Reputation is the foundation of success for any company, individual, political party and leadership. Whatever kind of communication you are attempting, your reputation will underpin your promise.

Here’s the key point. I may believe you if I trust you. If I mistrust you I will not be listening, or I will be cynical about what you say.

So trust among those critical to your success should be the fundamental aim of your organisation and leadership. Strategic communications can build or destroy trust, but only if it is supported by the facts on the ground.

This is the interplay between what we say, what we do and – critically – how we do it. This interplay is essentially the formula for trust in the book I have co-authored which is published next year by The Economist, ‘Choose Trust’. In this short essay I’ll show how this works for communicators of all types.

The three dimensions of trust

The starting point is to understand that trust is about a relationship between two or more parties. It exists in the minds and emotions of people who interact with each other or with organisations. This is interdependent between those parties – I may do everything right, but if your context or beliefs are different from mine, you may still not trust me to be right. If it’s critical for me to gain your trust, I need to look at things from your point of view to understand what ‘right’ means, and communicate and act accordingly.

This is why clarity is the starting point for trust in our book. It’s the first dimension in our Trust Triangle, which we see as the design formula or high trust relationships.

This is effectively the communications dimension. If we look at this from the point of view of reputation, then this is what I call the Strategic Narrative – the meta story that goes to the heart of who we are, why we are here, what is our mission and how do we do it. All else follows. Every other story needs to be evidence supporting this narrative.

But remember, trust is about a relationship. If our Strategic Narrative is to build trust, then it needs to be consistently true. This is the second dimension of the Trust Triangle – character. These are the behaviours demonstrated by an individual or organisation that are in line with the promise set out in the Strategic Narrative. It is the ‘how we do it’.

It’s obvious, but if you tell me something and my experience is different, I no longer trust what you tell me. Companies that say they care for their customers and then make it really difficult to ever speak to a human being are destroying trust. I often work with organisations on what I call ‘turning values into value’ – making those warm words on the website actually true in a way that shows the company culture is real.

Reputation is most often destroyed by behaviours, not the words in the press release. It follows that the way your organisation shows up to its customers, employees and investors should be seen as the way it builds or damages trust – and therefore a strategic communications issue.

The final dimension is capability. The starting point of this is of course that we keep our promises: if we say we can do something, or our product does it, then that’s true. If it is simply a transactional product, then that’s it. But many interactions are more complex than that: if I say I’m a lawyer and know the law, then this must be true, but that is really just the most basic issue.

Real trust in these circumstances is built through interdependent action. If we have a relationship, then this calls for actions on both of our parts. Even if I am a business customer buying a service, I am usually required to do something to make that service successful. As a lawyer, I need my clients to provide information, consider options, engage with a process, act on what advice I provide, connect me with other advisors and so on.

Understanding this interdependence means that the capability we talk about here is collective. Can this relationship achieve the outcomes we have set?  

This is why I place so much emphasis on the relationships involved, not just the technical capabilities. Communications professionals should have something to say about the way their organisation builds relationships with its key stakeholders, and this goes way beyond traditional communications tools. Intentionally deciding how the firm shows up, and then governing this to be sure it’s consistently true, are business issues with reputational impact. If you are responsible for the firm’s reputation, then this is of concern to you.

The capability dimension is about the potential of the relationship to achieve its ambitions – and go beyond. That’s why engagement with stakeholders in both communications and delivery terms is so important. Much more can be achieved, and trust can be established, if there is open collaboration in the way value is created.

Building trust should be an intentional act

Think about firms or people you deal with that you distrust. What is the impact of that? It means that you’d rather not deal with them. If you do, you do so with suspicion and checking everything. Your need for confirmation bias means you look for reasons to support your view of them.

Do you or your firm want to be in that category? No of course not, but actions, behaviours and decisions lead to that distrust.

The exact opposite is true. When there is real trust everything becomes easier and greater value is created. Clients choose suppliers they trust; colleagues work harder for leaders they trust; investors run with management they trust; governments collaborate with firms they trust.

The core idea of our book is that it needs to be an intentional, conscious decision to focus on building trust, with a clear view of how to do it. A leader or organisation which does this will build and grow their reputation in a way that creates new possibilities, and help them ride problems more easily. Because this is so fundamental, really strategic communications should be involved in all ways in which the organisation touches its key stakeholders, so that they can then shout from the rooftops what a trustworthy organisation it is.

The author

Stuart Maister is the Chief Storyteller of Strategic Narrative. He gives keynotes and runs workshops on strategic clarity and high trust leadership, and works with firms on their major account management through his Trusted Partner programme.

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