Research by Unisys says:
The drivers of corporate trust are atypical from the more traditional, measurable factors that influence Wall Street and commercial success. Despite an increased sensitivity to corporate ethics and compliance among corporations today, customer satisfaction, leadership, prudent fiscal management, and customer respect are ranked much higher by business leaders surveyed as the most influential builders and stewards of trust. Factors including market capitalization, market share and others rank much lower.
Although this report is aimed at the larger business, the same broad factors hold good for any business. An interesting observation:
Unethical business practices, customer dissatisfaction, lack of respect for employees and customers and poor leadership are the top five factors that erode trust within an organization.
You would think on that basis, attempts to wring as much out of the global tax system as possible would run counter to factors contributing to trust. Paradoxical then that the profession – or rather the Big Four – seem to think it is perfectly OK to punt schemes that are not ethical. Management seems to have an appetite for them. Something isn’t right here.
By coincidence, I was reading from Tara Hunt where she talks about building business on strong foundations. among other things Tara says:
There are about a gazillion applications online these days, why would anyone want to use yours? Everyone competes on features, but very few people are working on heart and soul. Those that believe in a higher purpose are actually kicking some ass (by helping their users kick ass, as Kathy would say)
OK – so she’s referencing technology startups. But the same can be said for any business. BTW – Tara’s message may sound evangelical but if you can see a little beyond that and the consumer bias then it makes sense. Here’s an example.
I have a soft spot for farming – especially the organic vegetable kind. It’s not the most efficient form of farming but it provides the best produce. The folk who lead the life do so with a passion for food. Sure, the feature might be the great taste but it is the ‘heart and soul’ qualities that draw me in. It’s why I admire people like Jamie Oliver. Sadly I find his podcast dire. But Jamie’s commitment to helping young people and his support for small producers you’d never otherwise hear about is incredible.
Jamie’s actions feed a chain of events that are having a positive impact on people’s lives while helping drive commercial success for everyone concerned. OK – there’s a brand association thing going on here as well. But Jamie is trusted among many people inside and around the organisation. If not then he fails and is branded a hypocrite. In today’s language, I think that’s the most telling slur anyone can pass on another.
My experience of people is they will trust you if you are open, honest and fair. That also means owning up straight away when you slide on the proverbial banana skin. Those same people may not always like your style but that’s less important than delivering on what you say.
The reason those three qualities are needed is that no-one’s perfect and we can never truly objectify our claimed values in the actions we take. While holding the corporate mirror to our face may be attractive:
I wish the laird, the gift he gi’ us
To see oorsel’s as ithers see us
From Robert Burns – I don’t know the poem from which it comes but my Glaswegian mother quoted it to me regularly. Burns also said:
The fear o’ hell’s the hangman’s whip
To laud the wretch in order;
But where ye feel your honor grip,
Let that aye be your border.
Is there such a thing as ‘ a sense of honour’ any more or is it considered an outdated anachronism? It is the one expression that encompasses all the things the survey found as factors leading to trust. IMO.
It isn’t a pinko view of the world. It’s a profitable one.
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I go with this 100%.
I was talking to Richard Murphy about this over e-mail a while back. He rightly says that you can't advertise yourself as honest because 1) that could be construed as implying everyone else is dishonest, and 2) people won't believe you – Del Boy said he was honest!
You have to prove to your customers and your staff that you're honest. That takes time and energy.
I was on the phone to a client a couple of weeks back when I discovered I'd made a mistake in his accounts. I admitted it there and then and the client was sympathetic – he said he was never going to get cross with someone who made a mistake and owned up.
Dennis is right. Trust has to be earned and for me it's a vital point.
M
The trick is to bake it into everything you do and then get clients to tell you whether they think you're doing a good job. That's the hard part because it requires spinning the business compass through 180 degrees.
Yep, all your shots are hitting the target. But it feels odd to be having a discussion about sustainability here in 2006. I thought the dangers of the quarterly reporting cycle and the pressures on management to deliver for the short-term had been laid to rest when Enrona nd WorldCom showed their investors how dangerous it was to ignore long-term business objectives. Got more to say – over at my own blog…
Trust, a topic near and dear to my heart.
One of the big business myths of the last 4 decades is that it's a dog eat dog world, you've got to be tough to win, and that trust is at best nice to have, and at worst just wussy, California socialist pablum.
It's not; it's phenomenally profitable business.
Look the enormous literature on retention economics; now factor trust on top of it. Trusted business relationships dramatically cut costs, raise revenues, drop barriers of information, increase open transfer of critical information, and on and on. (More on the website).
One reason trust is out of favor is that it works in paradoxical ways–you get what you give, you empower what you fear, to get what you want by helping others get what they want, and so on. This is most frightfully out of favor with the behaviorist, deductive, linear, rationalizing dogma that passes for "business thinking."
The truth is simple and self-evident. We all give enormous preference in business to those we feel we can trust, because they are so rare, and because we feel they have our interests at heart.
Consider the Trust Equation (Credibility + Reliabilty + Intimacy) / (Self-orientation). Of the four factors, the most powerful is the one in the denominator–self-orientation. The idea that we trust those who have our interests at heart, rather than their own, is rather deeply rooted.
Robert Cialdini, who writes very well on influence, says that the number one actuator of influence is reciprocity–I do something for you, you do something in return for me. This is precisely why we respond so well to people who focus on our needs, rather than on pretending to do so to line their pockets.
We are sold a pack of lies by most of the peddlers of "customer focus;" theirs is the customer focus of a vulture, because it comes with strings attached (fashionably called KSFs, or best practices, or metrics) which are–surprise, surprise–all defined in terms of the seller. High self-orientation, pretending to be customer-friendly, seeking only greater share of wallet. Net result? Lowered trust.
The key to massive profit is easy. Do great things for your clients, then divorce yourself from the outcome. When they need what you sell, they will then prefer you. And they will.
The fastest way to kill trust? Say "trust me."
The 3 fastest ways to gain trust?
1. In your next sales presentation, freely admit exactly what you don't know, what the boundaries of your knowledge are, instead of dwelling on how smart you are.
2. Consider recommending a competitor if it's the right thing to do for the client. You are not the world's best at every service a client could conceivably demand–admit it.
3. When a new client says "why should we hire you?" say, "I don't know whether you should or shouldn't; let's talk about your business and find out."