The story of a man who, despite a difficult family life, developed the determination, drive and skills to create a successful business and a happy life.
The first interview for ‘The Trust Paradigm Book’, Geoff Hudson-Searle and Mark Herbert discuss some incredibly important questions about trust and the launch of their new book.
The authors discuss trust and the importance of trust in relationships. Trust is the foundation upon which the legitimacy of government, public institutions and family, the very cornerstone in which relationships are built and is crucial for maintaining social cohesion.
Covid-19 is a crucible within which resilient leadership has been refined since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020. Acting without perfect information and no playbook, and often with only a few hours or days to spare, CEOs have had to guide their organizations through the myriad of decisions and challenges that have had significant implications for their company’s whole system: employees, customers, clients, financial partners, suppliers, investors, and other stakeholders, as well as for society as a whole.
At the same time, almost everywhere we turn, trust is on the decline.
Trust in our culture at large, in our institutions and in our companies is significantly lower than a generation ago. Research commissioned in 2020 by International Business and Executive Management found that 69 percent of employees trust their CEO a little or not at all. Consider the loss of trust and confidence in the financial markets today. Indeed, trust makes the world go round – and right now we’re experiencing a crisis of trust.
In the words of Tom Peters – American writer on business practices – “TRUST, not technology, is the issue of the decade.”
In any normality trust is paramount, but given current world events, never has there been more need for increased trust. This simple formula emphasizes the key elements of trust for individuals and for organizations:
Trust = Transparency + Relationship + Experience
The dynamics of trust are delicate in important relationships, and the loss of trust can be costly — not only psychologically, but also financially and in terms of work and livelihood. What’s helpful to remember is that trust is an ongoing exchange between people and is not static.
Trust can be earned. It can be lost. And it can be regained. ‘The Trust Paradigm’ draws on the hard-won truths of two authors and draws on their deep personal lessons from life and business practice, and their efforts to distill those lessons into principles that lead toward a more purposeful life.
The book is intended to be both a holistic overview of what generates and builds trust and a hands-on guide to how that can be done. A wide range of tips, models, and techniques that will help to build strong and effective trust solutions in today’s business world is combined with a range of insights into the topical subjects of the day.
The term ‘trust’ has been overused forever and, during the last decade, considerably devalued. In this book, the authors aim to take the concept back to its essentials and to re-evaluate how real, meaningful trust can be incorporated into management and leadership.
Although all the chapters in the book are strongly interrelated, for ease of reference it is divided into three key sections: Communications; Strategy, and Business Development and Growth. You can start with your particular area of interest, or you can read the book from the first page to the end; there really is a topic for everyone.
The business professionals and individuals dealing with the great challenges of today’s disruptive and disrupted business world now have renewed responsibility for what business does best: they must innovate, invest and grow their organizations.
Change and transformation can be radical and painful, yet many wait until circumstances force their hand, even when they know that change must, and should, come. Whether change has been forced upon you, or whether you are openly seeking and embracing transformation, this book will arm you with tips, advice and techniques to spark fresh thinking about the status quo and inspire the innovation your circumstances demand for the creation of a better business environment.
‘The Trust Paradigm’s’ lessons are also relevant far beyond the business world. They can support a clearer understanding of institutional behaviour for all kinds of people: students, budding entrepreneurs, volunteers, social enterprise organizers – quite simply, anyone who aspires to do better.
Can a company be successful and competitive in the market and at the same time trusted?
Eric Greitens, a former Navy Seal and Naval Officer once said about resilience: “We all have battles to fight. And it’s often in those battles that we are most alive: it’s on the frontlines of our lives that we earn wisdom, create joy, forge friendships, discover happiness, find love, and do purposeful work.”
There are two ways to look at the world we are living in in the present moment.
At one level, we are facing unprecedented opportunities. An interconnected world with tremendous, possibly unlimited, potential. Our ability to communicate instantly through multiple mediums is phenomenal. Online educational capabilities can elevate entire nations. An internet connection and a phone can give anyone access to the greatest literature, music, and art ever created. The speed with which electric cars have been adopted, internet-based video as a communication method has been embraced by an aging population, and the ability to start a business in one’s home and grow it online is astounding.
At another level, we are facing unprecedented risk – a war with no end in sight, raging inflation, fractured supply chains leading to food insecurity, millions of migrating people seeking safety, opportunity, or both, and climate change resulting in stronger hurricanes, floods, wildfires and other catastrophes, not to mention deep political divisions in many countries, as well as a seemingly never-ending pandemic risk.
The challenge for people and businesses today is how to navigate through these two views, both of which are very real. We clearly cannot predict the future, given that in early 2019 no business had been expected to be shuttered for months at a time in 2020 and 2021 due to a pandemic. Perhaps only a few military and political experts were expecting a Russia – Ukraine war but the unified free world response to Russian aggression, was not expected, nor were the resultant rising fuel costs.
What this means is we live, work, build our careers, and operate our businesses in a time that is highly unpredictable. So, how do we thrive despite this uncertainty?
This is the question that we pondered over coffee recently. As two authors, one of whom specializes in leadership and teamwork learnings from famous Polar explorers and other events in history such as the building of the Panama Canal and the great railways, and the other one, highly experienced in the management of modern global businesses, we concluded that there were two key skills needed. These are resiliency and trust.
Resiliency – three strategies
Resiliency is in great demand at the individual, team, manager, executive, and organizational levels. It is the ability to bounce back from any setback or contingency encountered. Resiliency is a skill that can be learned, and the more one exercises their resiliency fibers, the more adaptable a person or entity becomes in a world brimming with opportunity, yet subject to grave risk.
Here are three strategies to build resilience gleaned from our experiences.
First, stop striving to make the perfect decision. Instead, focus on having the skills to recover quickly from bad decisions. When there is an unpredictable future, like in present times, there may only be a 50-50 chance of a decision-generating a positive result in the first instance. A three-step ability, to assess, refine and try again, forged in the knowledge that you and your team have the wherewithal to “have another go,” is what successfully saved many polar expeditions as well as polar explorers’ lives.
Second, being able to inspire is key, and that inspiration has to be spoken communication, not email or text. Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900s, Winston Churchill in the 1940s, and John F. Kennedy in the 1960s were the great orators of their generations. They didn’t have email or text in those days, but they certainly could write telegrams and letters. Yet their inspiring words were spoken.
That ability to inspire resilience through words is becoming a lost art. Theodore Roosevelt talked about individuals being able to “dare mighty things” in pursuit of “glorious triumphs”, and stated it’s not the critic who counts, it is the person “in the arena” who is to be admired, even if they fail in their pursuit. It only takes one dynamic leader with the right words to inspire a generation to overcome setbacks.
Third, plan that every endeavor of any merit will inevitably hit obstacles. Resiliency comes not from never encountering adversity, but from repeatedly overcoming it in pursuit of a noble goal. Individuals, teams, and organizations build resiliency by pursuing goals they believe in, and while doing their best to avoid challenges, being firm in their belief that the goal is what matters, and discomfort, in whatever form, whether it is financial risk or physical discomfort (in the case of the Antarctic explorers), these were just part of the day-to-day pursuit of the goal, and to be taken in stride.
The other side of the equation is trust.
Trust – three strategies
Trust matters. There are just a few elemental forces that hold our world together. The one that is the glue of society is called trust. Its presence cements relationships by allowing people, organizations and nations to live, work and collaborate together. Trust enables a feeling of safety and standards and enables belonging to a group.
Trust allows organisations and communities to flourish, while the absence of trust can cause fragmentation, conflict and even war. Our focus is organizations. Based on our experiences in looking at C-level leaders, organizations, stakeholders, managers and teams, co-workers, suppliers, customers, industry bodies, regulators and other groupings, it becomes clear that for trust to flourish, it needs to be multi-directional. Trust needs to flow among and between all these sectors.
Here are three strategies to invest in, rebuild, and renew trust.
First, recognize that trust is personal, In the words of British writer George Eliot, “Those who trust us, educate us.” Truly building trust with our stakeholders—understanding their concerns and their priorities—involves a willingness to listen, learn, and hear. Building trust requires business leaders to make conscious daily choices, and especially to act on those choices.
And it needs to be mutual. When leaders trust their stakeholders, they enter an exchange that engenders opportunity: Leaders can prove their trustworthiness, and stakeholders in return can empower their strategic choices and innovations. In essence, mutual trust creates a followership that allows organizations to break new ground, traverse the seismic changes taking place, and emerge thriving on the other side of crisis.
