Published May 2003

Communication key
to trust, positive image

Most of us have no idea what Gene Hackman is really like. And the same goes for Britney Spears, Jay Leno, or the cast of “CSI.” What we have acquired for each of these show-business people is a series of images, impressions, news and gossip, which we have integrated into a kind of person or personality — what we think they are like. The real person might be like that — or might not.

We don’t think of our business, especially not our workplace, as show business, but when it comes to managers, the assessments and judgments of what they are “really like” are made in much the same way as if they were TV or movie personalities. The internal reputation of a CEO or manager is a summation of images, impressions, real events and gossip — and it is important for us to remember this, particularly when it comes to the issue of trust.

You might, in reality, be the most trustworthy person on the surface of the planet, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that your workers see you that way, if the sum of the images, impressions, real events and gossip add up to something else.

It often comes as a terrible shock to a business manager to find that his or her workers would even think that they were being shortchanged on their payroll, for example (“Don’t they know that I would never do that?”). Or, even more commonly, a CEO or manager announces some organizational change — someone resigns or is replaced — but then wonders why the workers don’t believe the explanation.

For business organizations under pressure — and there are few today that are exempt from that — trust is a matter of survival. In this environment, an organization that loses the trust of its workers has purchased a ticket to self-destruction. But, since trust is not something that shows up directly on quarterly financials, many business owners and managers are unaware of trust issues and problems until very late in the game — sometimes too late.

Robert Galford and Anne Seibold Drapeau have written a very useful article, titled “The Enemies of Trust,” published in the February 2003 edition of the Harvard Business Review. It incorporates meaningful observations and practical suggestions regarding trust in business organizations, a subject they pursue in more depth in their book “The Trusted Leader.”

By their calculation, the main enemies of trust in the workplace are inconsistent messages and standards, ignoring performance and personnel problems, failing to address rumors, and consistent corporate underperformance.

As a matter of accuracy, “consistent corporate underperformance” should probably be shortened to read “consistent underperformance,” for while the Harvard Business Review tends to focus on the problems of larger corporations, consistent underperformance can erode trust in any size business — even a so-called “mom and pop.”

But it is important to realize what kind of trust is being eroded by poor performance. It doesn’t mean that the boss (or top management) is suspected of being dishonest. It doesn’t even mean that they don’t like him or her. It simply means that members of the organization no longer believe that the boss is capable of making the right decisions for the company. In other words, he or she might be a nice person, but shouldn’t be steering the ship.

It is the disappearance of what Galford and Drapeau identify as strategic trust, and its loss is disastrous to any business, big or small.

Creating and sustaining trust in an organization isn’t rocket science, but it isn’t easy, either. As Galford and Drapeau put it, “The building blocks of trust are unsurprising: They’re old-fashioned managerial virtues like consistency, clear communication and a willingness to tackle awkward questions.”

What the article points out, though, is that those managerial virtues aren’t enough. In normal times (whatever those are) businesses are still plagued with inconsistencies, miscommunications and rumors. In more stressful times, like the present, the same problems are there, only worse.

Show-business personalities provide few examples of behavior that we would want to copy, but when dealing with inconsistencies and miscommunications we can learn something from their concern with “image.”

We don’t have to take that concern to the absurd and comical level that they often do, but those of us who manage businesses have to remember that even in our own organization, just like a Hollywood star, very few people will know what we are really like. What they will know is our image, and we have to make sure that it is an accurate one.

In the same way, the image of the company and its management is as important internally as it is externally. Business owners and managers should take as much care with their communications with workers as they do with their product advertising. It’s good sense, and good business.

James McCusker, a Bothell economist, educator and small-business consultant, writes “Your Business” in The Herald each Sunday. He can be reached by sending e-mail to otisrep@aol.com.

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