Honesty Online

As my son, Lachlan, was tapping away in a Facebook chat with his girlfriend, I was thinking about how the internet, social media, emails, smsing, etc has changed the way we communicate, particularly from a trust point of view.

I know myself that, sometimes, it’s easier to write things down, type them, sms or email them than it is to say things directly to someone. My husband, Peter, sms’s me lovely things when I’m travelling that I don’t think he’s ever said to my face! J

There seems to be a freedom for honesty that is available online that we have lost, or maybe never really developed as a skill in our face to face relationships. This has its positives (the lovely sms’s while I’m away), and it’s negatives (the dreadful, rude comments that people feel free to make in blogs, on Facebook and YouTube).

Prenuptials or ENPs?

Yesterday I was reading an article about the rise of Prenuptial Agreements, particularly amongst those who were marrying for the second or subsequent time (once bitten twice shy!).

Although Peter and I also entered into a Prenuptial Agreement, more to ensure that his children could be comfortable knowing I was marrying him for love and nothing more, we also did something far more important than that – we entered into an ENP Agreement. 

ENPs® or Expectations, Needs and Promises, form the base foundation of trust. Understanding what we each expected of each other, what we needed from each other, and what we were prepared to promise each other was a critical part of our decision to marry or not.

The reality is, if Peter expected and needed things from me that I was not prepared to promise him, then the marriage would have failed, or certainly would have been extremely volatile and unhappy. Same goes the other way. 

We spent a couple of sessions, over cups of tea, over glasses of wine, talking through different expectations in different circumstances, the reason why some needs were more important than others, and so on. 

We then summarised these into our wedding vows – so instead of exchanging the traditional vows, we exchanged ‘ENPs®’, and then also exchanged ‘eggs’, in this case Jade painted eggs, as a representation of the trust we were placing in each other – trust that sat on a balance of those ENPs®. This is the base of the model for trust that we use in all kinds of relationships, that entente teaches and coaches. 

You can watch the video of our ENP exchange here.

I guess the thing that struck me when I was reading that article, was that if couples spent as much time planning what they wanted in and for their relationship as they do working out what they will get when it breaks down, how different might their marriage be?

You are traffic

I was driving one day in horrendous traffic, well, I was crawling, I should say, and was getting more and more frustrated at the snail's pace we were moving. 'I'm a busy lady. I have things to do, a meeting to get to. I hate traffic!', I was saying to myself while trying to find some quiet music to calm myself down.

Just then I saw it. Nailed to a wooden telegraph pole was a sign, in red lettering - 'You are traffic'. I thought about it, and smiled. 

Of course, to the person sitting in their car behind me I was just 'traffic'. I was part of the problem. 

When I talk to people in corporations about what can be done to build more trust internally, with customers, in their brand, in their leadership, a common response I hear is 'But we are ok, it's the 'whatever' department that needs this more than we do', or 'You should talk to the customer service team, not marketing or sales'.

I smile, and tell them 'You are traffic'. 

You can’t trust Real Estate Agents

I didn’t say that!

I was reading the GoodWeekend Magazine while watching the gentle waves roll in on the quiet beach at Terrigal on the Central Coast on NSW, about 2 hours from where I live, and saw the heading ‘Taking on Trust’ in an article by Jane Cadzow called ‘Realty Bites’.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that the word ‘trust’ jumps off the page at me (in fact, lots of people send me links to articles and reports on anything about trust that they stumble upon). So I read the article.

Bill Malouf, one of Australia’s most successful real estate agents, selling top end properties, mostly in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, says ‘Next to used-car salesmen, we’re right on the bottom rung. ...And we’re at that level because of the dishonesty, a lack of credibility, a lack of trust, a lack of information.’

Interesting that he sees things this way himself. I thought it was just those of us who have had shocking experiences with Real Estate Agents that found that.  Then, the last few surveys of 'Australia's Most Trusted Professions' by Readers Digest have found Real Estate Agents on the least trusted professions list, sitting at 42 out of 45 in 2011

I’ve reflected, in fact talked to a number of Real Estate Agents myself, to determine exactly what it is that leaves them sitting so low in the trustworthy ratings.  Here’s what I know:

Do you know your neighbour?