Second, trust becomes established through vulnerability and honesty. Business leaders willing to acknowledge what they don’t know are more likely to create trust with their stakeholders than those leaders who mistakenly believe their greatest source of influence is knowledge—or at least acting as though they know.
A similar paradox exists for organizations responding to a one-time breach of trust. Stakeholders are likely to regain—and even strengthen—trust in the organization when leaders admit the mistake, are apologetic, and are transparent in how they move forward.
Third, authenticity is essential, and this matters most to your stakeholders. Intent connects the leader to their humanity and the importance of acting with transparency. But at the end of the day, intent is just a promise; leaders must be able to act on that promise, and do so competently, reliably, and capably. And they must be able to do so in the areas—whether physical, emotional, digital, or financial—that matter most to their stakeholders at that given time.
Resiliency and Trust – an unbeatable combination
A discussion and running theme that seems to be on every executive’s mind is, “What is required to be an effective leader in today’s totally disruptive business world?”
Businesses of all shapes and sizes in all regions of the world are responding to a vision and set of common values across resiliency and trust. Companies have reported that the combination of embedding resiliency and regaining trust is the new guiding star for a world in constant change, and for dealing effectively with the interconnected environment in which all businesses operate.
Organisations can gain resiliency and trust through having sound leadership at all levels and strong cultures founded on purpose, responsibility, and accountability. Long-term agility and growth come from that.
If this is implemented in conjunction with clear, concise direction from top management, and in such a way that the middle and lower layers within the company are fully engaged, then the results can be meaningful. However, it is not a one-and-done endeavor. Even after the company is fully aligned behind a compelling strategy, leaders must continue to reinforce resiliency and trust from the top. You can’t just adopt it. It must be driven, operationally and in-depth, by the CEO and the top leadership team.
After all, the goal is not to simply navigate today’s needed changes but also to create an organization poised for more change. A resilient and trusted team ready for the next battle – whenever that may be.
Get your free copy of this paper (PDF) here: DOWNLOAD
Geoff Hudson-Searle
Geoff Hudson-Searle is a senior independent digital non-executive director across regulation, technology, and internet security, C-Suite executive on private and listed companies, and serial business advisor for growth-phase tech companies.
With more than 30 years of experience in international business and management. He is the author of six books and lectures at business forums, conferences, and universities. He has been the focus of TEDx and RT Europe’s business documentary across various thought leadership topics and his authorisms.
Geoff is a member and fellow of the Institute of Directors; an associate of The International Business Institute of Management; a co-founder and board member of the Neustar International Security Council (NISC); and a distinguished member of the Advisory Council for The Global Cyber Academy.
He holds a master’s degree in business administration. Rated by Agilience as a Top 250 Harvard Business School thought leader authority covering blogs and writing across; ‘Strategic Management’ and ‘Management Consulting’, Geoff has worked on strategic growth, strategy, operations, finance, international development, growth and scale-up advisory programs for the British Government, Citibank, Kaspersky, BT and Barclays among others.
Brad Borkan is the co-author of two award-winning books. His books provide business and decision insights from the endeavors of extraordinary people: “When Your Life Depends on It: Extreme decision making lessons from the Antarctic”, and “Audacious Goals, Remarkable Results: How an explorer, an engineer and a statesman shaped our modern world”.
A former senior director at leading high tech companies, Brad is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Vice-Chair of the Friends of the Scott Polar Research Institute, and a member of the Society of Authors.
Brad has presented at business and Antarctic conferences and appeared on numerous historical and business-focused podcasts. Brad’s expertise is in the themes of leadership, teamwork, and the modern lessons we can learn from people who dared greatly and succeeded against all odds.
A very proud and privileged moment to have just finished the final manuscript of my sixth book, “The Trust Paradigm”.
The Trust Paradigm draws on the hard-won truths of two authors: Geoff Hudson-Searle and Mark Herbert, in addition to wisdom, deep personal lessons from one’s life and business practice and disciplines towards a more purposeful life.
Matador Publishing has confirmed that this will be the 4th book from Geoff Hudson-Searle that they will now publish in a series of writings aimed to provide individuals with a better lens to understand the opportunities and challenges ahead, to chart your course for change and fulfillment of dreams, desires and aspirations; through wisdom, knowledge and learnings from the book.
Jeremy Thompson, Managing Director, and Hannah Dakin, Customer Services Manager at Matador are truly excited to be working with Mark and me on book number six through their publishing house, I must say working with Matador has really been a seamless process, a truly great and committed team.
Hannah recently quoted ‘Geoff is back with a brand new book, The Trust Paradigm. The book has been written in the hope to help governments, businesses and individuals have a better understanding on a range of subjects across trust — whether that be those who are a part of a government or agency, company/organisation, to students, and any aspiring individuals. It’s always a pleasure to work with Geoff and at Matador Publishing we very much look forward to working with him again on The Trust Paradigm!’
Hannah Daikin, Customer Services Manager Matador Publishing
The Trust Paradigm provides a holistic overview of the essential leading methods in these areas and can be viewed as a hands-on guide. Readers will gain insights into topical subjects, including a wide range of tips, models and techniques that will help to build strong and effective trust solutions in today’s business world.
“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”
American educator and author, Steven R. Covey.
The term Trust has been overused forever and during the last decade devalued. In this book, we aim to simplify these terms and to re-value management and leadership by addressing topics and subjects in each chapter.
Each component can be located by the titles at the top of the pages. The sections within the three components relate strongly to each other and are interrelated to all the other sections. You can start with your area of interest, or you can read the book from the first page to the end; there really is a topic for everyone.
Government, Business professionals and individuals dealing with the great challenges of today’s disruptive business world have renewed responsibility for what business does best: innovate, invest, and grow.
The business professionals and individuals dealing with the great challenges of today’s disruptive and disrupted business world now have renewed responsibility for what business does best: they must innovate, invest, and grow their organizations. Change and transformation can be radical and painful, yet many wait until circumstances force their hand even when they know that change must, and should, come.
Whether the change has been forced upon you, or whether you are openly seeking and embracing transformation, this book will arm you with tips, advice, and techniques to spark fresh thinking about the status quo and inspire the innovation your circumstances demand the creation of a better business environment.
The Trust Paradigm’s lessons are also relevant far beyond the business world. They can support a clearer understanding of institutional behaviour for all kinds of people: students, budding entrepreneurs, volunteers, social enterprise organizers – quite simply, anyone who aspires to do better.
The Trust Paradigm will be a 2022 publication!
In February 2014, I set out as an author with my first book, “Freedom after the Sharks”, to write a weekly blog across a variety of subjects and foremost about people in business, opinions, research and tips, advise on some revelations, past and present.
Each person, no matter their age, occupation or place in the world has a tremendous story to share. A vast tapestry of experiences, truths & pearls of wisdom lies in the vault of the mind, waiting to be unlocked. It takes the slightest intuitive spark to get us talking about our inner lives, the details and dynamics of being human. We are all aware of how important technology is in our lives and keeping our individual worlds connected.
We need to explore new and creative ways of listening, engaging, working together, learning, building community and being in conversation with the other. We are more connected than ever through technology and at the same time the disconnect with ourselves, others and our environment is growing. We need The Trust Paradigm to help us reconnect, going beyond our egos and our fears to build strong relationships, communities, networks and organisations, so that through trusted collaboration we can begin to co-create a more sustainable future.
Readers will gain insights into topical subjects, which include a wide range of tips, models and techniques that will help to build strong and effective solutions in today’s disruptive business world.
The Trust Paradigm will be available in e-book/kindle, paperback, hardback and audiobook formats.
Writing has changed my life. I have always believed that it is your right to speak truthfully in all matters that concern you and to speak from the heart.
It has been an overwhelming experience to receive emails and phone calls from people across all walks of life wanting to share their experiences, their story. Governments, entrepreneurs, business people, students, children, and universities and charitable causes have approached me for keynote sessions, general advice, and inspirational leadership.
I have been overwhelmed with inquiries but will continue to expand and express the journey that each and every one of us deserves.
Every audience has a different dynamic, a different rhythm, and a different reaction. The audience wants, needs, and expects pertinent, real-life information to enhance and support their lives and importantly what they’re facing. I believe it was my destiny in life to push things to the limit. You only get one chance to make an impression. I gave blogging and writing books every opportunity I had of the events that took place for what I believed to be right and true.
