‘Trust’ is Now the Holy Grail

Published in PR NEWS

Aside from scratching and clawing to get bigger budgets, senior communications execs in 2004 will be taking pains to rebuild the foundation of trust that has collapsed on corporate America the last few years.

It’s going to be a long, hard slog that will be on the front burner for PR pros for years to come. Of course, the public’s trust in corporate America flows like the Santa Ana winds and is just so tough to predict. But having to suffer the likes of Ken Lay’s wife Linda sob-sobbing about how difficult life is living in just one house while learning all the juicy details about the Mediterranean island party thrown by former Tyco chief Dennis Kozlowski — on trial for embezzling a (measly) $600 million— gives the public fresh ammo to hate corporations.

The PR discipline is replete with best practices on how companies can restore trust.

The Public Relations Coalition, a group of 19 organizations serving the PR arena, released a white paper recently titled “Restoring Trust in Business: Models for Action.” It challenges corporate America to do three things: adopt ethical principles, pursue disclosure in everything companies do and make trust a fundamental “precept of corporate governance.” (See PR NEWS October 20, 2003).

But that advice and a couple of bucks will get you a ride on the New York subway, particularly when the big enchilada in the company thinks his way is the right way and, like so many of his brethren, fails to see the forest for the trees.

Trust in corporate America has deteriorated in the last few years. Between 2000 and 2002, there was a five-point drop in both the percentage of employees (45%) who say they have confidence in the job being done by senior management and the percentage of workers (63%) who believe their companies conduct business with honesty and integrity, according to study conducted by Watson Wyatt Worldwide.

Is there a road to recovery? Dennis Reina thinks he has a map. Reina, a principal with Stowe, Vt.-based research and consulting firm Chagnon & Reina Associates, who is co-author of “Trust & Betrayal in the Workplace: Building Effective Relationships in Your Organization” (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1999), has developed what he calls a “systemic, comprehensive” approach to building trust throughout an organization.

Reina, whose clients include American Express, Boeing, IBM and Kodak, among other Fortune 100 companies, says a lot of companies fail miserably when it comes to assessing trust within their four walls. “It has a way of sneaking up on companies,” he says. “The big breaches of trust make the news but each and every day there are the minor, unintentional betrayals that go unaddressed, accumulate and become major betrayals.” The result: employees start to burn out and/or leave the company.

PR pros have a big role to play in the process of restoring trust. Communications execs, “can make an impact to uphold corporate standards and shift the perception from being spinmeisters to prisms of transparency.” But before they can do that they need the green light from the folks in the Ivory Tower, hardly a guarantee. Still, Reina says that CEOs are beginning to realize that trust is sound business and not just a nice thing to do.

Frank Ovaitt, co-chair of the Institute for Public Relations and managing director for communications consulting firm Crossover International, says trust is a different animal today than, say, 10 years ago, with a growing number of organizations — media and otherwise — waiting to pounce on accusations of corporate chicanery.”

“PR needs to get CEOs to accept the worst-case scenario,” Ovaitt adds. “Only by going beyond what’s needed will companies be able to build trust over time. The data is clear that organizations that build trust produce better results in the long run than those that do not.”

Published in PR NEWS January 5, 2004
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