Rebuilding Trust

I must confess that I borrowed the title for this week’s excursion into leadership from the most recent issue of Harvard Business Review. Actually they have a series of articles spotlighting the topic under this broad themed moniker. It’s worth the read and I’m not planning to plagiarize their work. You can check it out online at hbr.org if you like.

If you regularly peruse my weekly ruminations you will know that trust has been my most popular topic. At least five articles feature trust as a keyword and there are likely others that include a reference to trust somewhere in the text. So it should come as no surprise that the attention this topic received in a leading business magazine caught my eye. Here are a few brief observations about their coverage.

In the spotlight introduction this sentence is a key one: “A modern economy simply can’t function if people don’t have faith that the institutions around them actually work.” I would extend that reasoning to include other systems and relationships – management and labor, clergy and laypersons, husbands and wives. Trust undergirds nearly everything we do and yet we spend very little time understanding how to maintain and enhance this fundamental ingredient to a healthy organization or marriage.

The magazine articles focus on the need for better communication – a culture of candor – in organizations and also suggest that we aren’t always smart when choosing whom to trust – Bernie Madoff is the prime example. There is even a timeline of highs and lows in the public’s trust of business. These articles suggest that transparency in business is no longer an option and that our willingness to trust often gets us into trouble. If their observations are correct, it will take some time for business and political entities to rebuild trust.

The most penetrating article was a no-holds-barred assessment of the role business schools have played in the systematic failure of leadership that has been so influential in the recent economic meltdown. As I read the critique and proposed solutions to the problem I admit to being more than a little skeptical. After all, inviting an academic dean and former professor to analyze the shortcomings of the nation’s best known MBA programs is a bit like asking Barry Bonds to assess Major League Baseball’s current drug screening process. But to the author’s credit he pulls no punches and makes it clear these institutions are culpable for the “values-less” leaders they have been producing in droves each year. Contrition has been almost non-existent from the schools (no surprise there) as their funding depends on competitive rankings that have little to do with ethics and values. And so it goes.

It seems obvious to me that the effort being made by HBR to address the issue of trust will bear little fruit until the system that produces each new generation of leaders is dismantled and rebuilt. Is there the will and incentive to make these innovative changes? With our short memories and jaded views of the world I’m not optimistic. Greed and selfish behavior have been with us since Cain and Abel. It’s easier to do what we know and that is likely the path we will choose. Rebuilding trust makes for great headlines and likely sells magazines but as a new mantra for business it’s not likely to take root. I wish it didn’t need to be that way. Maybe that’s why I never pursued my MBA.