Trust me again
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Presentation of Anne Gregory (University of Huddersfield), in the webinar "Inspiring Trust" (April 22th 2021)
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Trust me again
- 1. Inspiring Trust Trust me again Professor Anne Gregory Chair in Corporate Communication University of Huddersfield
- 2. Trust during the pandemic Edelman Trust Barometer 2021
- 3. The response: public and private sector • Move to on-line accelerated, but all channels used • Emphasis on factual information, mainly! • Communication at the heart of leadership decision making • Dis- and mis- information rebutted quickly • Partnerships & collaborations • Importance of internal communication “Organisational leaders, for their part, recognised that they would be defined by the crisis” (GCS 2020)
- 4. A public sector example: the NHS • Strategic priorities • Internal communication • Local is most trusted • Reputational impacts • OECD – Competence – Values NHS Communicators, 2020 The NHS is the nearest thing to a national religion Nigel Lawson
- 5. Adjusting priorities: private sector Maintaining public support • Reputation management Purpose Employees Issues of social justice • Inequalities • Helping others
- 6. Purpose and the shift to ESG
- 7. Larry Fink’s letter to CEOs 2021 “It is clear that being connected to stakeholders – establishing trust with them and acting with purpose – enables a company to understand and respond to the changes happening in the world. Companies ignore stakeholders at their peril – companies that do not earn this trust will find it harder and harder to attract customers and talent, especially as young people increasingly expect companies to reflect their values.”
- 8. Inside out communication - transparency
- 9. Re-imagining the post pandemic organisation D’Auria, DeSmet, Gagon, Goran, Maor and Steele. 2020
- 10. Re-imagining public sector communication Lovari, D’Ambrosi & Bowen 2020
- 11. Models for gaining trust: the trust equation Trustedadviser.com. 2021. Based on original work by Maister, Green and Galford 2002
- 12. Principles of dialogue Ethos Logos Pathos Aristotle Kent and Taylor, 2002 - 2017
- 13. A model for re-gaining trust Gregory 2021
Editor's Notes
- Edelman Trust Barometer findings Decrease in trust in all 4 institutions. Government lost most – 8% in last 12 months Trust in leaders decreased: religious leaders by -4%, just 42% see them as trustworthy 56% of business leaders and 57% government leaders thought to have misled by saying what they new to be false or by grossly exaggerating All sources for general news lost trust to a record low point Way forward Business must leadon a range of issues, but action before communication Societal leaders (including religious ones) must lead with facts and act with empathy All 4 institutions need to provide trustworthy content that is truthful, unbiased and reliable Institutions need to partner together to solve problems by finding common purpose in addressing society’s problems
- Move to digital channels – video conferencing and other on-line channels All traditional channels used too Public sector emphasis on factual, non-political information available to all Communication and communicators placed at heart of decision-making. Decision-making accelerated and communicators gain in authority and credibility Public sector dealt with dis and mis-information quickly and collaborated with social media platforms to take down false information and promote reliable sources Partnership working became important – an ecosystem of collaboration Internal communication grew in importance Motivation and assurance for dispersed workforce Employees became advocates for their orgaisations
- NHS Example World's largest publicly funded national health system, 5th largest employer globally, 1.5 million employees Strategic priorities, factual public information; change in staff behaviour (staff a mirror of the population as a whole, sources of factual information locally, ‘ordinary people’ make best connections) Local organisation has credibility Reputation increased even though communication did not focus on reputation Halo effect continues, long-waiting lists not the NHS’s fault OECD principles Competence (responsiveness and reliability) Values (integrity, openness, fairness)
- Private sector had some unique features to their response Needed to maintain pubic support: not always seen to work in public interest: those with profit as their priority soon found out They did concentrate on reputation management Purpose became a defining issue – did they help others as well as themselves, where they a good global citizen? How they treated employees because a big factor in reputational impacts: expected to treat them fairly. How employees talked about their employer was crucial (employee advocacy very important). Senior leaders realised potency of this. Social justice issues were also key to preservation of their reputation: Black lives matter, health inequalities, being conscious of local needs and doing something about it
- Linking purpose to action: investors also requiring organisations to demonstrate probity in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG). Example Unilever donated Euro100 million in soap, disinfectant sanitiser and food to communities around the world during the pandemic in line with its purpose ‘to make sustainable living commonplace’ . Euro 500 million in cashflow to small and medium suppliers and customers.
- Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, largest asset management firm in world.
- For some organisations internal communication also became a source for external communication. For example, Tata Steel produced a daily blog distributed via intranet, email and Yammer for employees and significant external contractor’s. It was also shared publicly on Facebook with other contractors, self-isolating, vulnerable and offline employees, their families, the local community and furloughed employees . In this way barriers between internal and external communities were removed and the sense of ‘all in this together’ was enhanced. It also meant the internal ‘narrative’ was aligned with the external and help reduce the potential for dissonance between the two.