No, not those neighbours! In a world that increasingly sees us sitting inside in front of a computer, a TV or a Playstation, and no longer sitting outside watching kids play in the street, many countries are reporting a slide in communities and a common trend – ‘I don’t know my neighbours’.

In the USA, Jennifer Ferro, the GM of Santa Monica radio station KCRW, saw a man with a rifle walking down her street. She says:

That night, with my kids asleep, my husband out of town and my dogs quiet, I watched that shotgun and the man carrying it as he walked past all my neighbors’ homes. I realized I couldn’t warn them. I didn’t have everyone’s number anymore.

What has caused this decline? Why don’t we take the time to know our own neighbours anymore?

Why are you stressed?

Are your people performing at their best when they are stressed out, conflicted, confused, annoyed, disappointed, or angry?

Of course not! However, studies around the globe report stress as the number one reason for employee turnover, stress related presenteeism and absenteeism are directly costing Australian employers $10.11 billion a year, and, according to a report by Beyond Blue, each year, undiagnosed depression in the workplace costs $4.3 billion in lost productivity and this excludes workcover/insurance claims, part-time or casual employees, retrenchment, recruitment and training.

The simplest way to explain how these negative feelings and emotions are caused is by applying ENPs® - that’s Expectations, Needs and Promises.

London, Libya….what is really going on?

A number of people from various countries have asked me ‘What are your thoughts on what is going in …Libya ….London (with the recent riots?’ Of course, we’ve now got our own, far less violent version, of frustrated and angry people taking to the streets to say ‘enough is enough’.

One of the things I talk about whenever I’m presenting on ‘The Truth about Trust’, is this:

First we define trust as our ability to rely on a person (or group of people), an organisation (corporate, political, church), a product or service, to deliver a specific outcome.

Then I ask people ‘How many times a day do you rely on someone or something?’  A hundred? A thousand? Most people say ‘All the time’, or ‘Every moment of every day.’ When you think about it, you are relying on the alarm clock to go off, the water in the shower to come out hot, the cornflakes to be crunchy, the car to start or the bus to be on time, and so it goes all through the day. In some countries, those things are luxuries, but they are relying on government to do something, to deliver on the promise of better housing, of jobs, of water in their community.

Then I ask them ‘Are you aware of all the times you are relying on someone or something every day?’ The answer ‘No, not really’.

So I ask them ‘When do you become aware of them?

Why did I marry you?

We’ve all been there. It’s that time when you are sitting across the table from your husband and he’s chewing loudly, a bit of dinner sitting in the corner of his mouth, elbows on the table and his sleeve rubbing in the mashed potato on his plate and you’re thinking ‘Please, please remind me – why did I marry you?’

It’s when your wife comes home from shopping and sneakily runs to the bedroom with a handful of bags which she then feebly attempts to hide under the bed, and it was only yesterday that you’d had the discussion about tightening the belt. Things were getting tough and the random spending had to cut back, a lot. She agreed that, yes, she really did have enough shoes, and yet you know that at least one of those bags she’s just shoved under the bed held the world’s best bargain pair of shoes, according to her. You sit down on the bed, head in your hands, and ask yourself ‘Why did I marry her?’

I just love all the stories that come up as people share the challenges in their marriages, and despite the fact that, at the time when things are tough, when you’re not sure you can make it through and you feel you are the only couple going through this, I can tell you that you are not as unique as you think you are. That’s a good thing. There is a pattern that exists in relationships, and the great news is that, when you understand what is actually happening, it is empowering and you can pull yourself through those times much quicker, with much more understanding and compassion, and with a lot less conflict and stress.

So, what’s really going on here? The first thing is to understand what is causing the frustration. Every time there is frustration and stress in any relationship it ultimately comes down to thee core things:

Social Sector begins talking about building trust

The 3rd of May was the International Day of Trust. It’s something that I decided to start. The organisation which I run – entente and the entente foundation – now have as their goals building and restoring trust. This year, in London, Las Vegas, Jamaica, Johannesburg and Sydney, we started a global conversation. Here’s what we heard:

• We need more trust in our world. 
• It is going to take a long time.
• It’s a grassroots movement 
• It requires our leaders to change and set an example.
• A world built on trust would be a world of prosperity, productivity, without violence or war, without abuse, where people cared about each other and there was peace.
  

