Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

Trust is one of the hardest business resources to measure – and one of the hardest to do without. A difficult economic climate raises the stakes on trust, because there are more questions in the air. Will you make payroll? Cut product lines? Be there to pick up the phone this time next week?

With the tone of the business news lately, it’s hardly surprising that trust in business itself is at a low ebb. The worldwide PR firm Edelman has just published its tenth annual “Trust Barometer,” and the numbers are striking: In the United States, 77 percent of people trust corporations less than they did a year ago. Only 38 percent trust business to do what’s right, a 20 percent drop from last year. And only 17 percent say they trust what a CEO says.

In an environment like that, even the most forthright and respected enterprises risk being tarred with the brush of widespread anti-business sentiment. How can you redouble your efforts to win trust from your customers, suppliers, investors and business partners? How can you set yourself apart?

At Capstrat, our CEO, Ken Eudy, has a saying: “You can’t communicate yourself out of something you behaved your way into.” And a failure of honesty is one of the hardest behaviors to live down. In every scandal, from the Oval Office to the baseball diamond, it seems people end up suffering less for what they did in the first place than for trying to cover it up. And in business, you don’t even need to have done anything wrong for even the appearance of double-talk to erode public confidence.

To make sure your communication plan is always building and strengthening trust among the audiences you depend upon, keep these tips in mind:

·         Clarity. Transparency is always a foundational principle of business. Avoid the temptation to be transparent only when it’s convenient or when the news is good. Some organizations refuse to acknowledge difficult news. Good or bad, be honest.

·         Open channels. If you don’t think people will feel better just hearing “boring” updates from you, imagine the alternative – a silence they’re left to interpret on their own. Imagine your messaging not as a one-way pipeline, but as your end of an ongoing conversation. Consider using social media tools to energize the exchange.

·         Look inward. External stakeholders aren’t the only people whose trust you rely upon. Your employees have concerns too, and being honest and comprehensive with them is essential to preserving morale, retention and productivity.

·         Right hand, meet left hand. The employees who receive your internal communications see the same outside newspapers, Web sites and news broadcasts that everyone else does. And messages you consider “internal-only” will eventually find their way beyond your walls. Don’t get caught trying to sell internal and external messages that don’t align with one another.

·         Manage the medium. Consider the information you need to deliver, and then decide the best vehicle for communicating it. Sometimes – and, in employee communications, often – this means doing it face to face.

Remember that transparency isn’t just for crisis situations. It should be a watchword for everyday messages – things you consider positive and negative, important or mundane. Every time you give someone the unvarnished truth, you earn a grain of trust. Over time, they pile up.

If you want to see what everyday transparency looks like in action, consider this: You just did. We opened this article with a reference to original research done by one of our competitors, a major player in the public relations industry. Why? Because we knew the news was out there, and that if you were interested in this topic you’d find it anyway. By engaging the subject head-on, we didn’t detract value from what we had to say; we added to it. No matter what business you’re in, you have opportunities every day to apply the same principle.