Trust - a reprise, one of many I expect

David Stoughton of ValueKinetics writes:

Today I receive a communication from Harvard Business Review (HBR) apparently reporting the obvious.

"Bad decisions have taken a toll on the level of trust we have in organisations, institutions, and, for some of you, even each other. Last month we asked you about trust and found that relative to a year ago:

• Three-quarters of you trust senior management in US companies less
• Half trust senior management of non-US companies less
• About one-fifth trust academic institutions less
• And 10% of you trust your colleagues less"

They, HBR, are proposing to debate these findings in their forum. I'm afraid I can't feel great confidence that such a discussion will shed much light. In fact I think HBR might do well to question rather closely its own role in pumping up the egos of of the self-important Alpha Males who've been allowed to run riot across our financial and business landscape.

In any event, an almost self-referential study of self-selecting readers of a business journal tells us little about the broader issues. It does, though, open up another discomforting perspective. I suppose that a poll amongst the public would yield similar, perhaps higher, levels of distrust in management. I doubt that they would have greatly lost trust in academic institutions, but I may be wrong. I'm fairly sure that most would trust their peers, and in a work context, immediate colleagues more than this implies.

However, we all have a right to feel distressed about these revelations about trust within and between businesses. Not only has something many people suspected been amply demonstrated - the lunatics really have been running the asylum. Now they've realised it themselves and are turning on each other. Some hope then, that big business is going to help solve the problems it's created. It seems we really must look elsewhere.

Of course not all businesses have participated in their own downfall. Those who refrained must, like the rest of us, feel aggrieved that they must suffer the consequences. I have two questions that I'd dearly like to know the answer to.

1. To what extent does the public distinguish between the wreckers and their fellow victims?
2. What effect, if any, does this have on their perception of big brands? Does the brand suffer from the knock-on effect or is it, paradoxically, reinforced?

At rock bottom I suspect that, for the public, another of those fundamentals of behavioural economics applies - the 'We're in This Together' (Witt) instinct. Co-sufferers unite! For business (and brands?) this cuts both ways. Either you're also in it with us, or you're against us. Polarisation is likely to rule, with potentially drastic consequences for the possible survival of those perceived to be in the wrong camp.

Perhaps it's this that drives distrust of staff for their business leaders. It's not a good time to be on the wrong side. Is the inflated ego at the helm even capable of accepting the possibility of error, let alone acknowledging it? What does that spell for the business I work in, for my job, my career?