As I have begun focusing on building and restoring trust I have been surprised by a number of things among hundreds of people I have spoken to:

• that everyone agreed that trust was critical to their business, family, marriage, community, society;
• that less than 5% said they did anything to build and maintain that trust;
  

International Day of Trust - 3rd May

Wow. What an amazing journey this has been, preparing for the International Day of Trust, the 3rd of May. A huge thank you to all the people who have participated in preparing the world's first t12 dialogue on trust groups, who have been out filming on the streets around the world, who have shared their thoughts with all of us, and to all of you who now choose to be a part of this special day.

A big, big thank you to my son, Lachlan, whose timely Mothers Day message to me 6 years ago planted a seed that continues to grow and is now reaching people in 6 continents. We share the celebration of the International Day of Trust with Lachlan's birthday, in honour of the awareness he raised in me. Happy 16th Birthday, Lachy!

The theme for this year - Imagine a world built on trust, sadly pre-supposes that we don't currently have that, but that it is a possibility. It is on that possibility, and on the vision for a world in which we learn to trust our purpose here, to trust ourselves, to be trustworthy and to build trust with those around us, that we have worked around the clock to share these gifts with you.

Enjoy!

Vanessa and the entente team

Australia

 

 

 

t12 - dialogue on trust groups

We have 2 groups of 12 leaders meeting in Sydney:

t12 education - hosted by Dr. Ted Boyce and Pacific Hills Christian School

t12 social sector - hosted by Prof. Peter Shergold and the Centre for Social Impact

Information about attendees and the outcome will be available on our t12 - dialogue on trust webpage a few days after the event.

Out on the streets

April Hasselmann from entente headed out with filmmaker Chris Hobart and asked people out on the streets of Sydney's inner west what they thought about trust. Click here to view the responses they received.

Expert's videos, interviews and blogs

David Penglase, creator of Sales Coach Central and Ari Galper, creator of Unlock the Game on the role of Trust in Sales.

Mandy Holloway, author of 'Inspiring Courageous Leaders' and Keith Ayers author of 'Engagement is not enough' on Trust in Leadership.

Fiona Pearman, co-author of 'The Truth about Trust in Business' on Trust in Branding.

Promises being made and then broken

I found the below article interesting and thought I would share it with you. It's global - It really doesn't matter where you are in the world, no-one likes it when promises are made and then broken. It's a tough one to stay on top of, though!

Promises are made and fools are happy

“Sliby chyby” – is a popular Czech saying made up of two words promises –mistakes. In other words, it is unwise to make rash promises or as Czechs say “slibovat hory doly” – to promise mountains and valleys. You can also promise to deliver the skies with the phrase “snést někomu modré z nebe” meaning that you will bring the blue colour of the sky down to earth for someone. A mistake to make the promise, and an even bigger one to take it seriously. 

Someone who makes a habit of making rash promises – and never keeping them – is often labeled a “slibotechna” – which is something like a workshop for promises. Many a politician has been called a “slibotechna” by the press with remarks such as “nikdo vám nedá tolik, kolik my vám slíbíme” - nobody will give you half as much as we will promise you. Another phrase you will come across quite often is “slíbil mnoho, ale skutek utek” meaning - he talked the talk, but didn’t not walk the walk – or as some say –he was all mouth but no trousers.

If you have been fooled by someone’s promise – you can say “naletěl jsem” meaning I fell for it although the literal translation would be I flew for it. Do it too often and Czechs will tell you “sliby se slibují, blázni se radují” meaning promises are made and fools are happy. 

Finally, the expression “sliby-chyby” is the closest you can get to the English “promises, promises” so if you doubt someone’s promise of mountains and valleys or the blue sky –the proper response is “sliby-chyby”. 

This is Daniela Lazarová saying thanks for learning Czech with me and na shledanou! 

For all the women in leadership - Why women are trusted more than men, and how to use trust to our advantage!

In a recent survey by Management Today and the Institute of Leadership and Management, female CEOs were found to be more trusted than their male counterparts. In a number of sales training sessions I’ve attended over the years, women have been lauded as more trustworthy sales people than their male colleagues.

At the same time, women are more sensitive to trust and mistrust. In a survey I conducted through an independent researcher we found that only 1 in 20 women will deal with someone they like but do not trust, as opposed to 1 out of 5 men.

