Alan Middleton: The Task is to Rebuild Trust

Alan Middleton the Executive Director of Schulich Executive Education and Assistant Professor of Marketing, Schulich School of Business, joined Richard Edelman and our panel to discuss the Canadian findings of the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer at the Windsor Arms on February 2, 2012. Here, Alan’s guest blog contemplates the question of “So What?” from his perspective as the most quoted marketer in Canada.

The surprise is not that we don’t trust our leaders, but that seemingly we still want to.

The 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer results show an almost worldwide reduction in trust of government, business, and of NGOs. The only social institution to see some increases was the media. After a year of tsunamis and nuclear meltdowns in Japan, debt crises in Europe, the continuation of the financial and economic effects of the 2009 recession and the advent worldwide of either Arab Spring-like movements or ‘Occupy’ movements, this is not surprising.

Indeed, these findings are consistent with other surveys also showing a loss in trust and regard for most traditional authority figures in our society. In the western democracies, teachers, doctors, lawyers, police, business people and politicians have been losing trust for a considerable period of time.

The Edelman research is consistent with this other data in showing that we increasingly turn to peers for trusted counsel and advice rather than traditional authority figures.

So globally we have a decline in trust across most social institutions and roles in most countries and especially the developed countries. A consistent trend, powered by an eventful year. So what?

The Edelman results also show support for greater regulation of business. Globally, 49 per cent of the 30,000+ sample felt government does not regulate business enough and in 12 of 25 countries it was 50 per cent or higher.

What is going on? If we don’t trust government, and its trust is lower than business, what does this mean?

I believe it is that we have had enough of the silos of activity and their consequent weaknesses. We want more cooperation and integration of activity and to be listened to and empowered . We are suspicious of governments when they try to run things but want them to provide a measure of security in our economic and social lives. We are suspicious of businesses and their senior management when they selfishly only pay attention to short-term earnings for themselves and their organizations without adding value to society. But we recognize their operational efficiency, and when they do engage and contribute to society, we often admire them. We are concerned about the extreme views of many NGOs but want their input and ideas as a contribution, check and conscience on government and business. We are concerned about media bias based on ownership bias but we go to them, and want to continue doing so, for reliable data and information.

We increasingly go to our family and, thanks to technology, our increasing network of friends, but recognize they are not the only sources of content and community we need in our lives.

In other words, we need to see more evidence of cooperation and integration of effort between these groups.

The notion that businesses must consider a broader group of stakeholders rather than just management and shareholders is well established outside of North America and is now gaining attention here. Two pivotal publications have addressed this need in the last year. In March 2011, Dominic Barton, McKinsey & Co.’s global Managing Director, published “Capitalism for the Long Term” in the Harvard Business Review and in the same year three Harvard Business School faculty published “Capitalism at Risk – Rethinking the Role of Business”. Both of these indicate the need for a more active business engagement in, and sense of responsibility for, the societies in which they operate.

Similar movements are impacting the thinking of governments and NGOs.

The old thinking where the electorate/consumer/public hands over primary responsibility to leaders in our various institutions to act separately on our behalf because of their expertise or professional qualifications has changed. We now expect greater involvement and engagement across these institutions and most importantly with their electorates, consumers and public.

Trust is at the centre of how open societies work.  The task is to rebuild it. This cannot be done by going backwards, attempting to recapture past models. It needs to go forward and the challenge to all our institutions and ourselves is to move both the debate and activity forward. Trust measures can be part of our tracking study of how well we are succeeding.