In life you survive. You move on but with a purpose and now ‘The Trust Paradigm’
Finally, in times of growing uncertainty, trust is built further when you demonstrate an ability to address unanticipated situations effectively and demonstrate a steady commitment to address the needs of all stakeholders in the best way possible.
The best business leaders begin by framing trust in economic terms for their companies. When an organization has low trust, the economic consequences can be huge. Everything will take longer and everything will cost more because the organization has to compensate for the lack of trust it commands. These costs can be quantified and when they are, leaders suddenly recognize that low trust is not merely a social issue, but it becomes an economic matter. The dividends of high trust can also be calculated and this can help leaders make a compelling business case for trust.
The best leaders focus on making the creation of trust an explicit objective. Like any other goal, it must be measured and improved. It must be made clear to everyone that trust matters to management and leadership. The unambiguous message must be that this is the right thing to do and it is the right economic thing to do. One of the best ways to do this is to make an initial baseline measurement of organizational trust and then to track improvements over time.
It’s clear from the news today that the leaders of some of our most influential governments and corporations are making morally questionable decisions. These decisions will lose the trust of society, customers and employees. No amount of electronic communication – staff intranet, corporate social media, marketing emails – will fix this, yet many organizations assume this can replace meaningful dialogue, which is the only real means of building trust and high-functioning relationships.
Finally, any true transformation starts with building credibility at the personal level. The foundation of trust is your own credibility, and it can be a real differentiator for any leader. A person’s reputation is a direct reflection of their credibility and it precedes them in any interactions or negotiations they might have. When a leader’s credibility and reputation are high, it enables them to establish trust quickly. Speed goes up, the cost goes down
A strong culture is one where there’s trust, connection and belonging, among more. Without trust, you don’t connect with colleagues and without connection, it’s only a matter of time before any sense of belonging to that employer dissipates and you start looking for a job elsewhere — likely with a competitor.
One of the best ways to gauge whether there’s connection or not is to look at your meetings. Do the right conversations take place during those meetings, or, do people wait for the meeting after the meeting so they can get “real work” done? If it’s the latter, then you might want to consider strategies for building trust.
Our intent in this book is to explore from our perspective some of the reasons we find ourselves in this environment and some of the things we need to at least consider changing unless we want to continue the path we are on. This is the rationale why Mark Herbert an I have written The Trust Paradigm.
In the words of Stephen R. Covey:
“If I make deposits into an Emotional Bank Account with you through courtesy, kindness, honesty, and keeping my commitments to you, I build up a reserve. Your trust towards me becomes higher, and I can call upon that trust many times if I need to. I can even make mistakes and that trust level, that emotional reserve, will compensate for it. My communication may not be clear, but you’ll get my meaning anyway. You won’t make me ‘an offender for a word’. When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.”
I will be making periodic updates on the progress of our new book, and invite you all to read the new tome on its release.
I had the fortune of being invited to a lively debate on Friday 25th February 2022, joining the debate was Lieutenant Cornel Oakland McCulloch, Douglas Lines, and our podcast host Scott Hunter, Purpose. Trust and Societal Impact expert and practitioner, discussing the role of leadership in creating trust.
“Today’s leaders have a responsibility to inspire the leaders of tomorrow.”
– Lieutenant Colonel Oak McCulloch
Douglas Lines: Douglas is a senior business leader, executive committee member with substantial global commercial experience, operating principally in financial services.
Geoffrey M.J Hudson-Searle: Geoff is a serial business advisor, CSuite Executive and Non-Executive Director to Private and Publicly listed growth-phase tech companies. An author of 5 books including the best seller ‘Purposeful Discussions’ and rated by Agilience as a Top 250 Harvard Business School authority covering; ‘Strategic Management’ and ‘Management Consulting’
Oakland McCulloch: Oak is a Retired Lieutenant Colonel. He is the author of the 2021 release, Your Leadership Legacy: Becoming the Leader You Were Meant to Be. Based on 40+ years of leadership in the U.S. Army and subsequent civilian positions, Oak highlights principles that will benefit today’s leaders and inspire the leaders of tomorrow. Oak is also a well-known speaker who gives presentations on a variety of topics including leadership, success, military history, college preparation and others.
In previous eras, trust was more often a product of ongoing relationships between individuals who did business together. People knew their bankers, merchants, and employers personally and could assess the content of their character.
These days, business transactions tend to be less personal and more far-reaching than they were even a few decades ago.
Trust remains a vital form of business currency, but customers rely on different signals to convey a company’s trustworthiness — including, in many cases, a wealth of information about its ethical track record and the experiences of its customers and employees.
In fact, globalization is making adherence to commonly accepted ethical standards necessary not just for building trust with employees and customers, but for full-fledged participation in the worldwide economy.
Just as common technological protocols have made the rapid spread of mobile phones and the internet around the world possible, common ethical standards provide a consistent set of rules that allow parties from different cultures and institutional environments to have confidence that they can do business together without being taken advantage of.
The success of global “sharing economy” platforms like Uber and Airbnb has been possible, in large part, because those businesses have developed transparent rating systems that help customers feel they can trust millions of new drivers and hospitality providers.
However, trust has also become a more important consideration within organizations.
Given the rapid pace of change in many industries, driven by digitization, globalization, and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, many employees wonder if their jobs are secure and need to feel that their managers are always open and honest with them.
Perceived trustworthiness has also become an important recruiting consideration.
Expectations for corporate responsibility have changed since the “greed is good” ethos of the 1980s.
Employees want to know their organizations operate in a socially responsible manner. Those who believe their company will always choose to do the right thing over making an immediate profit are more likely to say they would recommend it as a place to work and that they will stay there for another three years.
Gallup’s research has shown that millennial-age employees, in particular, want their careers to coincide with their personal values; they view their jobs as sources of meaning and purpose, rather than just a way to make a living.
Three essential elements of a high-trust culture
Businesses that sustain trusting relationships with employees and customers are distinguished by three central priorities, around which leaders build high-integrity organizational cultures.
Trust directly influences the actions and outcomes of business every day. By embedding trust in a company’s business, leaders generate value for their stakeholders and society more broadly now and in the future.
Make strong customer value the ultimate business goal.
Organizations need an authentic, customer-centric purpose to guide their strategic focus and daily activities. Such a purpose, clearly and commonly articulated by leaders and managers, encodes ethical standards into the DNA of an organization.
If a company exists to improve the lives of its customers, violating their trust or harming their communities through unethical behavior becomes not just a moral issue, but a strategic concern.
As an example, in restructuring their operations after suffering massive losses in the global financial crisis, many retail banks made restoring customer relationships their paramount leadership concern, with many articulating a renewed focus on customer-centricity supported by a set of clearly stated ethical standards and responsibilities.
By contrast, widespread concerns about Facebook’s data-sharing policies and possible privacy violations have led to a slower user and revenue growth and prompted a major ad campaign intended to regain users’ trust.
Establish integrity as a primary organizational value.
High-trust organizations make integrity a core value that influences all HR processes, from performance incentives to hiring criteria.
However, simply hiring principled employees isn’t enough, particularly in an era when ethical implications aren’t always obvious or clear-cut.
Recent research in organizational psychology points to “blind spots” that may lead people to behave unethically without being fully conscious of it.
The concept of bounded ethicality suggests employees often fail to recognize their own moral transgressions, either because the moral dimensions of their decisions aren’t salient enough or because they conflict with other personal or organizational interests.
For example, in the accounting scandals of the early 2000s, major accounting firms were hired and paid by the companies they audited, motivating them to overlook inappropriate – even fraudulent – bookkeeping practices.
Employees need to see their colleagues acting under the assumption that integrity is an essential component of – rather than an obstacle to – their organization’s success.
Such cultural norms ensure employees never feel that their own ethical behavior leaves them at a disadvantage. Conversations about ethics and trust and the consequences of business decisions should become part of a daily routine, especially as organizations embrace experimentation and constant innovation.
Ensure ethical issues are a major leadership focus.
For large organizations, trust is largely a product of leadership.
Business leaders help ensure employees are attuned to ethical issues by calling attention to them on a regular basis.
Unfortunately, many businesses pay lip service to compliance programs without conveying to employees the organization’s commitment to building and maintaining customer trust through ethical practices.
Trust between employer and employee and among employees enhances human capital investment. Trust influences the behaviours of both employers and employees. Deloitte research suggests that employees who highly trust their employer are about half as likely to seek new job opportunities as those who don’t.