So what does this all mean for women in leadership?

We know that people follow trusted leaders. People buy from people they trust. We stay in relationships with partners we trust. Destroy that trust or abuse it in any way, and we no longer follow, we no longer buy, we no longer stay in that relationship. And women often bail more quickly than men.

What female leaders seem to have to their advantage is a much more intuitive response to trust and an openness to change. There are certainly exceptions but in my experience, women understand how important trust is, are prepared to do what it takes to build that trust, and are far more careful to ensure it isn’t broken.

We know that when trust is actively built across an organization, there is a direct return on what I call the 3 Rs of Trust – Results, Retention and Relationships. In fact, global consulting firm Towers Watson proved that companies that developed high levels of trust were able to generate shareholder returns 3 times that of companies with low levels of trust, a statistic we’ve also proven. Those improvements in returns are largely due to the improvement in relationships within the company, between managers and staff, between teams, as well as with customers and other stakeholders.

The Greatest Risk to Your Business

As a leader in business, you are familiar with the fact that you have risks that need to be managed or avoided completely. But let me ask you this – have you ever considered a breakdown of trust as the greatest risk to your business?

If you’re shaking your head, you’re in the majority – but if you truly want to outshine and outstrip your competitors, if you want to significantly increase what I call the 3 R’s of trust – Results, Retention and Relationships, then listen up! 

Your greatest challenge and opportunity in 2011 is to join the growing number of leaders who are focusing on a breakdown of trust as the greatest risk, and creating a “Building Trust Plan” to address it. 

Watson Wyatt concluded in a 2003 study that organizations with high levels of trust delivered shareholder returns 3 TIMES that of organizations with low levels of trust. We’ve seen similar results from organizations that apply a concerted effort on understanding where trust is breaking down inside and outside their organization and leading with trust as the foundation of doing business. 

One of the issues “trust” has in playing a significant role in the business world has been its complexity and a reputation as being a “soft skill” that “we don’t have time to really focus on – we’re trying to make money.”  Trust has taken a back seat to a host of culture development programs and, over the past few years, cost cutting measures to survive the global financial crisis have eroded trust even further.

In a study my organization, entente, conducted in 2006, we asked over 600 people “What is trust?”  And guess what?  We got over 600 different responses!  I realized that we had a problem right there – how can we build something if we don’t even know what we are building?

But when I asked business leaders around the world “How important is trust to your organization?” what did they say? “It’s critical” was the most common response. Great, so then I asked, “So, what do you do, then, to build trust? How do you know when you have it and when you don’t? How do you measure it?” The response – lots of blank stares, red faces, drained faces, and less than 5% could actually tell me what they did to build trust.

So, we have a lack of understanding of what trust is, a recognition of how important it is, with no clue as to what to do! Is it any wonder trust has taken a back seat all these years?

As a leader, this is your chance to lead with trust, and reap the rewards.

First, what is trust?

I define it as this:   

Our ability to rely on: 

1. A person (or group of people)
2. An organization
3. Products and Services 

. . . to deliver an outcome to us. 

So, when your staff trusts you, they’re relying on you and your organization to deliver an outcome to them. When your customers trust you they are relying on you, your organization, and your products and services to deliver an outcome to them. 

The problem is unless you’ve been asking, you don’t know what outcome they are relying on you for.  And, I can tell you this for certain, if you think you know, you don’t. Assume nothing!  There will be things that they are relying on that will blow your mind. 

There are 3 core components to the Trust Wall, a revealing model for trust that explains quite a bit about human behavior.

Expectations are the first things that come into play.  All your stakeholders will have expectations of you that come from: 

• Their previous experience with you
• Things they’ve seen about you
• Things others have told them about you
• Things they’ve experienced with people/organizations/products and services that are like yours, but are not you

That means your customers, your staff, your shareholders, all have a range of expectations that they are relying on you to deliver. 

Needs also play out in the trust dynamic – by Needs, I mean the basic human needs that drive us (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is what I draw on). Some people are relying on you to make them feel safe, others just want a job, some want respect, others growth and development. When you meet their Needs, they stay with you. Fail to meet them, and they are gone! 

