Trust in your organization's future: building trust inside and out is a key part of the communicator's role as the corporate conscience

Communication World, Jan-Feb, 2006 by Ralph Beslin, Chitra Reddin

In his book Trust ... From Sophocles to Spin (Icon Books, 2004), prominent British academic Kieron O'Hara considers trust the most vital political and business issue of our times. Illustrating the scope of the issue and the global impact of declining trust, he commented in a speech at the Deloitte Leaders Forum in Toronto in June 2005: "The EU constitution is a treaty that needs to be ratified by 25 countries. France and Holland have both rejected it in recent referendums. This is actually a massive rejection of the political elite, a lack of trust in the leadership."

A growing loss of confidence in organizations, their leaders and communication is well documented in the media and in such recent research as the Edelman 2005 Annual Trust Barometer and a 2003 Towers Perrin study called "Enhancing Corporate Credibility: Is It Time to Take the Spin out of Employee Communications?" But let's look on the bright side: Trust is highly valued by the leaders of many high-performance organizations who clearly see the connections between trustworthy, values-based communication and customer loyalty and employee engagement. We talked to leaders and communicators in several such organizations to discover insights into and best practices for building trust with key stakeholders, as well as how to make communication a pivotal part of the process.

Isadore Sharp, founder, CEO and chairman of the Four Seasons hotel chain, attributes much of his organization's success in building trust with employees and customers to communicating and practicing the Golden Rule. "We can't communicate effectively across a trust gap.... So I sat down with our public relations director and detailed a formal credo based on the Golden Rule--the cornerstone of what would be called our corporate culture," he explains. "In essence, to treat others--all others, customers, employees, partners, suppliers--as we ourselves would want to be treated. Even back then [in 1982], such credos were common, though seldom believed. What was new was that we enforced it. Senior managers who couldn't walk the talk were all winnowed out within a few years."

Adds Phil Blake, president of Bayer Inc.: "It's all about authenticity...plus consistency that you will always perform according to the contract of understanding. You're doing the right things for the right reasons and what's best for all."

Connecting strategy to action

Today's challenges call for direct approaches. "Communication connects strategy to action," says Maneesh Mehta, deputy managing partner for global clients and markets at Deloitte. "Without strong, consistent and relentless communications, corporate strategy cannot be put into play, and building trust is not possible."

"Trust is a concept that is so fundamentally important yet so hard to define, earn and keep," said Deloitte Canada CEO Alan MacGibbon at the Deloitte Leaders Forum. "What takes years to build can be destroyed in a careless second." He should know: Deloitte, like many other accounting firms, has recognized the fallout from so many corporate ethics scandals, and he stressed the need for leaders to initiate change and take decisive action. "Moral and ethical leadership is perhaps the single most important contributor to success over the long haul," he said.

Corporate communicators have long capably served as the ethics stewards and corporate consciences of their organizations, mastering that delicate and vital task of balancing corporate goals with public expectations. Leadership, values, accountability, communication-building trust requires action and communication. So how can communicators help their leaders and organizations make this happen?

Start with policy and planning

A good place to start is a communication policy that connects your organization's business mission and objectives with the what, why and how of communication. A 2005 IABC Gold Quill Award recipient, Leticia Narvaez, director of communications and public affairs for Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) de Mexico, points out that her company has a formal communication policy that guides communication with internal and external stakeholders. "We developed it and aligned it with the mission and goals for the company," she says.

An exemplary communication policy embeds and outlines actions for this mantra of trustworthy organizations: You can trust us to say what we do and then do what we say. That goes a long way toward strengthening relationships with key stakeholders that ensure an organization's viability and success. Another 2005 Gold Quill recipient, Jill Nash, vice president of corporate communication for Gap Inc., sums it up this way: "Trust is the foundation on which strong relationships are built. A company is nothing more than a series of relationships."

Make sure the policy makes explicit the commitment of the organization to transparent and trustworthy communication with key stakeholders (e.g., employees, customers, investors, media, government, etc.); the principles behind it; specific accountabilities, processes and procedures; and evaluation methods to determine whether the policy is working.