At the same time, workers are more likely to invest in their own skill-building if they trust that their employer will reward them for their efforts. This is especially true regarding non-transferable or firm-specific skills, which suggests that trust can raise the level of institutional knowledge that can lead to more productive work.
The world is in crisis. Economies are unwinding; jobs are disappearing and our spirit is being tested. In light of this, it’s imperative for leaders to demonstrate compassion. But the research from Harvard University has shown that compassion on its own is not enough.
For effective leadership, compassion must be combined with wisdom, i.e. leadership competence and effectiveness. This often requires giving tough feedback, making hard decisions that disappoint people, and, in some cases, laying people off.
Showing compassion in leadership can’t come at the expense of wisdom and effectiveness. You need both. The research report gathered data from 15,000 leaders in more than 5,000 companies that span nearly 100 countries, showing that leaders exhibit four different leadership styles that reflect different mixes of wisdom and compassion, and the lack thereof. The optimal style is wise compassionate leadership.
EY Consulting survey confirms 90% of US workers believe empathetic leadership leads to higher job satisfaction and 79% agree it decreases employee turnover.
The majority (88%) of respondents feel that empathetic leadership creates loyalty among employees toward their leaders – revealing that empathy could be the secret sauce to retaining and finding employees in the face of “The Great Resignation.”
A staggering 89% of employees agree that empathy leads to better leadership. In fact, 88% feel that empathetic leadership inspires positive change within the workplace, and 87% say that it enables trust among employees and leaders. Additionally, 85% report that empathetic leadership in the workplace increases productivity among employees.
Beyond improving employee satisfaction and decreasing turnover rates, there are tangible business benefits to prioritizing empathy in the workplace. According to the survey, benefits are plenty, since employees agree that mutual empathy between leaders and employees increases:
– Efficiency (87%)
– Creativity (87%)
– Innovation (86%)
– Company revenue (81%)
Leaders have to be resolute about their desire to foster an empowered organization and their commitment to invest the necessary time and energy to make it work. They have to continuously find ways to signal that desire and following key steps constitutes a very effective way to do so. Yes, there might be some hiccups, but once those are in the rear-view mirror, true empowerment will deliver a powerful upside for employees, their leaders, and the entire organization.
Clarity of thinking, communications, and decision-making will be at a premium. Those CEOs who can best exhibit this clarity, and lead from the heart and the head, will inspire their organisations to persevere through this crisis, positioning their brand to emerge in a better place, prepared for whatever may come. Crises like these, with deep challenges to be navigated, will also lead to opportunities for learning and deepening trust with all stakeholders, while equipping organisations for a step change that creates more value not just for shareholders, but for society as a whole.
Getting a regular cadence with a clear voice is critical. Incomplete or conflicting communications can slow the organisation’s response rather than providing better guidance.
In a time of crisis, trust is paramount. This simple formula emphasises the key elements of trust for individuals and for organisations:
Trust starts with transparency: telling what you know and admitting what you don’t. Trust is also a function of relationships: some level of ‘knowing’ each other among you and your employees, your customers, and your ecosystem. And it also depends on experience: Do you reliably do what you say?
In times of growing uncertainty, trust is increasingly built by demonstrating an ability to address unanticipated situations and a steady commitment to address the needs of all stakeholders in the best way possible.
In any time, thriving organisations are true to their purpose, rely on their values, and model agility. Today’s pandemic, which will reduce profits all over the world, is a searing test of every organisation’s culture and values. Leaders who have laid a solid culture foundation, authentically committed to a set of values, and defined and depended on an inspiring purpose are leading through this crisis by making a difference in the lives of employees and the communities they serve. This crisis also serves as a furnace for change for those companies that haven’t yet laid the foundation for a thriving culture.
Working with CEOs over the years, I have found that thriving cultures are those that are purpose-driven and characterised by vitality and a growth mindset. Organisations where leaders are purposeful and intentional and open to personal change, and where every employee has a voice and is actively engaged in living the organisation’s values, are those with thriving cultures. Many organisations entered into this crisis with such a culture. Others were struggling. But, like the process of glass blowing, in which beautiful structures are created by manipulating molten glass in a hot furnace, we have observed healthy and resilient cultures emerge from the fires of crisis.
Culture, we know, is the core of resilience, but it alone is not enough. Other work by our firm has shown that organisations that accelerate performance during good times and bad are able to mobilise, execute, and transform with agility. During today’s pandemic, agility matters more than ever. Amidst rapid-fire health updates, market volatility, and the extreme spread of the coronavirus, a company’s foresight, ability to learn, and adaptability will set it apart. Companies strong in these areas have leaders who are future-focused, demonstrate a growth mindset, are able to pivot quickly in times of rapid disruption, and maintain resilience to navigate their organisations.
Uncovering authentic organisational purpose can come quite simply from finding ways to be of service. What’s needed today is for all leaders to look beyond profit and ask, ‘What do I have that could help someone right now? Where can I practice abundance where there is short supply?’
Organisations will be changed by their actions to make a difference in these times of crisis. Connecting with employees at a human level as we enter into one another’s home offices and living rooms, meeting children and pets on the screen, is organically changing and strengthening cultures. It’s happening today by default; tomorrow leaders can shape their cultures with lessons learned by design. Leaders and organisations that count on their core culture and values and make a difference while pivoting to solve for the future will emerge from the fires of this crisis and thrive.
Finally, leadership has got to step up, if you want to save your job in the next 10 years, you need to adopt a balance between IQ, EQ, SI, DI, WI and trust intelligence. Emotional intelligence isn’t just an idea for leadership anymore, it’s a prerequisite for the trust toolbox.
The way to build trust and drive home purpose is to master honest communication and include employees and stakeholders in key decisions. “We’ve seen fax machines, long emails, instant messaging, all kinds of collaboration tools come, go and sometimes stay. Business is about communicating with purpose, active listening, empathy. More trust has got to be to put into the executive leadership. Trust is the glue.”
The more emotional intelligence leadership teams employ across teams, the more you’ll see an increase in trust because people will see it’s not just words but actions. At IBEM, we commissioned a trust report back in January 2020. Even before I commissioned the research, I knew what to expect.
“69% of everyone surveyed said they don’t trust CEO or line manager.”
I would take that as applicable across all business and commerce. We’ve got to communicate more, build trust within organisations more. We can’t deliver anything without fixing this problem.
Inclusion of people into the decision-making process helps cement purpose and values.”
Vincent Thomas Lombardi was an American football coach and executive in the National Football League, who once said:
“A team is not a group of people who play together, a team is a group of people who trust each other.”
Since the dawn of the first industrial revolution, machines have largely been used to improve efficiency. We’ve now entered the Fourth Industrial Revolution – an era in which machines will become smart, self-optimizing themselves and the systems in which they operate. It’s a shift that’s shaping many of the megatrends, one that Douglas Lines and myself have identified at International Business and Executive Management [IBEM}, that are in turn changing how the world works.
Gartner stated for the record: ‘Digital transformation is more successful with a positive shift in culture. In fact, 80% of enterprises will change their culture as a way to accelerate their digital transformation strategy’.
Some have seen this as the rise of the robots – a dystopian future of mass unemployment and dehumanization as intelligent machines do away with the need for people.
But history suggests that while new technologies may end the need for human involvement in some tasks, they will usually also enable the creation of entirely new jobs – even entirely new industries. The challenge isn’t the technology – it’s to be creative in reimagining how to use it to generate fresh opportunities, value and growth.
Success and growth won’t be achieved by focusing on technology alone, because technology is no more than a tool that enables us to develop goods and services that humans need. The real skill isn’t in developing technological solutions, it’s in identifying what people want – and then finding the best ways to deliver. The question isn’t how to use the technology, it’s what impact that technology can have.
Ask any CEO in the world to write a top-five wish list, and we guarantee that “more ideas—better ideas!” will show up in some form. Most likely it’ll be right at the top. CEOs know that ideas and innovation are the most precious currency in the new economy and, increasingly, in the old economy as well. Without a constant flow of ideas, a business is condemned to obsolescence.
There are three primary ways technology – and especially Artificial Intelligence (AI) – can encourage human creativity in meeting human needs:
– Freeing up time for humans to focus on innovation.
– Offering opportunities to creatively combine technologies to create new ways of working.
– Actively augmenting human decision-making, by adding a layer of machine-driven data analysis to guide our creative choices.
