COL meets COT

Let me try to get some insight into the trust factors that affect other quadrants of COL. I call them Circle of Trust (COT).

B-quadrant of COL is all to do with Benchmarking to begin unlearning (forgetting) and re-learning through the help from other quadrants. Most of the unlearning happens when a process that exists to perform certain functions ceases to exist or gets modified. Since the alignment to learning comes from this quadrant, it is my belief that the quotes from Organizational Trust from the book ‘Speed of Trust’ are applicable to this quadrant and will make the time spent in B-quadrant as worthwhile.

Organizational Trust – Principle of alignment

“An enterprise that is at war with itself (misaligned) will not have the strength or focus to survive and thrive in today’s competitive environment” – Professor John O Whitney, Columbia Business School

“Trust is the most significant predictor of individuals’ satisfaction within their organizations” – Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, Business Authors

“Good leaders should trust those around them” – Sir Richard Branson, Founder and Chairman, The Virgin Group

“A trusted leader can only exist over the long-term in a large organization if there are good myths about him, and particularly about his consistency.” – Henk Broeders, Head of Cap Gemini, E&Y for the Netherlands

“The core of the matter is always changing the behavior of people” – Professor John Kotter, Harward Business School

“The surest way to make a man untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your distrust.” – Henry Stimson, Former US Secretary of State

“If your workplace culture isn’t open and honest, it won’t create employee satisfaction, and you’ll experience turnover and a lack of productivity that will cost you money, ideas and time. On the other hand, if the work environment is ethical, productive and positive, people will stay committed. They will drive your company forward” – Kent Murdoch, President and CEO, OC Tanner Company

“Rules cannot substitute for character” – Alan Greenspan, Former Chairman, US Federal Reserve

“Business executives need to recreate a trust agenda. Nothing good happens without trust. With it you can overcome all sorts of obstacles. You can build companies that everyone be proud of.” – Jim Burke, Former Chairman and CEO, Johnson & Johnson

Much ignored quadrant in 21st century is the D-quadrant. However, with the help of quotes from the Market Trust, I am hoping to rejuvenate the vibrant D-quadrant to align it for the 21st century.

Market trust – Reputation

“In the end, all you have your reputation” – Oprah Winfrey

“Trust is a key building block in the creation of a company’s reputation, and as a direct result, its shareholder value.” – Robert Eckert, CEO Mattel

“When customers are loyal to your brand have trust, they are more apt to listen to your message, read information from your organization more carefully and be more willing to accept calls marketing new products and services.” – Charles Giordano, Bell Canada International

“We have got a business principle that says – our assets are our people, our capital and our reputation. And if, any of those are diminished, the last one is the hardest one to gain.” – Hank Paulson, Chairman & CEO, Goldman Sachs

“Smart companies will amass trust assets that can be called upon to protect the brand in tough times. Without these deposits in its trust bank, a single breach of trust can devastate a company because you have no track record of trust enhancing behavior to call upon.” – Ellen Ryan Mardiks, CMO, Golin/Harris

“A brand for a company is like reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.” – Jeff Bezos, Founder & CEO, Amazon.com

“Without customers’ trust, the rest doesn’t matter” – Ram Charan, Business Author

“Employees with integrity are the ones who build a company’s reputation” – Roberto Goizueta, Former CEO, Coca-Cola

As I had repeatedly stressed in my several blogs before, the vibrant quadrant in 21st century will be C-quadrant but will also be affected severely by societal trust. However, with the help from these quotes I am hoping to lessen the impact and align the vibrant C-quadrant to the 21st century learning.

Societal trust – Contribution

“Executives tempted to take shortcuts should remember the dictum of Confucius that good government needs weapons, food and trust. If the ruler cannot hold onto all three, he should give up weapons first and food next. The trust should be guarded to the end, because “without trust, we cannot stand.” – Financial Times Editorial

“Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police.” – Albert Einstein

“Commerce dies the moment, and is sick in the degree in which men cannot trust each other.” – Henry Ward Beecher, 19th century American Author

“To beat back the threat of openness, terrorists…have quite deliberately, chosen to attack the very thing that keeps open societies open, innovating and flattening, and that is trust.” – Thomas Friedman, Author of the World is Flat

“There has been a tendency in the business world to confuse citizenship with philanthropy. They are not the same thing. Enron was a great philanthropist, and clearly it was not a good corporate citizen. The heart of global citizenship is about ethics and conduct. It begins with the way a company thinks about its role in the world. Does it simply exist to make as much money as possible?” – Deborah Dunn, Senior VP, HP

“Falsification and fraud are highly destructive to free-market capitalism and, more broadly, to the underpinnings of our society….our market system depends critically on trust – trust in the word of our colleagues and trust in the word of those with whom we do business.” – Alan Greenspan, Former Chairman, US Federal Reserve

“People talk about businesses needing to be responsible as if it’s something new we need to do on top of everything else. But the whole essence of business should be responsibility. My philosophy is “we don’t run companies to earn profits, we earn profits to run companies.” Our companies need meaning and purpose if they’re to fit into the world, or why should they live at all?” – Tachi Kiuchi, Former Managing Director, Mitsubishi Electronics

“Customers get impressions about products from hundreds of sources, but when they believe a company is a good citizen, they feel more positively about a brand.” – Shelley Lazarus, Chairman and CEO, Ogilvy & Mather

“The success of big business and the well-being of the world have never been more closely linked. Global issues cannot be removed from the business world because business has only one world in which to operate. Businesses cannot succeed in the societies that fail.” – Jorma Ollila, Chairman and CEO, Nokia

“The true and solid peace of nations consists not in equality of arms, but in mutual trust alone.” – Pope John XXIII