HOW COMPANIES BUILD IT, LOSE IT, REGAIN IT

Trust is one of the most valuable intangible assets that a company can have and this book will show you how to get more of it!

―Erin Meyer, INSEAD, author of The Culture Map and coauthor of No Rules Rules

Business has a new mandate to lead as the world combats ongoing crises and widespread mistrust. Against this backdrop, The Power of Trust is a must-read.

―Richard Edelman, CEO, Edelman

Trust is at the foundation of sustainably successful enterprises... The Power of Trust does a great job explaining the how and why of building trust.

―David M. Cote, former CEO, Honeywell, and author of Winning Now, Winning Later

Unveils a new understanding of the business, economic, and societal importance of trust.

―Jeffery Weirens, global financial advisory leader, Deloitte
Orange hardcover book cover for The Power of Trust, with a gold ring and puzzle piece

In these uncertain times, trust has never mattered more. This is especially true for business: a recent study by Deloitte finds that a scandal or adverse event related to trust can erode a company’s market cap by up to fifty percent and 85 percent of customers will abandon a brand in the wake of such an incident. Even if customers return, the economic impact of trust is undeniable, but what is it? Poorly understood, efforts to build corporate trust are often nothing more than meaningless exercises in reputation management.

According to Harvard Business School experts Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta  trust is indeed definable, measurable, unfixed, and salvageable. In THE POWER OF TRUST: How Companies Build It, Lose It, Regain It, they distill two decades of research to give trust a spine and provide a framework to help companies understand what trust is and how to earn it.

The ELEMENTS OF TRUST

1

COMPETENCE

A company’s ability to create and deliver products and/or services through a combination of process excellence, technical know-how, and managerial smarts.
2

MOTIVES

A company’s intentions to do well by all the people and groups who interact with it. And, when confronted with the necessity to make painful decisions, how well a company balances the interests of different groups to cause the least amount of harm.
3

MEANS

The fairness of a company’s processes and treatment of people in achieving its goals, when distributing rewards and pain points, and in conveying information.
4

IMPACT

The overall effect, both intended and unintended, of company actions on other people. And when the consequences are unintended, whether a company stands up and takes responsibility for them.

This framework helps explain dilemmas like why we continue to use Uber even though we’re angry about how it treats its employees and even when we have the option of downloading Lyft instead. It gives companies something they can manage. It makes trust actionable.

Gold puzzle piece