Today, the division of labour between human and machines/algorithms across total task hours looks like this:
– Humans: 71%
– Machines/Algorithms: 29%
By 2025, according to a report by the World Economic Forum, it’s predicted to be:
– Humans: 58%
– Machines/Algorithms: 42%
While this shift naturally generates both excitement and fear, stories about the future of work are often technology-focused and, therefore, fail to capture one aspect I find critical: As machines/algorithms automate once-impossible tasks and replace those that are repetitive and laborious, it is likely that creativity will increasingly become a vital (and, further down the road, measurable) skill of the modern worker.
LinkedIn recently analysed the skills listed on profiles of candidates who are getting hired at the fastest rate and found creativity to be the top “soft” skill. The report’s summary stated that this result wasn’t surprising: “Organisations everywhere need people who can innovate and conceive fresh ideas and solutions.”
“The human spirit must prevail over technology.” —Albert Einstein
You cannot go back to the stone age. You must embrace artificial intelligence (AI) and the fourth industrial revolution (FIR). Humans evolved from the stone age to the space age because of the power of imagination and creativity. Technology creates dialogue among researchers and people. It cannot replace creativity. It can complement creativity. Therefore, treat technology as an ally, not an enemy to take forward human civilization in the right direction. To conclude, humans must know how to harness technology for the benefit of humankind.
According to an article in the Journal of Management Inquiry, soft skills are more accurately referred to as CORE (competence in organisational and relational effectiveness) skills. This definition is likely to cause less confusion than “soft.”
In line with LinkedIn’s findings are those from the World Economic Forum’s “The Future of Jobs Report 2018,” which lists creativity as one of the major skill groups in demand today and set to grow through 2022. With creativity rising, the heat is on to tie its impact not only to disruptive, industry-changing ideas, but also to key performance indicators throughout the company. And future research is likely to shine more light on the dichotomy between what companies believe and say about creativity and their actual practice.
One global study from Adobe offers a glimpse into this: While 76% of respondents say companies that invest in creativity are more likely to have happier employees, 77% also believe there is increasing pressure to be productive rather than creative at work.
Business leaders spend considerable time thinking about how to best keep up with technological advancements to prepare their companies for the future of work. While addressing this is an important, ongoing process, few seem to be considering an equally important topic: how they’ll improve their organisation’s creativity skills.
Right now, companies that are combining technologies like this can gain competitive advantages over more traditional rivals.
To take one example, a drone on its own is little more than a fancy radio-controlled helicopter – a toy. A drone with a camera is a surveillance tool. A drone with a camera, depth-sensors, a robotic arm, and AI is an autonomous tool that can radically change how we use warehouse space or deliver goods to customers by finding more efficient transport routes. Meanwhile, more traditional companies are still using slower, less efficient human-driven fork-lift trucks.
The next ten years will see an explosion of innovation as smart technologies mature and ever more businesses use them in combination with existing and emerging technologies to create radical new approaches to doing business and meet the ever-changing needs of their customers.
But remember this isn’t about the technology itself, no matter how creatively it’s combined. The pace of technological change will continue to accelerate – no one piece of technology will be enough to give a lasting competitive advantage in such an environment.
The truly successful businesses will be the ones that realize their transformation isn’t a one-off change to adopt the latest technological tools, but an ongoing process – with the needs of people placed firmly as the focal point of innovative efforts, not the capabilities of the currently available tools.
Looking to 2030 and beyond, the impact of such human-focused innovation could radically change how the world works. The number of possible permutations is vast – and when AI enables these new combinatorial creations to continuously self-optimize, they should get continually more impactful.
It’s time for us to reframe our relationship with technology, reimagining how to use technologies to meet real human needs, enable new ways of working, and power human enterprise. With the right approach, people can be both the drivers and beneficiaries of technological change, unlocking new paths to value and human engagement, helping us reinvent our organizations to be ready for what’s next, and fully realizing human potential.
It’s one thing to create a technology, but it’s another to use it to transform how a business operates.
To unlock AI’s true potential and unleash human creativity, businesses should seek to shake off their preconceptions and reimagine the fundamentals of how their industry operates – and what purposes they serve for their customers.
As you reimagine what your business and industry could look like in the next five to ten years, you should also start thinking how you can reshape your operations to make your vision as effective as possible:
Use technology to do the mundane, freeing up humans to focus on the higher-level creative thinking and strategic decision-making that add true long-term value.
Combine technologies to create better ways of working.
Focus on finding ways of deploying AI not just to replace humans, but to guide their creative choices.
A successful strategy for driving long-term value and growth will never come solely from upgrading your tools – it’s from ensuring your strategies and processes meet the needs of your human customers and employees. Even the most cutting-edge technology alone will never be a lasting solution – just a way of enabling better ways of meeting those needs.
Finally, rather than be worried about the rise of AI, businesses should embrace the opportunity technology brings to unleash a new wave of human creativity and power human enterprise. It can free up time for innovation, provide new combinations of technologies to enable better ways of working, and help guide us on the path towards even more effective creative ideas.
With so many societal signals pushing us toward technology (and to become data-driven rather than data-informed, a critical distinction), the push to reskill will no doubt involve a heavy focus on technology. As a result, there exists an opening for those willing to tread the less obvious, more human path toward developing a CORE (competence in organisational and relational effectiveness) skill that can amplify all others.
Finally, those who work to build their creative capacity are likely to be rewarded, especially if they can document which creative decisions they make, how they bring them to life and the impact on company performance.
Kenya Hara, a Japanese graphic designer, curator and writer once said:
“Creativity is to discover a question that has never been asked. If one brings up an idiosyncratic question, the answer he gives will necessarily be unique as well.”
I have been having much debate with my circle of close friends recently over the subject of ‘Love’ and whether we ever forget our first ‘True Love’. For some people, they will never truly experience ‘True or Unconditional Love’ and for others, there is a long distant memory of ‘True Love’.
I love the quote by Maya Angelou:
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
A few years ago, I interviewed a love expert and special friend in the subject matter, Jo March, author of ‘Love is Simple’. After several cups of tea at the Terrace Room at The Meridian Hotel in Piccadilly – London, and much discussion sharing past and present experiences, Jo explained:
‘Why people should live in love and why we are not communicating and forging meaningful and unconditional relationships, love is simple right…?’
Love is simple when we understand the true meaning of unconditional love. The kind of love that transforms and transcends us as human beings to a higher level of consciousness, in those moments when we truly love, we become alive, we feel passion, we feel life in every breath. Love is life, at the core of everything we do on this life path it is love that is the driving force.
I could not agree more. That being said, I have learnings from a few things about doing what you love for life and business — and this was the précis for my first book, ‘Freedom After The Sharks’.
Jo mentioned a quote by Maya Angelou, I am sure will resonate with us all:
“I am grateful to have been loved and to be loved now and to be able to love because that liberates. Love liberates. It doesn’t just hold — that’s ego. Love liberates. It doesn’t bind. Love says, ‘I love you. I love you if you’re in China. I love you if you’re across town. I love you if you’re in Harlem. I love you. I would like to be near you. I’d like to have your arms around me. I’d like to hear your voice in my ear. But that’s not possible now, so I love you. Go.”
I have often written on the subject of love and relationships and with Valentines upon us I recently reminisced on the subject: ‘Is our heart reserved for True Love, a sacred flame that burns eternally for one love?’
Or as William Shakesphere once said in his play is ‘The World Just a Stage?
The meaning of this phrase is that this world is like a stage and all human beings are merely actors – Oscar Wilde has put his spin on this phrase, declaring “The world is a stage, and the play is badly cast.”
Allan Moore in his novel, ‘V for Vendetta’, has taken it to a completely new level by saying “All the world’s a stage, and everything else is vaudeville.” Now notice how people love to quote this phrase, because it sounds very clever, and they believe that this line has something that still resonates today.
With the world stage aside the facts are instead of strong, meaningful conversations and relationships, we struggle through long series of bad dates and so-called hook-ups. Instead of meeting people in real life, we are constantly swiping and messaging somebody new. Instead of telling people how we feel, we do not text back. We no longer have people cancel, we get flaked on, and then we flake on other people. We no longer date or commit, we “see” and “hang out” with each other. We are complicit in a dating culture that systematically prevents intimacy. I believe and the evidence certainly supports this, that we have become a generation afraid of being in love.
One could say “We are complicit in a dating culture that systematically prevents intimacy”.