Then there are the Promises you make – both explicitly and implicitly. When you make Promises that meet the Expectations and Needs of others, they are drawn to you. When you make those Promises and then don’t deliver them, you break down that trust sometimes quicker than you can blink. 

These 3 things, what I call ENPs®, are what we all rely on others for, and our trust sits on a balance of those. Keep them all in check, and trust flourishes and Results, Retention and Relationships all improve. Fail to meet them and trust breaks down, and all those things that you see in your business that cause you sleepless nights – the lack of performance, slow sales, high turnover, customer complaints, infighting, shareholder selling out, all take hold and destroy everything you are trying to achieve. 

A breakdown of trust is the greatest risk to your business – building trust is your greatest challenge. That is the truth about trust. 

Can you handle the truth?

Published on Coaching Tip: The Leadership Blog.

What to Do When Trust With Your Employees Breaks Down

In a perfect world, your employees will always trust you and your organization.

In spite of your best efforts, though, trust can and will erode. That’s the bad news. The good news is you can recover. How do you rebuild trust?

1. Communicate openly. Talk about the situation. Describe any mistakes you’ve made, what you’ve learned from those mistakes, and what you’ll do in the future. Don’t be afraid to share bad news and to admit mistakes. Explain the rationale behind decisions you’ve made, and encourage employees to give input and feedback on decisions you make. Most importantly, accept feedback with grace and act professionally at all times. Rebuilding trust takes time. The old cliché “It takes ten pats on the back to overcome one kick in the rear” is especially true when you’ve lost the trust of your employees.
2. Make changes based on employee input. Listen to your employees and implement good suggestions. Some managers are hesitant to act on employee input because they feel all the ideas should be theirs. Great managers realize they don’t have all the answers. What matters most is that you make positive changes; it doesn’t matter where the ideas for those changes come from. Employees who know you’ll listen and act on their ideas will regain their trust in you.
3. Make sure your employees fully understand your expectations. In order for employees to be effective, they have to know what their job is and how to do their job. Employees who make mistakes will often blame their manager for not setting clear expectations, and as a result, they will lose trust in that manager. While that may not seem fair, it’s also a fact of life: most of us are initially defensive when we make a mistake. Setting clear expectations not only helps employees perform better but also creates an environment of trust.
4. Hold employees accountable. If you’ve made a mistake that eroded trust, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hold your employees accountable for their mistakes. Rewarding high performers and holding poor performers accountable through discipline and termination builds an environment of trust.
5. “Cast the right shadow.” Employees look to their managers to set the tone for the organization; they expect the company leaders to lead in word and in action. What you say and do as a manager is important; how you say and do things is critical, too, because your team will scrutinize everything you do, especially if trust has been broken. By being a great role model and constantly casting the right shadow, you set an example for your employees to follow, and they’ll also place their trust in you.

I’d like to specifically highlight two areas here.

The first is the concept of seeking feedback from employees and engaging them, through surveys and other means, in the direction of the business. One of the things I have seen time and time again in companies is the well-meaning employee opinion survey followed by . . . nothing!

I once worked for an organization that conducted such a survey, and the months went by with no communication of the results. When I quizzed my manager on it, he admitted that the results were so bad that senior management decided not to release them!

Why bother asking if you are not going to do anything about it? One of the things I tell people who look at doing the Entente Trust Survey is that they have to promise they will take action on the areas showing low levels of trust. If the commitment is not there, I tell them not to bother, and cer- tainly not to do the survey. I certainly don’t want my name associated with a “survey that didn’t work.”

What happens when a company surveys its employees?

1. It creates expectations that, since it is asking for employees’ opinions, it will do something as a result. When nothing happens, the expectation is not met.
2. An implicit promise is made along the same lines, unless it is clearly stated that the only reason for the survey is to see how the company measures up against its competitors (which is the reality in many cases).
3. The need for respect is met in conducting the survey, but then it is not met when the opinions are not listened to.

The communication surrounding the survey needs to be managed very well so that expectations about what is likely to happen, and when, are managed properly. The best thing to do is get everyone involved. When you release the results, get your people involved in determining the best solutions and ways of improving the areas that rated poorly. As was demonstrated in the Fantastic Furniture story, everyone has something of value to add, if you just listen.

The second thing I want to point out is the comment about disciplining underperforming employees.

