Hi, I'm Severin de Wit, host of the TrustTalk podcast, where we dive deep into the fascinating world of trust. With a genuine passion for understanding the foundations and nuances of trust, I am dedicated to uncovering its secrets and sharing compelling stories that illuminate its profound impact. Join me on this captivating journey as we explore the transformative power of trust. Subscribe now and become part of the TrustTalk community
Hi, I'm Severin de Wit, host of the TrustTalk podcast, where we dive deep into the fascinating world of trust. With a genuine passion for understanding the foundations and nuances of trust, I am dedicated to uncovering its secrets and sharing compelling stories that illuminate its profound impact. Join me on this captivating journey as we explore the transformative power of trust. Subscribe now and become part of the TrustTalk community
Trust isn’t only critical to developing personal relationships—it’s also the heart of successful organizational strategies. To thrive in the new age of trust, companies should work to build trust equity every day. Doing so, however, will require making trust measurable. In the 52nd episode of the TrustTalk podcast the host, Severin de Wit, talks with Deloitte‘s Natasha Buckley and Michael Bondar on how trust performance is researched and measured.
Trust drives enterprise performance and mitigates risk. Trust elevates customer and brand loyalty, which can increase revenue. It enhances levels of workforce engagement, which can result in increased productivity and workforce retention. They talk about the old adage that you can only manage what you can measure and how Deloitte measures trust to help clients make strategic decisions. Natasha and Michael also talk about how specific operating areas like superior customer service, delivering innovative solutions or protecting customer data significantly elevates trust in a brand, leading to higher performance.
We talk about digital engagement and digital transformation and why they are key drivers of trust, about AI and how it can help to validate information accuracy, how trust across different stakeholder groups can be maintained and the trust challenges that lay ahead.
Trust and organizational success
Michael Bondar about what trust means to organizational success:
Over the last three years, we have seen a tremendous amount of not just interest from media, organisations, leaders across industries and sectors and all over the globe, but real traction in terms of what trust means to organisational success, from financial performance to building brand loyalty and customer loyalty to workforce engagement and brand protection. Those are just some of the key elements of impact that we see trust having. And so for me, this has become my life and the team and I spend our days every waking hour thinking about how we can help organisations become more trusted.
we observed the importance of different organisational traits and their impact on resilience and the ability of the company or organisation to weather the crisis. These traits included organisational preparedness, adaptability, collaboration, accountability and trustworthiness. Organisations that demonstrated the traits were weathering the pandemic more effectively than those who didn’t. So for example, with respect to trust, CXOs recognized the challenge of building trust, but not all recognized that trust is actionable. So for example, more than a third of the responding CXOs were not confident their companies had succeeded in developing trust between leaders and employees. Those who were more confident, focused on implementing measures to improve communication and transparency with their employees and other key stakeholders
About Brand Protection and Trust
We see brand protection organizations that are impacted by negative trust events fall anywhere from 26 to 74% behind their industry peers in value. And their market cap can fall by 20% to 56%. Workforce engagement: we see nearly 80% 79% of employees who highly trust their employer feel motivated to work. And then customer loyalty. A critical measure of success, out of customers who highly trusted brand, 88% bought again from that brand and 62% buy almost exclusively from that brand. So trust is quantifiable and its impact is significant, as you can see by these numbers.
Interview on the TrustTalk YouTube channel (with subtitles)
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When employees or coworkers no longer trust you, they don’t tell you.
Why would they? They don’t trust how you might react to what they say. Their distrust descends below the surface, though it shows up in them keeping their distance from you. Distrustful employees or coworkers protect their backsides. They withhold information. Their morale and productivity lowers.
What created this distrust? Some describe it as collateral damage resulting from how employers and employees alike lost their footing during COVID-19’s first year. Others view it as the ordinary distrust that accumulates when others in your workplace let you down, gossip about you or others, take credit for your work, fail to honor agreements, cover up mistakes, tell white lies, and fail to own their part of problems. In virtual environments and without regular in-person interactions to dispel misunderstandings and mend fences, distrust accumulates until it concretizes into walls.
Employers and coworkers, however, can earn their employees’ and fellow employees’ trust. Here’s how.
Remember that trust flow both ways
Ernest Hemingway said, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” You can’t expect to earn others’ trust if you don’t extend the benefit of the doubt. If you’re an employee and you feel your coworker “wronged” you, ask them about it without flavoring your words with blame. Then listen.
If you’re a manager or supervisor, give your employees the autonomy they need to do their jobs. Delegate authority and decision-making power along with responsibility. You’re your trust by giving them the space and opportunity to go above and beyond.
No excuses
We trust those who tell the truth without self-justifications or rationalizations. If you make a mistake, don’t cover it up. Admit it. Learn from it. Don’t make the same mistake twice.
Communicate effectively even when relaying bad news; it takes courage to tell the truth without putting a spin on it.
Accountability
I view accountability coupled with integrity as the two game-changers we need to thrive as we come out the end of the COVID-19 tunnel. Accountable managers and employees take responsibility for results. They do what they say they will and more.
If you’re a leader or manager, employees need to know you’ll hold up your end of the employer/employee bargain. Lead your team. Live the core values you proclaim. Work harder than anyone else. Keep your word. Don’t let your employees down.
Get personal
Don’t let the virtual environment eliminate personal connections. Interact with your coworkers and employees. Actually care. It takes courage to speak from the heart.
If you’re a leader who senses you’ve lost employee trust, acknowledge what’s happened and work to restore your employees’ confidence. Otherwise, your employee survivors may go through the motions, less productive and less willing to give their all.
When one of my clients called and asked what they needed to do for employees they planned to lay off, I suggested that in addition to severance, they ask the employee’s managers to write detailed, genuine letters of recommendation for each laid-off employee. One by one I heard from employees who carried those letters of recommendation into job interviews and landed new jobs. Several said, “The interviewer said he’d never seen such a detailed reference letter. I think it got me the job.”
Honest and transparent
If you’re a leader, treat your employers like partners as you communicate where your organization is headed. Tell them what you see ahead in terms of challenges and opportunities, without pumping up the positives while glossing over the risks and negatives. Listen to and address their concerns.
Include your employees in your decision-making by talking with, not at them. Involving your employees in shaping your company’s future shows respect, increases their buy-in and instills trust because your employees see and feel that you respect their ideas. Trust can be broken. It can be rebuilt. Here are additional resources.