I read a recent article from UCLA called ‘What does being committed to your marriage really mean?’ UCLA psychologists answered this question in a new study based on their analysis of 172 married couples over the first 11 years of marriage.
“When people say, ‘I’m committed to my relationship,’ they can mean two things,” said study co-author Benjamin Karney, a professor of psychology and co-director of the Relationship Institute at UCLA. “One thing they can mean is, ‘I really like this relationship and want it to continue.’ However, commitment is more than just that.”
The psychologists’ report demonstrated that a deeper level of commitment is a much better predictor of lower divorce rates and fewer problems in marriage.
Of the 172 married couples in the study, 78.5 percent were still married after 11 years, and 21.5 percent were divorced. The couples in which both people were willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the marriage were significantly more likely to have lasting and happy marriages, according to Bradbury, Karney and lead study author Dominik Schoebi, a former UCLA postdoctoral scholar who is currently at Switzerland’s University of Fribourg.
So, do we marry a ‘soul mate’ or a ‘life partner’?
Soul Mate:
Someone who is aligned with your soul and is sent to challenge, awaken and stir different parts of you in order for your soul to transcend to a higher level of consciousness and awareness. Once the lesson has been learned, physical separation usually occurs.
Life Partner:
A companion, a friend, a stable and secure individual who you can lean on, trust and depend on to help you through life. There is a mutual feeling of love and respect and you are both in sync with each other’s needs and wants.
At different times of our lives, we will need and want different types of relationships. Neither is better or worse than the other, it is all a personal decision and one that you will feel guided to as long as you are following your heart.
In summary, our childhoods taught us to value love; but our institutions, cities, and technology have taught us to fear commitment and put choice first. We are trapped in a self-perpetuating cycle of emotional distance from each other.
Most of us really want love at some point, but our actions are at war with this desire. We maintain an emotional distance because we fear commitment and rejection, not because that is our true self. We replace the feeling of true intimacy with short-term flings, long-term noncommittal hookups, and sex. We comfort ourselves knowing at least we’re not feeling the stinging pain of a broken heart, at least we don’t have to deal with real emotions. My belief is that we have trapped ourselves in a cycle that we are all complicit within.
This cycle is detrimental to us all. Happiness means different things to different people. For some, it is marriage and kids, for others, it is traveling the world, and for others it is a rainy day with a good book. One thing that we all share, however, is that having strong, positive relationships in our life is one of the keys to happiness and fulfillment. Even anecdotally, we know this to be true.
When we keep emotional distance because of the fear of rejection, we lose out on one of the most important aspects of being human. Deep inside, we know we are unfulfilled but we do not know how to fix ourselves. So, we play the game where there are no winners. We must break free from this culture that damages us all and learn to love again.
For most of us, improving our relationships is one of the best things we can do in our lives. For me, with this realisation and my committed effort to be more open, honest, and straightforward, I have been able to not only improve how I treat other people but also the quality of my relationships with my circle of wonderful friends.
Final thought, there’s no reason that “love forever ” cannot exist, and in fact, relationships with so much love and sustainability should exist with the partner that you call your love or spouse.
True love is a decision of the will. It’s a choice based on many factors, including that “in love” feeling you have for your love or spouse. Such a feeling can be built upon with tenderness, romantic gestures, and caring choices all along the way. We all celebrate Valentines Day today, whilst the day represents love with the partner of your choice, love should not be celebrated once a year, as Jo stated ‘love that transforms and transcends us as human beings to a higher level of consciousness, in those moments when we truly love, we become alive, we feel passion, we feel life in every breath’ the gestures of love, the small touchpoints of affection should be constant.
Music is also a great channel for communicating your true feelings to the person of your dreams, Kenny Thomas once wrote a record called Tender Love
Maybe, this is the answer to a happier and more fulfilling life, maybe there is only one person in the universe for everyone, one person that we call home, and maybe it has led me to finding love, my true love, my first and only love and soul mate.
I just know I do not want to be complicit in modern dating culture any more. I am happy when building real emotional connections in business and in life, and I guess, that is what we all want in the end, to be happy and in love with real connections, real people, real-life – a real soul connection – not a world stage with an actor or actors.
One of my favourite quotes by Tamie Dearen, from her book ‘The Best Match’:
“Love is such a small word for what I feel. For the first time in my life, I have a reason to breathe. I’m enchanted with every part of you I know, and I only know a small part so far. I plan to spend the rest of my life searching out every hidden enchantment in your body and soul. And I’m going to cherish and protect you with every fiber of my being. So, do I love you? No… I love love love you.”
The global pandemic triggered by Covid-19 presented the world with the ultimate test of leadership across industries and geographies. From health care to government, school systems to non-profits, almost every organization has experienced unprecedented challenges over the past few months that have tested the values and skills of its leaders. Navigating this uncertainty requires mental and emotional stamina, courage and compassion.
In our company Douglas and I often debate the importance of the intelligences – the very reason ‘The four Intelligences; IQ, EI, SI, DI and why we need Wisdom Intelligence (WI)’ was written, was based on why as human’s we need a balance of skill, competence, moral and ethic behaviours to be truly effective in this new world, our conversations continue as whilst trust is not a new subject, there are just a few elemental forces that hold our world together. The one that’s the glue of society is called trust.
As Douglas Lines once said: “The importance of trust, integrity and experience has always been critical at IBEM, in my experience, this is ethically and morally important, but it is also our business mantra.”
His Holiness the Dalai Lama once said ‘“To earn trust, money and power aren’t enough; you have to show some concern for others. You can’t buy trust in the supermarket.”‘
Trust in a leader allows organizations and communities to flourish, while the absence of trust can cause fragmentation, conflict, and even war. That’s why we need to trust our leaders, our family members, our friends and our co-workers, albeit in different ways.
Trust is hard to define, but we do know when it’s lost. When that happens, we withdraw our energy and level of engagement. We go on an internal strike, not wanting to be sympathetic to the person who we feel has hurt us or treated us wrongly. We may not show it outwardly, but we are less likely to tell the formerly trusted person that we are upset, to share what is important to us or to follow through on commitments. As a result, we pull back from that person and no longer feel part of their world. This loss of trust can be obvious or somewhat hidden, especially if we pretend to be present but inwardly disengage. And those who have done something to lose our trust may not even know it.
On the positive side, trust makes people feel eager to be part of a relationship or group, with a shared purpose and a willingness to depend on each other. When trust is intact, we will willingly contribute what is needed, not just by offering our presence, but also by sharing our dedication, talent, energy, and honest thoughts on how the relationship or group is working.
The dynamics of trust are delicate in important relationships, and the loss of trust can be costly — not only psychologically, but also financially and in terms of work and livelihood. What’s helpful to remember is that trust is an ongoing exchange between people and is not static. Trust can be earned. It can be lost. And it can be regained.
Trust is the new disruptor, one that businesses must master to realize the full power of data and new intelligent technologies.
Markets face complex and accelerating change. This is fuelled by “intelligent technologies” such as robotic process automation and artificial intelligence (AI), including speech recognition, natural language processing, and computer vision based on machine-learning algorithms and enabled by limitless cloud-based computing capacity.
The proliferation of inexpensive sensor technology has generated massive amounts of data, which AI consumes to learn from experience, make decisions, and deliver enhanced insights. But can this intelligence be trusted?
Those able to exploit how new intelligent technologies use data are gaining a competitive advantage. But they also face a new set of risks. For some, the mode and speed at which intelligent technologies digest and act on data are creating unexpected outcomes — fracturing trust with customers, markets and across ecosystems. For example, would you use online banking if you didn’t trust the bank? Would you get into a self-driving car you didn’t trust?
A key question for executives has emerged: can you trust the intelligence driving your enterprise?
We are living in a time of increasingly intelligent technologies when an organization’s ability to be trusted really matters. But the way data and intelligent technologies such as AI are being used is creating significant trust gaps. For example, the public feels that intelligent technology is moving too fast and that regulators can’t keep up, as documented in the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer.
There are plenty of high-profile examples of data misuse and unintended outcomes from AI usage that have contributed to these gaps. One small example took place this June when an AI tool to reconstruct pixelated photos turned a photo of Barack Obama into a white man. It became a matter of hot debate in the AI community: was the bias towards creating more photos of white people than people of colour the result of incomplete data or indicative of the racial bias baked into AI from non-diverse datasets and development teams?
