Aneil is an author, Professor and Director of Executive Education for the School of Human Resources and Labor Relations at Michigan State University. He is an internationally recognized and widely published thought leader and consultant in the areas of trust and leadership.

Aneil talked with Jordan Kimmel, host of Trust Across America’s radio show, about the ROCC’s of Trust:

1) Be Reliable
2) Be Open and honest
3) Be Competent
4) Be Compassionate

… and the three pillars of leadership:

1. Be Courageous
2. Be Humble
3. Be Authentic

Aneil’s wife, Karen Mishra was also recently interviewed on the Trust Across America radio show.

Karen Mishra is a clinical professor in the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University. Karen’s research focuses on how organizations build trust with employees through internal communication.

Karen talked about the crucial role of leaders in open communication with employees and setting the tone for the organization.

Aneil and Karen’s current book is: Trust is Everything. I look forward to reading their forthcoming book on trust.

For more information, see: http://totaltrust.wordpress.com/

Jack’s post was selected to be part of July’s Carnival of Trust, hosted this month by Doug Cornelius of Compliance Building. Carnival of Trust is a brainchild of Charles Green, founder and CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates.

The Carnival is a monthly compilation of the top blog posts dealing with the subject of trust in business, politics and society. Postings that deal with personal trust are also welcome, as well as pieces on the nature of trust.

Thanks and nice going, Jack!

The Gallup Great Workplace Award honors organizations whose employee engagement results demonstrate they have the most productive and engaged workforces in the world.

More information on the award, Gallup and the 2010 Gallup Great Workplace Award recipients can be found at:

http://www.gallup.com/consulting/25312/gallup-great-workplace-award.aspx

Figures indicate that no more than 1/3 of employees report that they are passionate about the work they do.

A May 26, 2010 article in the Wall Street Journal, “More Workers Start to Quit,” reports that heavy cost-cutting and downsizing have affected workers’ morale, making it harder for companies to retain employees.

The article also states that a survey conducted last summer for the Conference Board, a management research organization, found that the drivers of the drop in job fulfillment included less satisfaction with wages and less interest in work. In 2009, 34.6% of workers were satisfied with their wages, down more than seven percentage points from 1987. About 51% in 2009 said they were interested in work, down 19 percentage points from 1987.

“Employees feel disengaged with their jobs, which is going to lead to a lot of churn as we come out of the recession,” says Brett Good, a district president of Southern California for Robert Half International, an executive recruiting firm.

Further information on Gallup’s research is available at:

http://www.gallup.com/consulting/52/employee-engagement.aspx

“Leadership is a sacred trust. The decision to lead is the decision to be responsible for the growth and development of your fellow human beings.” – The Little BIG Things: 163 ways to pursue excellence, by Tom Peters (2010).

Tom Peters offered this timeless advice from two companies in his 1994 book, The Tom Peters Seminar: Crazy times call for crazy organizations:

CEO Rick Teerlink enumerates the simple but potent official philosophy (write it down) that has turned Harley-Davidson from government mendicant to global star:

* Tell the Truth
* Be Fair
* Keep Your Promises
* Respect the Individual
* Encourage Intellectual Curiosity

That’s it. And one tall order. How does your unit’s (10-person accounts-receivable team, division, etc.) philosophy measure up? In theory? In practice?

At the information-systems firm Scitor, CEO Roger Meade has made challenging management part of the corporate creed:

Utilize your best judgement at all times. Ask yourself: Is it fair and reasonable? Is it honest? Does it make good business sense in the context of our established objectives? If you can answer yes to all of these, then proceed. Remember, you are accountable against this policy for all your actions.

