimisation of data collection, privacy by design, right to be forgotten, notification of breaches) - it will be a lot of work and in some cases a massive beast to grapple with for EU businesses. ??

So why would the EU proceed with such a cumbersome and in many instances expensive regulatory requirement? What's at stake here?

Well as it turns out - it's the willingness from people to take part to the digital economy, to share their personal information to facilitate business. Especially in recent weeks with some of the scandals associated with Facebook or Cambridge Analytica.

The EU GDPR is all about preserving trust between the General Public and IoT.

In some way, the GDPR EU regulation is a policy response to critical need for people to trust companies and businesses that may be looking for ways to use their personal data, with the consumer consent.

But if you start paying attention to the notion of Trust, it will appear in many more places.

Trust and team performance

Earlier this year, Google published the results of a vast, multi-year survey and study into the various factors affecting their staff performance. I guess the multiplication of envious comments about their comfy lounges, pet dogs, ping pong tables, and whatever else... may have incited them to actually study what might contribute to their superior performance. ??

And guess what?! Yep - Trust. Determined to be the no.1 ingredient for high performing team according to Google

By the way, if you have any interest in doing some more research on this topic, I can only warmly the following book: ?? Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies by Paul J. Zak

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30212646-trust-factor

The first 2/3 of the book are particularly interesting. The last 1/3 - just make your own opinion.

?? Trust, AI and robotics

For those of you that read my posts on a regular basis, I have in many instances expressed questions and may I say concerns about Artificial Intelligence. Without some form of conventions, universal rules (like Asimov's), I'm concerned about the rational analysis that could be performed by machines about humans once we reach singularity (when one AI is smarter than the sum of us).

For reference, the three rules of robotics declared by Igor Asimov nearly 80 (!) years ago are:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Little tangible progress has been made since. This is the point where some serious frictions occur between real world variability and chaos, humans and robots.

Could Trust be an answer? In 2017, an interesting article published by Tech Crunch's Brian Heater, defined really neatly the situation.

This very simplistic idea of trust serves as another source of information for the robot. Trusting a human counterpart in this case can help the robot adapt to real-world settings for which its programmers may not have accounted. “What trust allows the robot to do is accept additional information that it cannot obtain itself,” explains Scheutz. “It does not have sensory access or it cannot act on the world to get that information. When a human provides that information, which it cannot independently verify, it will learn to trust that the person is telling the truth, and that’s why we make the distinction between a trusted and untrusted source.”

https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/09/teaching-robots-how-to-trust/

So Trust could allow robots and AI to better analyse and cope with lack of information or situations not yet encountered.

Trust and professionals - the unchartered territory

What about you, dear reader?

How much focus have you placed on Trust? How well equipped are you to build Trust with your professional network, clients, prospects?

In my frequent exchanges with business leaders, CEO and start-uppers, I have been recognising different groups in the population. What I have been finding most interesting is how much their personal experience has opened their minds to the importance of trust in business, and how much this is sometimes profoundly affecting the way they go about running their businesses and how they approach their client relationships.

To help guiding you through where you are compared to where you may wish to be, I would like to propose the following framework: the four-levels of Trust for professionals.

• Level 0 - Trust naive (25% of businesses)
• Level 1 - Trust aware (60% of businesses)
• Level 2 - Trust committed (10-15% of businesses)
• Level 3 - Trust obsessed (<5% of businesses)

------------ ??? Level 0: Trust-naive -------------

At this level, you have not been paying much attention to Trust in business. Like many, you might be convinced that business is essentially a rational process, in which the factual exchange of good ideas and solutions to client problems is the basis for most transactions. In order to be successful in business, you need to state the facts and features of your offering to your prospects and then hope that your competitors have not submitted a significantly lower fee than you.

The vast majority of your business relationships are based on situations where you would be able to provide your products or services. Outside of times when your clients have a specific need for your offering, there is no exchange of information. Your clients relationships are only maintained during the execution of contracts. Your best client contacts are the people that have used your services or products previously. They've seen the quality of the work your organisation does.

For business development efforts, you typically pursue "fishing" strategies: you're chasing large volumes of opportunities because you know you will only convert a small fraction into contracts and projects.

?? Some of your concerns at the moment are: your competitors, degrading market conditions, pressure on margins, technological disruption, identifying and pursuing enough opportunities to fuel your sales pipeline, knowing that many will not eventuate. Finding enough time to chase all these opportunities can also be a challenge unless you have invested in marketing automation and other CRM tools.

?? Your favourite tools: email marketing, marketing automation, outbound communication.

?? Your proportion in the business B2B population (my guess only) - 25%

--------------- 1?? Level 1: Trust-aware ---------------

At this level, you typically have noticed that relationships do play a role in business. There are many other aspects involved: credibility, reputation, reliability, responsiveness. Trust does play a role, but it's only one among many others.

In some way, you're asking yourself many of the same questions as Jim Davies ...

