I don't know how many of you have seen a little book that came out about 20 years ago called "In God We Trust; All Others Pay Cash" by Jean Shepherd. Since then, many people have used it; you find it in the stores sometimes. But the point made is that the only place you can put your trust in is in God and the amount of trust that we have in people around us is very minimal. That's the underlying message: Trust is at a premium.
Yet, when you look at some of the key ingredients that go into our workplaces and into the companies that we work with, we find that trust means a good reputation. And a good reputation is key to a company's credibility with people all around.
The 9th Annual Survey done by Harris Interactive says, "Trust is the most important measure for reputation in the top ten US companies." The article is written by Valeria Moltoni and in it she says that in all the top ten companies, the main criteria that was driving them all, was the ability that they had to have a good reputation. People trusted them. The consumers were willing to say that it was important that these companies had it and they recognized it.
Robert Galford and Anne Drapeau, seeing the importance that trust has in companies, sought to open out this whole area a little bit more and say, "As you work in different corporations, how do you see trust? Is it single or multi-faceted?" They wrote this article to help us try and understand trust in the marketplace. The first thing they said was that there are three different kinds of trust.
1. Strategic Trust: The trust that employees have in the people running the show to make the right strategic decisions. Do top managers have vision, competence to set the right course, allocate resources intelligently, fulfill the mission and help the company succeed?
2. Personal Trust: The trust that employees have in their own managers. Do the managers treat employees fairly? Do they consider employees' needs when making decisions about the business and put the company's needs ahead of their own desires?
3. Organizational Trust: The trust that people have, not in any individual, but in the company itself. Are processes well designed, consistent and fair? Did the company make good on its promises?
These 3 trusts, while distinct, are very clearly linked. Every time an individual manager violates the personal trust of his/her direct reports, for example, organizational trust will be shaken. I put this out for you to understand that trust is more than a 5-letter word that we take casually. There are serious implications, strategically in terms of the people running the company, personally as you interact with one another and then in terms of the organization as well – what kind of processes are in place that instill trust, that make for a good reputation for the company.
I don't know how much attention you pay to trust and reputation and if I were to hazard a guess, I would say that while it may not be a key driver, it is extremely important when you look at overall functioning of your role in the company or your own personal take on life. I think trust leads to a good reputation. If you have a good reputation, it always gives you a second chance.
Dov Seidman, in his book "HOW: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything…in Business (and in Life)" says that at one point, he had met his old law school friend David Allen. David at that time was senior Vice President for Cablevision Systems Corporation. In the course of their chat, Dov told him what he was doing with LRN (his company) and eventually gave him a personalized packet of information about some solutions that might help support Cablevision's journey. Nothing happened for a while but when they hired a new vice president for corporate compliance, Adam Rozman, he pulled out this file and thought it made a lot of sense. He looked at the file and there was a card, which gave the name of the person to contact in that particular area. He did that, but it so happened that that person had since left the job and so, by some glitch, the email sat in the dead mailbox. He thought that this was so uncharacteristic of this company, because Dov Seidman had come very highly recommended. So he called and left a message. But again, he called a temporary assistant, who forgot to pass the message on. When he got no response, he began to think very poorly of the company. But about 6 months later, he met the same David who had initially initiated this conversation and told him what had happened. He was mortified. He said, "This can never happen. I know Dov Seidman. Something is wrong." He made a call and when they found out what had happened, immediately David apologized and made contact and the whole scenario changed.
But Dov Seidman reflects on this and says, "If it hadn't been for the fact that we had a good reputation, no company would ever go the extra mile in making 2 calls. After the first, they would have dismissed the company. The reputation that we have, bought us a second chance. That made me think that so often we live with a very fallible system. People who should intimate us of a call may not do that; an email that should have come to our inbox, ends up in spam. There are glitches in the system all around us. But in this fast paced world, the one thing that can make people stop and say, "Let me give this another chance. I doubt that this person would behave like this, would ignore my mail, wouldn't respond to me. Something could have happened." That second chance comes only out of a good reputation that we can have in our workplaces.
This morning, that's the thought that I want to leave with you. How good is your reputation – to friends, to colleagues? Do people trust you? Are you trustworthy? Or when people think of you do they say, "It's in God we trust; the rest, when dealing with this person, it's going to be strictly contractual. No extra mile with this person." In today's world, if we can increase trust and trustworthiness and build reputations of good moral integrity in things that matter, we will find that second chances come our way and can make a huge difference in the way people view us and in the opportunities that we get. Let it also be said while people talk, "In God we trust, but I can trust this person as well. He/she is a person of great integrity.
Let me pray with you. Almighty God. We ask that we too will be trusted as You are trusted. Help us to build our lives around integrity and honesty and those characteristics that enable people to trust us and call us trustworthy. Help us to build our reputations, to stay away from the pitfalls that will reduce our reputations to nothing. I pray for each one on this call, that You would give them wisdom, discernment, insight, to make sure that their reputations are never tarnished and that they are men and women who can be trusted and called trustworthy. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
• Jean Shepherd, "In God we trust: All others pay Cash."
• Valeria Moltoni, "The Enemies of Trust." http://hbr.org/2003/02/the-enemies-of-trust/ar/pr
• Dov Seidman, "HOW: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything...in Business (and in Life)"
• Harris Interactive, 9th Annual survey.
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