- McKinsey paper on the post pandemic organisation Who we are Purpose: who we are and what we stand for Culture: doing the right thig – how we behave Value: what we contribute, where and how How we operate Structure: flatter, more agile, beyond a hierarchy of bosses Decision-making: turbo-charged, with imperfect information Talent: the most valuable asset How we grow Eco-system mind-set: inside and outside partnering Platforms: data rich, multi-dimensional, or single source of truth Learning: learn how to learn, embracing the different
- The model has at its centre the principles of open government, transparency, collaboration and participation (Lathrop and Ruma 2010) which are also resonant with the OECD (2017) principles referred to earlier. Ethics surrounds all decision-making. The horizontal dimension of distrust and trust is dynamic and measures where, at any one time, the public level of trust may be. The public are more or less trusting depending on context and the other dimensions of the model. During the early phases of the pandemic they were more trusting, towards the end much less so (Edelman 2021). The vertical dimension is also dynamic and is a measure of how open/closed the public sector is towards being inclusive, collaborative, listening and being open to change. Less open usually leads to one-way, persuasive communication, more open involves dialogue and negotiated/jointly arrived at end-points.
- Developing trust involves two parties: those who display trustworthiness and those who are trusting. Credibility and Reliability are largely rational dimensions. Credibility concerns competence: the ability to do the task, for example, having the right expertise and credentials. Reliability: is about actions, doing what is said will be done and having a track record of being consistent and constant in performance. Intimacy and self-orientation concern the emotional elements of trustworthiness. Intimacy relates to emotional security: does the trustor feel safe, is their information and thinking going to be treated with respect? Intimacy involves levels of vulnerability and empathy and it is difficult to measure, because it refers to feelings of risk. Trusted adviser’s need to score highly on credibility, reliability and intimacy, whereas on self-orientation, the score needs to be low. If the adviser is perceived to be self-oriented, trustworthiness is destroyed. The most obvious indicator of self-orientation is selfishness which is generally easy to detect. However, less so is self-obsession, where the Adviser is thinking about themselves in the advisory situation such as whether or not they will be well thought of or of making the most telling contributions. Trusted advisers have low self-orientation and put out signals of this by for example, checking that the other participants’ agendas are being met.
- Principles of ethical, persuasive and dialogic communication. Aristotle: to make ethical yet persuasive arguments needs three types of appeal ethos (ethical appeals) which concerns the authority or credibility of the speaker as demonstrated by their mastery of their subject or the esteem in which they are held. Pathos (emotional appeals) demonstrate a sensitivity to emotions and is displayed through empathy or sympathy. Logos (logic) is about reason and ideas and often involves the use of facts and figures as well as the powerful deployment of logical argument. The 'rules' of ethical dialogue (Habermas 1984) include equality in setting the agenda, initiating and continuing dialogue, the freedom to test, probe, challenge and explain without manipulation and with there being equality of power. In return, participants have a duty to ensure that they are understood, are factual, engage in an appropriate manner and are sincere. Taylor and Kent (2014) five elements to genuine dialogue: • Risk involves vulnerability, being open to unanticipated experiences & consequences, being aware of the other by accepting them & recognising their uniqueness. • Mutuality concerns equality and collaboration •Propinquity entails the immediacy of presence and an awareness that relationships have a past, a present and a potential for the future that may encompass evolving relationship •Empathy requires confirmation of the other, being supportive and a sense of community with the other. •Commitment denotes genuineness and a willingness to persevere with the dialogue and the relationship They see dialogue being on a continuum with genuine dialogue being at one end and monologue or propaganda being at the other. Monologue/propaganda limits choice and freedom and is about messaging for obedience and compliance. Dialogue opens up possibilities and choices and celebrates the potential for meaning-making and co-creation, collaboration and creativity
- The modelarticulates three dimensions of trust. First, the direction of the flows of trust which in organisations can be seen to be three way a) within the organisation – unless trust is central to the culture within the organisation, it will be difficult for organisational members to act in ways that will generate trust externally. External words and actions usually depend on collaborative action internally for their delivery. Flow b) is from the inside to the outside of the organisation– this requires words and actions that are trustworthy. Flow c) is from the outside to the inside – this entails that external stakeholders invest their trust in the organisation. The second dimension of trust can be described as the characteristics of words and actions that promote trust. Again there are three. Integrity: acting with honesty, having high standards of probity, being fair and acting from demonstrable moral/ethical principles. Competence: having the right capabilities to deliver to expectations, being consistent, reliable, efficient and effective. Empathy: speaking and acting with compassion and sensitivity for the other and not out of self-interest. The third dimension concerns the processes by which trust can be re-gained and which provide a framework within which actions and words take place. Three elements are present here. Collaboration: working in partnership, where others are regarded as equals, are listened to and joint-solutions are sought. Commitment: participants take responsibility for the quality of relationships and do not treat them instrumentally. Openness: inclusivity and diversity of opinions, people and options are welcomed.