Posted by 2011 Edelman Trust Barometer
Today in Davos, Switzerland, Richard Edelman is releasing the global results of the 2011 Edelman Trust Barometer. The Canadian findings will be made available shortly at the Canadian Club in Toronto on February 14th (Megan Spoore, 416-849-2841) Until then, I am pleased to provide a high level summary of this year’s key findings, along with a link to the findings in more detail at www.edelman.com/trust/2011.
This year’s findings indicate that in a year marred by corporate crises and financial turmoil for European governments, trust is markedly resilient in countries around the world, with the exception of the U.S., where trust dropped across all four institutions. For the first time, we tracked the Trust Barometer Index – a composite score indicating the average of a country’s trust in all four institutions – and found that the U.S. also fell to fourth from the bottom, down from the top four three years ago (now sitting alongside Russia and the U.K. and well below Brazil, China, Mexico and India).
Additionally, while trust in most industries is up globally, with technology in the No. 1 spot for the third straight year, financial services and banks flank the bottom globally as the least (50 percent) and the second-least (51 percent) trusted sectors, respectively. In the U.S., the automotive industry (49 percent) is rebounding, earning back half of the trust it lost in 2009, when its scores sank to 32 percent.
Trust in all credentialed spokespersons is higher over the past two years, signaling a desire for authority and accountability. With a 19-point increase to 50 percent, CEOs are now in the top tier of credible spokespeople, virtually swapping spots with “a person like me,” which saw a four-point drop and now sits in the bottom two (43 percent).
The implications of this year’s study are that business needs to consider the following:
1. Alignment of profit and purpose for social benefit. The expectations are high for business to invest in society, and people expect business and government to collaborate on policies that benefit society – not as two opposing teams on a playing field, but together as the world’s dominant institutions.
2. Surround Sound in a Time of Skepticism. Information ubiquity has changed the playbook for corporate communications. A company with a message can’t simply put it “out,” but rather must put it “everywhere” with an approach that encompasses a full range of spokespeople and all forms of media – mainstream, new, social and owned.
3. New Expectations for Corporate Leadership. Trust in business may have stabilized globally, but it is different and conditional, premised on what a company does and how it communicates. For business and for government, transparency is the new normal, explaining how and why – not just persuading on what and when.
4. Trust as a Protective Agent. Trust is the filter through which information is heard and understood and is a prerequisite for good news to be believed. Leaders should work to create a trust foundation so that positive information has an echo chamber in which to resonate. Trust has changed, from a commodity that is acquired, to a benefit that is bestowed.
If you would like to attend the Trust Barometer event in Toronto contact Megan Spoore at 416-849-2841 or visit the Canadian Club website directly to purchase tickets.
The Chinese Government gets result by managing its economy; therefore gets the highest trust ranking of 88%. The U.S. Government may not even deserve the 40% rating because it has done little if nothing to combat China’s innovative way of skinning the United States!
Mark Twain is credited with an early use of the cliché “more than one way to skin a cat” in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, as follows: “she was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way to skin a cat, that is, more than one way to get what she wanted”. Thefreedictionary.com defines beggar-thy-neighbor as: an international trade policy of competitive devaluations and increased protective barriers that one country institutes to gain at the expense of its trading partners. Under the guise of fostering ‘indigenous innovation’, the Chinese government has creatively used a non-conventional, subtle version of beggar-thy-neighbor. Its version doesn’t entail the competitive devaluation of its own currency, which would enhance China’s exports and inhibit its trading partners’ exports to China. China’s version perpetrates an over-valuation of the currencies of one or more of its trading partners. This negatively affects all the trade of the pegged trading partner(s), not just trade with China. During the recent period China pegged its currency to the U.S. Dollar, its version of beggar-thy-neighbor was 8 times as damaging to the U.S. economy as what the media refers to as “China keeping it currency undervalued”.
In November 2003, Warren Buffett in his Fortune, Squanderville versus Thriftville article recommended that America adopt a balanced trade model. The fact that advice advocating balance and sustainability, from a sage the caliber of Warren Buffett, could be virtually ignored for over seven years is unfathomable. Until action is taken on Buffett’s or a similar balanced trade model, America will continue to squander time, treasure and talent in pursuit of an illusionary recovery.