My time at Davos began on an early morning panel at the launch of Edelman's 2011 Trust Barometer, an event that's become a staple at Davos.
Unlike recent years, when the crisis led to steep falls in trust for nearly all sectors, this year's results are more mixed: some ups and some downs. A couple of key messages stand out.
First, trust in business has stabilized after the crisis. Despite some high profile corporate travails -- think BP, Toyota -- in 2010, faith in business overall has come back after the depths of the recession.
Second, general trust levels in the United States are abysmal. Edelman calls the broad drop in trust of American institutions the "stark exception" to more positive readings in other parts of the world. Americans have lost their sense of trust in all four sectors Edelman measured: government, business, media, and NGOs. This no doubt reflects ongoing economic sluggishness, particularly high unemployment, and even more, the sharply polarized political environment, which has soured the public.
Third, trust in the media is at an all-time low, especially in the United States and the U.K. Richard Edelman, his namesake firm's CEO, attributed this to the sharp tones in both countries' media, as well as the rise of social media that have undercut the monopoly held by more traditional outlets.
What are the lessons for business in all this?
2010's worst events, from Toyota's widespread product safety problems to the failure of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, reinforce the notion that companies that don't get the basics right have no chance of earning public trust.
But equally -- and less obviously -- important is that just getting the basics right won't earn the public's trust either. The future -- and the highest degree of trust -- will be won by companies who tackle big global challenges as part of their business strategies. Recent announcements from Walmart on reducing food waste, from GE on expanding Ecomagination, and from Unilever on its Sustainable Living Plan are great examples of companies saying, "Your challenges are our challenges."
At the end of the day, businesses that deliver something that goes beyond profit are most likely to earn the trust they are seeking.
The theme for this year's Davos is "Shared Norms for the New Reality." If purposeful business becomes one of those norms, trust levels -- and human well-being -- will both rise in the years ahead.
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Stop funding politicians who try to get votes by selling distrust and anger. No matter the political stripe, if at any point, they try to sell their message with anger, distrust or fear- cut them off from funding. Encourage all business leaders to do the same.
Encourage a positive attitude in the population, encourage trust and then - DELIVER. Stop selling shoddy goods and services with shiny packages. If you know someone in your organization is cheating, even if it profits you- don't give them a bonus, fire them.
Trust is earned.
Took them 80 years to figure that out ? ....gee....steep learning curve...
Business, Government, Media, Non-Government Organizations (think BBB). Which of these has not lied to the American people in the last few years.
Trust has to be earned, it cannot be bought. (At least mine can't).
That should have been taken into consideration before these aforementioned entities betrayed ours. I believe a man named Judas Iscariot, and another named Brutus, became famous over trust.
Certain things I have a long memory for.
Media, if you liberals realize we think about you the way you think about Rush & co., you may realize why we don't trust the liberal media; and I suppose y'all feel the same way about us.
Gov't, our President asked for $800 billion to keep joblessness under 8%. The money's gone and it didn't do what he said. (It's gone and I don't have a job.) He said he was gonna be trans-partisan, and rammed through Obamacare with one party's votes against bipartisan opposition. He said negotiations would be on C-span, and Speaker Pelosi said we can pass the bill to learn what's in it. Didn't he say no earmarks and then sign whatever corssed his desk? How can we trust the man? My take on SOSU: "Mr President, tear down this wall !" at www.youtube.com.
Thinly veiled communist rhetoric disguised as an altruistic scam.
If you informed your audience that they were gullible, would they believe you? But hey, it is a living!
How many high priced consultants did it take to come to that conclusion? You want trust...you earn it by acts of honesty and transparency. Don't hear much about that at Davos do you?
"It is astonishing, that "people like yourself" are trusted significantly less than last year. Is this the decline of Social Media or the Result of too much information, making it hard to trust others in Social Media?"
I think it`s great that people are becoming sceptical about the media - it prevents them becoming victims again. Trust is a delicate thing, like a crystal glass; once dropped, it shatters into a myriad of pieces that may well be impossible to put back together. This is especially true in business.
How the hell are we supposed to trust anyone in government and / or business when they`ve jumped into bed (and the media makes a nice little threesome too)? CDOs (and other repackaged crud) are just pigs in a poke. Perhaps people could be hoodwinked in the past time and again, but thank God for the internet and the opportunities it offers for people to communicate.