Trust: Hard to earn, easy to lose (page 1 of 3)

A key area that we in Golin/Harris believe requires urgent attention involves that commonly-used word, 'trust.' Now, I know the notion of being trustworthy sounds corny - goody goody. But we have come to see it as a hard-nosed business tactic that in today's glass-housed world is nothing less than critical to the long-term success of an organisation. It is, as far as we are concerned, the most basic element of the social contact, the great intangible at the heart of every long-term success.

In our profession, you have to know what is happening today - be perceptive enough to forecast tomorrow.

Trust is the belief - the faith - that you will do your utmost to meet an expectation. Trust is commitment to excellence and fidelity. It is fidelity to employees. A belief that management and staff are all in this together. They know you'll go to the wall with them for them. And you know you will do the same. It is fidelity to clients and customers. A belief that your company offers more than a service, product or experience, that you are people your customers can count on.

There was a time not so long ago that trust was the core of every business-customer relationship . Sadly, times have changed. Today, global business has embraced the vocabulary of tort lawyers: 'breach of contract,' 'joint and several liability,' 'negligence,' 'not fault,' 'punitive damages.' Trust was once at the core of every company-employee relationship. Today those loyalties have been sacrificed - to some degree necessarily - at the altar of downsizing, mergers and reinvention.

I began thinking about this after seeing a book by Francis Fukuyama, the brilliant Rand scholar, who defined the post-cold war era with his essay on 'the end of history.' His book, titled Trust, lays out the diagnoses of what is missing in our global society. He calls the money some people spend in suing one another 'a direct tax imposed by the breakdown of trust in society.' He says the social capital represented by trust will be as important as physical capital.

The popular image of a corrupt, scheming corporation, eager to exploit customers, is a cliché that modern capitalism has got to shake. It has helped spawn an anti-business bias that, very unfortunately, is reinforced every so often when a company fulfils the public's worst expectations. Like the manufacturing company that let its stock prices soar, which violates generally accepted account principles. Or the European division of one of the world's best known companies that refused to believe a contaminant could be in its beverage. And most recently, Ford and Firestone - two fine companies - that at the very least decided that a less than great product was good enough.

These companies have found and are finding that a breach of trust can be a killer. It kills because nothing can be hidden. Not with corporate walls made of glass. Not with employees, investors and business media all knowing the whys, the hows and the whos of major corporate decisions. Not with news travelling instantaneously around the world. Indeed, companies must get over the idea that they can confine a problem to a given area or country.

I have found that one constant among companies that understand the importance of building trust. To pare all I've heard to one phrase, I would call it 'reliability over time.' Whether you are in São Paulo, Dubai, Hong Kong, New York, London or Los Angeles, reliable companies that create, restore and maintain trust are defined to win a decisive advantage in the 21st century.

Trust, in other words, is both a process and an outcome.