Trust gaps have reframed the question of “Can tech do this?” into “Should tech do this?” It’s no longer about capabilities. It’s about trust in the intelligence that a business uses, and that customers, markets, regulators and ecosystems rely on. Can companies and government organizations ensure the outcomes of their technologies? Do they have reliable methods for identifying, tracking and correcting unintended outcomes? Without trust, the ability of an organization to operate and innovate is reduced and slowed down.
In low-trust environments, you’ll see low morale, disengagement and a lack of commitment. You’ll also see people manipulating, distorting facts and withholding information. There will be resistance to new ideas, blame culture, finger-pointing, overpromising, underdelivering, and, often, tension and fear. Everything will take longer to do and everything will cost more.
Increase trust within your team: Stephen M. R. Covey
The converse in high-trust cultures is equally true. When the trust goes up in an organisation, the speed will go up and costs will come down. Your ability to collaborate goes up, as does your ability to attract, retain and engage people. When trust goes up, you’ll see people sharing information, not being afraid to make mistakes, more creativity, higher accountability and greater energy and satisfaction. When you move the needle on trust, you move all kinds of other needles with it.
As businesses and governments transform to meet new challenges, it’s essential to embed Trust Intelligence into the core of their operations.
Enterprises powered by trust will be able to deliver on all three transformation drivers: people, technology and innovation. They’ll be able to leapfrog their competitors. To shape new markets.
To lead into better futures.
It’s hard to quantify exactly how important trust is for a business. For business owners, a lack of trust is your biggest expense. It may take years for a manager or an executive to develop the trust of his or her employees, but only moments to lose. Without trust, transactions cannot occur, influence is destroyed, leaders can lose teams and salespeople can lose sales. The list goes on.
Trust and relationships, much more than money, are the currency of business.
Trust is the natural result of thousands of tiny actions, words, thoughts, and intentions. Trust does not happen all at once; gaining trust takes work. It might take years of calling on a certain client to break through and fully gain their comfort and trust. Yet in spite of the importance of trust in the business world today, few leaders have given it the focus and nurturing it deserves.
Business strategist and author David Horsager speaks internationally on the bottom-line impact of trust. He has developed a system with which he teaches leaders how to build the Eight Pillars of Trust:
• Clarity – People trust the clear and mistrust the ambiguous
• Compassion – People put faith in those who care beyond themselves
• Character – People notice those who do what is right over what is easy
• Competency – People have confidence in those who stay fresh, relevant, and capable
• Commitment – People believe in those who stand through adversity
• Connection – People want to follow, buy from, and be around friends
• Contribution – People immediately respond to results
• Consistency – People love to see the little things done consistently
Finally, it is crucial to understand that trust is fundamental to the genuine success of any kind. The trust you have with your team, colleagues or family, traditionally, businesses have relied on a “command and control” management style, focusing on rigid hierarchies and compliance from employees.
We must shift from a “command and control” to a “trust and inspire” leadership model.
Trusting and inspiring your team is defined by the commitment from both sides, with a focus on effectiveness and fostering a growth mindset. It is based on the belief that employees are creative, collaborative, and full of potential; through trust, you can inspire them to do their best work, and reinforce the need for trust.
Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, philosopher, who served as the third president of the United States, once said:
‘Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.’
Massive amounts of data used by intelligent technologies such as robotic process automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain are reshaping our world. The next frontier will take us even further, with developments such as quantum computing.
These intelligent technologies present new opportunities but also new risks. The public has deep concerns over how data and technology are being used; business leaders suffer the uncertainty of what they can confidently do without breaching rules or risking reputational damage. Together, this is slowing the adoption of intelligent technologies and limiting their possibilities.
For business, it has become a question of trust. Trust is the credibility required from customers, suppliers, markets and ecosystems for businesses to operate successfully. Enterprises can’t get past the gate and into the value creation zone without it. In essence, organizations will struggle to create long-term value unless trusted data is flowing through them
Today’s disruptions are creating a slew of new products, services, and ideas to enjoy. Transit, hospitality, financial services, supply chain management and so on are all innovating and challenging the status quo, reimagining how we go about our daily lives, how we interact and connect with each other, and how we should set rules that are in the public’s best interest.
Setting rules that are fit for purpose is key to unlocking technology’s and new business models’ full potential. What may have worked in the past is being upended, in this fast-paced, constantly shifting environment. But it is not just the digital platform revolution where the future of regulation applies. It also applies to other areas of import, like employment. Consider the changing contours of work and the workplace.
Regulators around the world have launched a bewildering number of antitrust lawsuits and investigations against the big tech firms: Amazon, Apple, Facebook (now known as Meta) and Google. Each focuses on a different part of the conglomerate, from Apple’s App Store to Google’s advertising data. Scarcely a day passes without an existing case making headlines or a new one popping up.
That is unlikely to change in 2022. But instead of trying to make sense of this ever-changing legal smorgasbord, it is more edifying to follow what lawmakers are up to. While lawsuits drag on (and often end with not much to show for all the effort), 2022 will be the year when the world’s parliaments and regulators start to pass substantial rules to govern the tech industry. It will therefore be possible to guess which country (or region) might develop the world’s best competition framework.
Global policymaking on digital assets is very fragmented, partly because much of it has been a scramble to keep pace with market changes and emerging threats. Another factor is the absence of an authority to oversee a truly international effort. While banking regulators agree with global policies under the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, digital assets have no equivalent convening body.
Some suggest that even the Financial Stability Board, which includes the finance ministers of some of the world’s biggest economies, is not a broad enough forum because the questions around digital assets stretch beyond finance into fields such as technology and into wider society.
In early 2021 it seemed that the European Union would win, hands down. Its executive branch, the European Commission, had just introduced the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the first law aimed at regulating big tech “ex-ante” — that is, constraining firms’ behaviour upfront, rather than punishing them after the fact with antitrust cases. The idea is to prohibit the gatekeepers of important digital markets, such as apps and online search, from engaging in unfair practices, such as discriminating against rivals that use their platforms.
The idea is to prohibit the gatekeepers of important digital markets from engaging in unfair practices
Other governments have caught up and in some ways overtaken the EU. For starters, there is China, which surprised the world in 2021 by seriously tightening competition rules for its internet giants. As in other policy fields, authorities in Beijing have taken more than one page from the EU’s book. Yet enforcement comes with Chinese characteristics. Firms are asked for swift “self-rectification”. And it is not clear if they have any official recourse if they feel unfairly treated.
China’s crackdown makes America look even further behind: although a regulatory and cultural “techlash” has raged for years now, the results have been meager. That may change in 2022. As with antitrust lawsuits, a confusing number of tech bills have been proposed in Congress: the House of Representatives has moved forward with half a dozen. Some Republicans, who claim that the big platforms want to censor them, may yet team up with Democrats to pass DMA-like legislation.
Yet it is Britain that appears to have the best setup so far, though it is not fully implemented. Its Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) now has a Digital Markets Unit (DMU). The government is working on new regulation, to be passed in 2022, that would empower the DMU, like Germany’s FCO, to give tech firms “strategic market status” and require them to follow stricter rules.
The main difference is that the CMA, even more than the FCO, has invested in relevant resources. Its researchers have published some of the best studies of the market for digital advertising.
The CMA also boasts a Data, Technology and Analytics team, which consistently recruits data scientists in order to close the wide knowledge gap between tech titans and their regulators.
Social scientists from various disciplines have identified trust as an important feature of well-functioning and prosperous societies. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the creation of trust is a regulatory goal in several sectors of society, i.e. legislation is being used with the intention to create trust.
For the next normal, people are expecting organizations to be kind and think human. Recognizing the relevance of privacy brings the individual to the centre of the conversation to create trust and generate value beyond just compliance or risk reduction. The question should not be why, but how.
Today’s business decisions are data-driven. How effective these decisions are will depend on the accuracy of the data. How human they are will depend on getting positive consent from the individuals impacted, as well as full commitment from other stakeholders involved in properly protecting data and making decisions on their processing based on a well thought set of principles.
This is data trust, the action of using data with all stakeholders in mind and based on four fundamental pillars: stewardship, ethics, protection and privacy.