We’ve all seen it. The couple of people who have been slack and not pulled their weight, or the people who got the job done but left a trail of destruction in their wake. When these people are rewarded just like everyone else, it blows all the good things the leaders might have done before.

I was at a breakfast not that long ago and someone told a story about how the manager had bought a few books of movie vouchers to give out as rewards throughout the year. One day she checked them and realized that they were, unfortunately, about to expire that week. As a result, she gave them out to all the staff. All the staff. That is not reward and recognition. That’s poor management.

There is a fine line between equity and fairness in the workplace, between reward and recognition for performance. If you build a performance-based system, stick to it. By having the system, you have created expectations and have made promises — some explicit and some implicit — about how people will be treated.

It does take courage to be able to give constructive feedback to an employee who is underperforming, but I can guarantee that the rest of your people will be watching you like a hawk to see that it is done, and they will trust you more for it. It meets their needs for security and for fairness and respect.

Article published by TLNT - The Business of HR on 28th February 2011.

The New Top 10 Characteristics of a Good Manager

LMA (Leadership Management Australia) just released results of their LEAD survey of over 3000 employees across Australia. Guess what they said was the number one Top Characteristic of a good manager?

Trustworthiness and Openness jumps dramatically to top characteristic of a good manager

In what is seen as a dramatic change in attitudes from a year ago, employees think trustworthiness and openness is now the most important characteristic of a good manager.

Compared to this time last year, trustworthiness and openness has jumped from seventh to number one on the Top Ten Characteristics of a Good Manager list generated by Leadership Management Australasia (LMA).

The list has been drawn from the latest L.E.A.D. (Leadership, Employment and Direction) Survey of more than 3,000 employees across Australia and New Zealand, (14 per cent of the respondents were from New Zealand yielding the same results).

LMA's Managing Director, Grant Sexton said what employees expect of their managers has changed dramatically over the past year. A new number one characteristic and some major changes in the Top Ten present managers with new challenges in fulfilling the needs and expectations of their employees.

Click here to continue reading about The New Top 10 Characteristics of a Good Manager.

Truth and trustworthiness in internet security

Truth and trustworthiness are fundamental to internet security. An interesting study, although no-one yet has been able to establish a process to ensure that information being received is validated for trustworthiness. Basically, it is left up to the receiver of the information to determine whether they trust what they... have read or received.

How do you feel about that?

 

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2010/12/robert-garigue-truth-trust-as-security-requirements/

Trust not knowing

I was reading a blog post from Michael Hall (no relation!) about trusting not-knowing, and he used a Zen quote 'Only not know'. Check out his blog post here: Trust not knowing.

What's really interesting about this is that we feel really uncomfortable not knowing. Every person I have ever coached, in business or personally, has said one of the things they wanted was CLARITY. Clarity is about knowing something. It's hard to not know, isn't it? Why is that?

Think about your entire schooling. What were you tested on? Your knowledge! You passed or failed depending on whether or not you knew something. So to not know something equates to failing in some way.

One of the things I teach in understanding trust is our expectations. Our expectations as formed in a number of different ways, one of which is our own direct experiences of things. You have experienced success and failure based on what you know, therefore you have developed an expectation about what happens to you when you know something, and what happens to you when you don't know something. So not knowing something is really hard, right?

What happens with our expectations is that they drive our behaviour. When we expect something, we behave in ways that are consistent with that expectation, and we bring it about, we make it happen. So if we expect that we will fail if we do not know, then that's exactly what happens! I don't know about you, but I've spent a lot of money and a lot of time getting people to advise me in my business so that I KNEW exactly what I needed to know to make my business successful. And with all due respect to those people, I can tell you now that a whole lot of things that they did not anticipate happened and got in the way of the plans. And a whole lot of things that they 'knew' would happen, didn't!

What I've learned to expect, in my business, and in my personal life, is that life happens. It is impossible to know everything that is to happen, every opportunity that is going to land in your lap, every person that you are going to meet. You cannot know that. That's what makes life's journey so interesting!

So, you can be comfortable 'not knowing', and simply expecting that what is meant to happen will happen. That you will meet the right people, and the right events will happen for you if you simply move in the direction of your dreams and your purpose.

Trust that. Trust not knowing.