Understanding the Burden of Trust for Business Leaders
I’m always on the lookout for articles about Understanding the Burden of Trust for Business Leaders. Here are a few snippets:
According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, businesses have become society's most trusted institution. What responsibility do they have to put that asset to use to help society solve its problems?
Every year since 2000, Edelman, a global public relations firm, has conducted an?international survey?to assess people's trust in our core institutions. This survey is called the Edelman Trust Barometer, and earlier this year, Edelman released the most recent results based on responses from more than 36,000 respondents across 28 countries. The results paint a disconcerting but not surprising picture: High levels of distrust that undermine our ability to communicate, collaborate and solve the problems we face.
But within this bleak picture, the Edelman Trust Barometer finds hope in an unexpected place: business. Of the studied institutions,?business is the most trusted, with 61% of global respondents reporting that they trust business, compared to 59% for NGOs, 52% for government and 50% for media. Further, business is seen as most capable of solving societal problems and getting results, scoring a startling 53 points higher than the primary institution created to solve societal problems: government.
The burden of trust
Given these results, business leaders need to ask ourselves a question: If our organisations have stores of an increasingly scarce resource — trust — what responsibility do we have to put that asset to use to help society solve our problems?
This is likely unsurprising but unwelcome news to CEOs. Historically, many?business leaders?have avoided wading into the murky waters of societal matters. Unless the issue had clear implications for the bottom line, it was considered distracting at best and dangerous at worst to get involved.
A world in which every business engages on every issue society deems important would be noisy, disorienting and unproductive. But the trust people have placed in businesses, and specifically their own employers, creates an opportunity, responsibility and pathway for business leaders to act. The challenge is deciding when to do so, especially given the pace of change, the divisiveness in society, as well as the limitations of time, attention and resources.
When should business leaders act on these issues?
The key for businesses is to speak and act when they have a credible reason to do so. Without a credible reason,?corporate action?becomes performative, confusing, or even counter-productive, and often erodes trust. But with a credible reason to act, corporate action has a much higher likelihood of achieving the three "i"s: intentional, informed and impactful. Businesses can determine whether they have a credible reason to speak or act on an issue by examining the issue along three dimensions:
·??????Impact to mission
·??????Employee impact
·??????Customer impact
As indicated in the Edelman Trust Barometer, businesses now have a powerful and unique combination of advantages — trust and competence — but they must use them wisely. Business leaders need to embrace the role their employees and customers have bestowed upon them, focusing on issues where there is a credible reason to act and finding that credibility through the impact on the?business's mission, employees and customers. By taking these steps, businesses can step confidently from the conference room to the town square, driving positive change both for their own companies and on an even broader level.
Want to know more? Head on over to the full article here for more ideas and perspective. Afterwards, why not drop me an email to share your thoughts at [email protected]; or call me on 0467 749 378.
Thanks,
Robert