Resources offered to individuals and corporations include:

- Weekly radio show
- LinkedIn page
- Trust Across America Blog – http://www.trustacrossamerica.org/blog
- Trust Blogs – Approximately twenty blogs covering a variety of viewpoints relating to trust in business, ethics, reputation, integrity, corporate social responsibility, and leardership – http://trustacrossamerica.com/blogs.shtml
- Reading Room – http://trustacrossamerica.org/reading_room.shtml
- Consultant’s Collaborative – http://trustacrossamerica.org/consulting.shtml

Leaders can create trust-building communications by following these four tips:

* Tell people what you know and don’t know. Then tell them when you think you’ll know more, and get back to them with that information.
* Explain why you or the company took a particular action, especially when communicating unpleasant or unwelcome information. If you don’t do this, actions will be misinterpreted.
* Be consistent. Repeating key messages reinforces them. Make sure your actions also reinforce those messages. Mixed signals are perceived as lies.
* Don’t try to “spin” bad news to make it look positive. People know that you’re lying to them – and they won’t respect you for it. We handle the truth better than a lie or half-truth.

For further thoughts on building trust, you can read my complete article, “Why Trust Matters: it’s the glue that holds us together” from Leadership Excellence magazine, at:

http://trustmattersgroup.com/images/WhyTrustMattersLeadershipExcellence0807.pdf

Ken spoke about companies who belong on the “Fortunate 500″ list. These companies, which are about more than profit, share the following four elements:

1. Having the right target/clear vision
2. Treating your customers right
3. Treating your people right
4. Having the right leadership – “Servant Leadership”

Ken Blanchard and Cynthia Olmstead, Founder and President of TrustWorks Group jointly announced at the conference that TrustWorks Group has been acquired by The Ken Blanchard Companies. TrustWorks Group’s products and programs (Leader as Trust Builder™, Myself as Trust Builder™, and Great Teams™) will continue to be available through www.trustworksgroup.com and become a part of Blanchard’s leadership solutions.

” … now we have a way of teaching people how to assess and understand their trust behaviors,” said Ken Blanchard. “Leadership is all about relationships, and trust is a big part of that.”

Cynthia Olmstead, a former employee of Blanchard who taught Situational Leadership® II for a decade before establishing her independent consulting practice, also spoke engagingly to an attentive audience. “Trust, the basis for all relationships, means different things to different people,” said Cynthia. “Trust is based on behaviors and perceptions … my perceptions of your behavior and your perceptions of my behavior.

Cynthia further explained that the TrustWorks! ABCD model (Able – Believable – Connected – Dependable) offers a common language for us to talk about trust.

Ken Blanchard followed up on Cynthia’s comments by talking about the importance of leaders having “trust conversations” at three levels: self-leadership, one-on-one, and within teams, compatible with the three TrustWorks! programs: Leader as Trust Builder™, Myself as Trust Builder™, and Great Teams™.

“Leading is about serving and being served. This is ‘heart’ work, which is not ’soft’ leadership,” Ken added.

Ken Blanchard’s new book is titled: Bringing Love to Leadership. The Ken Blanchard Companies®, a global leader in workplace leadership and corporate development, is recognized as one of the world’s leading training and development experts. For more information, visit: www.kenblanchard.com

To build and maintain trust with customers:

- Develop a strong, company-wide reputation for integrity through clearly established internal ethical principles
- Establish strict ethical processes for customer-facing teams and their support people
- Implement a company-wide code of conduct for all employees, directors, vendors and suppliers
- Walk the walk
- Take a principled stand against customers that behave in a less than ethical manner

Don Krauss concluded: “That is the stand that Clorox has taken, and we’re a 96-year-old company. We take this stand because we want to be around for another 200 years, not another 2. Quite simply, companies without an embedded foundation of principles and values will not survive.”

“While employers that adhere to corporate social responsibility and environmentally-friendly business practices show better rates of employee engagement and retention, only two out of five UK staff believe that the organisation they work for behaves ethically.”

These findings are based on a survey undertaken among 1,000 personnel by the Kenexa Research Institute (KRI), a subsidiary of HR software provider, Kenexa. The study was based on a representative sample of workers surveyed for KRI’s Worktrends 2010 annual report of employee opinions.

Anne Herman, a research consultant at KRI, said: “Our research clearly indicates that organisations operating with a strong corporate responsibility climate have more engaged, confident and customer-oriented employees.”

Investing for the Soul (http://investingforthesoul.com) comments that ” … the numbers are probably similar throughout the developed world and probably apply equally–at least–to the employees themselves. People, generally, need to reach into their inner values before a better business environment is able to blossom.”