You have paid attention to how some decisions seem to not be only made based on rational information. You may have noticed or experienced some repeat business from customers and clients that have told you how much they appreciate and value your delivery of services compared to others and how much more confident they are in doing business with you, (even if sometimes at a premium).

Your business relationships are largely driven by your technical ability to bring solutions to your clients problems. But there might be a couple of "special" clients where the relationship has been lasting for quite some time - where loyalty is high. You however can't really explain how this happened beyond you simply delivering quality products or services consistently over time. So you're largely focused on creating and maintaining recurring clients as often as possible. Otherwise it's back to the "fishing" strategy.

?? Some of your concerns at the moment are (just like for level 0): your competitors, degrading market conditions, pressions on margins, technological disruption, identifying and pursuing enough opportunities to fuel your sales pipeline, knowing that many will not eventuate. Interestingly most of these concerns do not apply to these "special" long term clients, where prices are stable and your margins are more comfortable and not a big issue for your client.

??Your favourite tools: email marketing, marketing automation, outbound communication. For your "special" clients you sometimes simply talk on the phone or meet up to discuss directly their issues and how you might be able to help them out. You have brochures and flyers for your various services and products that you like to present to your clients.

?? Your proportion in the business B2B population (my guess only) - 60%

--------- 2?? Level 2: Trust-committed ----------

At this level - you have identified Trust as a central pillar in many important and strategic decisions for business leaders. A lot of different things play a role in being trustworthy in the eyes of your clients: credibility, reputation, and many more - but it all comes down to this: your trustworthiness. At the end of the day, what seems to matter most is how safe and comfortable your clients can be with you. Over the year you have been able to build a strong base of recurring clients.

The strategic background to your approach is that in 2018, when most clients are super informed and have easy access to any supplier or provider from around the globe - the deciding factor for many clients is whether, as a supplier, you are safer, more trustworthy than other suppliers, and in particular if you truly understand them.

For a recent anecdotal evidence, from the legal industry, here is what Norman Brothers of UPS Inc. said about his most successful legal advisors: “What makes firms successful within the network are those that understand our business and are proactive about helping us identify issues we haven’t thought about.”

Your business relations are quite diverse, at all levels in the organisation, from middle management, to team leaders and business leaders. You are often making conscious efforts to try and understand the challenges and priorities of your clients. Quite often you find yourself limited by the nature of the conversations you have. They're primarily technical and relate to your key offering. In some instances however, you have been able to broaden the discussion and also exchange on topics that have nothing to do with your products or services.

You have come to understand that the building of Trust needs to be intentional, not left to good luck. A fundamental point of focus is to be on the client's agenda. You have noticed how much more engaged your clients are when you talk about their priorities and issues as opposed to explaining to them your various services and areas of expertise.

?? Some of your concerns right now are: how can you be efficient in the building of Trust? You have realised that in some instances it is quite straightforward but how much in other instances, with different types of clients, it seems nearly impossible to build a satisfying relationship. Another common challenge for you is how to find enough time in your days and weeks to go and build trust with your clients, and how to effectively do this as an organisation. You're concerned about how much time you need to invest with some clients by way of creating, maintaining and building the relationship over time. It can sometime take much longer than you would like to start talking about collaborating and doing business together. Another intriguing question is how can you leverage technology in your business development efforts? There seems to be a lot of developments in automated marketing, using AI and associated technologies to develop a more effective pipeline - but it doesn't really help you being trustworthy.

?? Your favourite tools: your contact list or database, or CRM, your meeting notes, phone conversations and direct personal emails. You also use short and concise flyers and brochures that you like to leave behind, if useful. You may have or have had access to usual marketing tools such as the ones for level 0 and 1, but have been finding their most significant value in being able to open client doors which you can do by other means.

?? Your proportion in the business B2B population (my guess only) - 10-15%

--------- 3?? Level 3: Trust-obsessed --------

A clear sign that you have become obsessed with Trust, is that you are no longer focused on the commercial and sales performance of your organisation. Doing business for you is anchored around two key pillars:

1. Your network of clients and your reputation are EVERYTHING.
2. Business is all about being yourself, sharing your experience and insights, and trying to create value for your client at every interaction.

You have seen how much your organisation profitability will largely look after itself if you can create a wide enough ecosystem of Trust amongst your clients, suppliers, partners and any of your business relationships. By focusing on being worthy of the trust of your clients, and infaillibly acting in their best interest, you rapidly noticed that:

• your clients become your sales force, they're sharing with their network the value that you create for them, they are opening doors for you and the "word of mouth" is generating most of the opportunities for you to pursue. You don't have to look for work, work is largely coming to you instead.
• the total value of your clients is gradually increasing over time: it takes less efforts and investments for you to create opportunities and deliver work for your clients. In fact, they're usually the ones coming forward with questions to resolve and some budget to invest.
• you're the obvious and natural provider of your services - there is no competition for your services and products, since people want to do business with YOU. In most cases, as soon as an opportunity to repeat business presents itself, it is also realised.