By defining a proactive data trust strategy that incorporates effective privacy elements, organizations can achieve the following benefits:
• Incorporation of controls earlier in the design of processes and tools to increase effectiveness and reduce costs
• Identification of value generators for key stakeholders
• Increased trust in the organization’s brand by creating trust by design
Finally, risk is everywhere – and changing rapidly. New technologies, demographic shifts and globalization are happening as we see a reinvention of industry, consumption and even the very future of work. While this unprecedented transformation is revealing new opportunities, there are also many new risks for companies to navigate. Building a foundation of trust is an important first step in turning digital disruption into long-term value. The board’s role here is critical. Boards today are challenged to help steer companies through a shifting risk terrain, overseeing a dynamic risk management approach that embraces disruption and enhances resiliency and trust.
Without trust, you can’t create value. In the Transformative Age, with more data changing hands and more technology used in decision-making, trust is more important than ever. It’s trust that enables organizations to create value and capital markets to function properly. With richer insights from deeper data analysis, you can look at risk afresh. You can make smarter choices, from what you should mitigate to what you can embrace. With trust comes the confidence to make bolder strategic moves. It’s trust that will help you seize the upside of disruption.
In the words of Paul Samuelson – American economist:
“I’m not speaking in favor of killing innovation. I’m speaking in favor of centrist use of the market, which involves necessarily a considerable degree of regulation. Markets by themselves will get themselves inevitably into inequality and into their own destruction. It will happen again and again.”
We have made great strides in technology over the last years, but are we ready? Does our virtual century require anthropocentric leadership? What leadership traits are the most useful in the current pace?
StartupGrind invited Geoff Hudson-Searle, for a fireside chat to explore the challenges tech leaders face, from ensuring security and prioritising digital protection to building resilience and trust. Geoff will discuss strategy, scaling tech companies, and his own experience as international management professional.
Each of us is, to some extent or other, a reflection of the experiences of our lives. However, whether and how we succeed is determined at least in part by how we cope with those experiences and what we learn from them. This is the story of a man who, despite a difficult family life and professional setbacks, developed the determination, drive and skills to create a successful business and a happy life.
Leadership forces you to stay true to yourself and to recognize when you are at your best and when you are at your worst; the important thing is to stay focused and keep moving forward. He learned that it is overcoming adversity that brings the most satisfaction, and that achievements are made more meaningful by the struggle it took to achieve them.
Change has a funny habit of teaching you much about yourself; it goes to the core of your own weaknesses, strengths and eccentricities. Leadership forces you to stay true to yourself and recognize times when you are at your best and worst; the key is to stay focused and to make decisions that will look at continuous improvement. Even though this may be a small, incremental change, it is positive change you can build upon even though you may be in quicksand.
Covid-19 was a crucible within which resilient leadership is refined. Acting without perfect information, often with only a few hours or days to spare, CEOs have to guide their organisations through myriad decisions and challenges, with significant implications for their company’s whole system; employees, customers, clients, financial partners, suppliers, investors, and other stakeholders, as well as for society as a whole.
Clarity of thinking, communications, and decision-making will be at a premium. Those CEOs who can best exhibit this clarity, and lead from the heart and the head, will inspire their organisations to persevere through this crisis, positioning their brand to emerge in a better place, prepared for whatever may come. Crises like these, with deep challenges to be navigated, will also lead to opportunities for learning and deepening trust with all stakeholders, while equipping organisations for a step change that creates more value not just for shareholders, but for society as a whole.
Adversity of any magnitude should make us stronger and fill us with life’s wisdom, however, art in any form is born from adversity, I wrote ‘Freedom after the Sharks’ from adversity and set up a business in the double-dip of 2008 and 2009 – many people have done the same and it is almost a universal theme in the lives of many of the world’s most eminent creative minds.
For artists who have struggled with physical and mental illness, parental loss during childhood, social rejection, heartbreak, abandonment, abuse, and other forms of trauma, creativity often becomes an act of turning difficulty and challenge into an opportunity.
As Eckhart Tolle once said:
“Whenever something negative happens to you, there is a deep lesson concealed within it.”
Determination, resilience, and persistence are the enabler for people to push past their adversities and prevail. Overcoming adversity is one of our main challenges in life. When we resolve to confront and overcome it, we become experts at dealing with it and consequently triumph over our day-to-day struggles.
At any time, thriving organisations are true to their purpose, rely on their values, and model agility. Today’s pandemic, which will reduce profits all over the world, is a searing test of every organisation’s culture and values. Leaders who have laid a solid cultural foundation, authentically committed to a set of values, and defined and depended on an inspiring purpose are leading through this crisis by making a difference in the lives of employees and the communities they serve. This crisis also serves as a furnace for change for those companies that haven’t yet laid the foundation for a thriving culture.
Leaders today are constantly in the spotlight and are often called upon to earn authority without control. Economic and social change demands leadership by consent rather than by control. What we perceive as good leadership tends to be created by leaders, followers, and the context and purpose of the organisation, thus it is a collective rather than individual responsibility.
Trust is a key ingredient of successful leadership. Trusted leaders are the guardians of the values of the organisation. Trust can release the energy of people and enlarge the human and intellectual capital of employees. In a trusting environment when we are committed to our shared purpose we play active roles both as leaders and as followers.
We talk a lot about trust these days because it tends to be a precious and scarce resource.
You could question the word empathetic leadership. Leaders with empathetic leadership listen attentively to what you’re telling them, putting their complete focus on the person in front of them and not getting easily distracted. They spend more time listening than talking because they want to understand the difficulties others face, all of which helps to give those around them the feeling of being heard and recognized.
Empathetic executives and managers realize that the bottom line of any business is only reached through and with people. Therefore, they have an attitude of openness towards and understanding of the feelings and emotions of their team members.
When we listen to the emerging needs of the workplace we step into the most relevant and useful roles and make relevant and valuable contributions both when leading and when following. Members of organisations who are sensitive to people’s reactions trust themselves and each other. They build and nurture trusting relationships and allow the future to emerge organically.
No heroic leader can resolve the complex challenges we face today. To address the important issues of our time we need a fundamental change of perspective. We need to start questioning many of our taken for granted assumptions about our business and social environments.
Leaders serve as role models for their followers and demonstrate the behavioural boundaries set within an organisation. The appropriate and desired behaviour is enhanced through culture and socialisation process of the newcomers. Employees learn about values from watching leaders in action. The more the leader “walks the talk”, by translating internalized values into action, the higher level of trust and respect he generates from followers.
Final thought, to help bridge the trust gap we recognise that organisations need to work with each other and with wider society to identify practicable, actionable steps that businesses can take to shape a new relationship with wider society: a new ‘settlement’ based on mutual understanding and a shared recognition of the positive role that business plays in people’s lives.
To create such a settlement, businesses need to see themselves as part of a diverse, interconnected and interdependent ecosystem – one that involves government, regulators, individual citizens and more. Trust within and across this ecosystem is key to its long-term sustainability and survival. That’s why trust needs to be restored to the heart of the business world.
A great quote by Douglas MacArthur – American military leader who served as General of the Army, this quote always resonates with true leadership.
“A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.”
In a year filled with global challenges and dramatic changes for everyone, we share gratitude with all our colleagues, family, friends, and network, and importantly, a message to Love 146 over the Christmas period in supporting the children of the world who our lest fortunate than ourselves and find themselves in a care program from devasting extremities from child exploitation and trafficking..
This Christmas time is especially poignant, as we reconnect with our loved ones, families and friends internationally. We wish you a very happy, harmonious and safe holiday season and let us look forward to a positive new year in 2022.
May peace fill all the empty spaces around you, your family and your friends and your colleagues at this special time of year, and in you, may contentment answer all your wishes.
Raise a toast to yesterday’s achievements and tomorrow’s brighter future.
May comfort be yours, warm and soft like a sigh.
And may the coming year show you that every day is really a first day and a new year.
Let abundance be your constant companion, so that you have much to share.
May mirth be near you always, like a lamp shining brightly on the many paths you travel.
Work with the best of your abilities in 2022 and show to the world your power to create wonderful and superior things.
New Year 2022 may turn out to be a year when you are put on the road to everlasting success, love and prosperity.
Be the change that you wish to see at your workplace and take initiatives to make things better.
Wish your tomorrow is more prosperous, happy and successful than yesterday and today.
Looking forward to another year with hunger and passion to exceed at work and you are sure to meet with success.
Let new beginnings signify new chapter filled with pages of success and happiness, written by the ink of hard work and intelligence.
May the New Year bring us more wonderful opportunities for success.
HERE’S WISHING YOU THE GIFT OF PEACE AND PROSPERITY THROUGHOUT 2022