Your business relationships are primarily found in the senior most layers of organisations, this is in part because that's where you have realised having relationships matters most, but also because this is where the word of mouth is having most impact. From business leaders to business leaders. This means that you get a chance to more directly and effectively influence the decision makers, but that also requires you to be able to engage in conversations that are much broader that your specific area of expertise and occasionally this can be daunting. No one likes to make a fool of themselves in front of influential individuals.

Your business development efforts are interestingly straightforward now. They largely consist in expanding and grooming your relationship capital. Sometimes it's quite easy and pleasant, because it can mean energising breakfasts, nice lunches and dinners, and having engaging conversations with people you care about. Sometimes it is a little more challenging, personally and emotionally, because what these people are expecting is honesty and authenticity. Truth is sometimes confronting to hear and hard to deliver. To be trusted, you equally need to trust first, and that necessitates being vulnerable and exposing yourself, offering before you can demand... for some that's easier said than done.

In many cases, marketing for you is largely social or value based marketing, whereby you share insights, ideas and experiences, helping your clients and prospects discover and learn a few things from your material. You may occasionally focus on your customer buying journey and creating value at each step of their way. But you've come to understand that it's certainly not about you, your products or your services. So you don't do generic brochures anymore.

?? Some of your challenges today: being quite rare in the world of business, one important question for you is: how to be credible in the eyes of people that have never experienced this? I have found myself so many times in the position where potential clients are expecting me to pull out the sales pitch and deck of sales slides - it's logical, they've been conditioned in that way for a long time. So making them understand the different nature of your approach - that needs some thinking.

Another likely question is how do you enable others in your organisation to operate in a similar/ consistent manner? You may either be a small organisation that is growing, and could be experiencing what Simon Sinek calls "The split" (see below) where your team is not as clear on "why" relationships matter so much in your business model - or you may already be a large organisation and implementing the sort of cultural change that is necessary is a complex piece. In which case, Ben Peacock could be of interest to you... (see below). But helping others do what you do - that's always more difficult than you'd like it to.

Another likely concern of yours is how can you be helpful to your clients outside of your skills and solutions offered by your organisation? where do you find like minded organisations and entrepreneurs that you can trust to do the right thing by your clients?

Finally, a significant challenge is where do you find the sorts of people that have the necessarily skills to contribute to such a strategy? Unfortunately, schools, universities, particularly in Europe do not train and educate our children on how to collaborate effectively. Many and France in particular are still pushing knowledge based teaching and are promoting competitive behaviours as opposed to collaborative ones. So where and how can you find the right profiles for your organisation?

?? Your proportion in the business B2B population (my guess only) - < 5%

? Useful reference: The Split in organisations by Simon Sinek (at approx. 4:00)

? Useful reference: integral thinking in culture/behaviour change initiatives by Ben Peacock

Trust - the magic recipe

My most important message in this post is the following. The building of trust can be done consistently and effectively from the careful use of a number of skills and the application of a particular mindset. All of which can be learned and transferred.

Like any behavioural change process - it will just as easy or as hard as you want it to be, based on your personal or organisational commitment and the resources you're willing to allocate to the effort.

To point you in the right direction, below is a reference that I use nearly everyday in my coaching. It is beautiful because it is pragmatic and applicable to most instances. It is known as the Trust Equation.

It was first published in the 1970's by David Maister et al. So nothing really new and nothing of our creation.

What I find most powerful in this equation is how obvious the influence of Intimacy and Self-Orientation is. Most of us can think of credible (competent) individuals that have demonstrated their capacity to deliver. But somehow we can't quite feel comfortable with them. Their oversized ego might be disturbing, or it could be that they don't seem to be paying the slightest attention to anything outside their personal agenda. This equation explains you why you feel the way you feel.

?? you're having issues with one of your clients? Try and think about each dimension carefully, it might reveal a couple of things for you to improve.

? you're sales pitch simply doesn't work? you're having a hard time converting opportunities into sales - again, think carefully whether you have been convincing and optimum in all dimensions.

?? your team dynamic is broken - can't figure out where things are breaking down: same again. Use each dimension to run a check with your team.

?? you're a start-up looking for funding, investors, mentors, think about how well received you will be, and whether you might need any help on any of these fronts.

? The Trust Equation has been a useful checklist over the years and has helped me in many instances dramatically improve proposals, pitches, presentations, orals etc.

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?????? Thanks for investing the time going for a deep-dive into my world. I hope reading this might help you reflect and hopefully find new ways of achieving success.

?? Who knows, you might start noticing trust in various places too now. If you do, please share it with me. Via LinkedIn, via email, via pigeon - but I'm really curious to see where it might manifest itself.

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? Do you believe in the importance of Trust in business and beyond?

?? Then please comment/share when you have a spare moment ??????.

?? Please also share it with people that you believe might be interested in the discussion, but may not find this post themselves.

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