The biggest new thing I learned in Barranquilla

I've heard Brad Rawlins, Associate Chair of Communications at Brigham Young University, talk about trust and transparency before. Chalk it up to the intellictually inquisitive atmosphere in Barranquilla, but what he said to us yesterday was some of the most profound and far reaching stuff I've heard in a long time. You could just read the whole paper by downloading the IPRRC proceedings but I figured I'd summarize it here for any one out there concerned about your reputation for trustworthiness. 

According to the most recent Edelman 2007 Trust Barometer.Only 53% percent of those polled trust corporations. While that's a slight increase over prior years, Rawlin's pointed out that that still means that almost half of the people out there don't believe what corporations are saying. Now for those of us who are disciples of Naked Conversations and the ClueTrain Manifesto this news will come as no surprise. But the really interesting part of this was Rawlins' recipe for improvement. It turns out that his research shows that the more authentic and transparent you are the more people are likely to trust you. The corporations that have improved the most are the ones that are more transparent. 

Rawlins gave some very specific advice on how to become more trustworthy:

• be more open and honest in business practices
• communicate more clearly effectively
• show more concern for stakeholder

Rawlins defined transparency as:

• Being free from pretense or deceit
• Easily detected or seen through
• Readily understood
• The opposite of secrecy
• Deliberately sharing information that benefits my audience and holds me accountable.

Rawlins said that there were three aspects of transparency:

1. Informational Transparency

1. Informational Transparency is based on openness. In other words making publicly available all legally releasable information -- whether positive or negative in nature -- in a manner which is accurate, timely, balanced, and unequivocal. Information must be substantial to meet stakeholders needs Disclosure by itself does not equal transparency. in fact some forms of disclosure can defeat the purposes of transparency.

2. Participatory Transparency. Transparency cannot be successful unless you know what stakeholders want and need to know.Participation is what separates transparency from disclosure. Stakeholders must be allowed to identify what they need to know, to ensure that the information share is relevant and useful

3. Accountability transparency. Transparency holds people accountable for their actions, words and decision Rawlins cited The Naked Corporation put it: If you're going to be naked, you'd better be buff. In other words, if you want to shine, you have to clean up your act.

So how do you measure the transparency of your organization? The short answer, according to Rawlins is: Ask yourself how you measure up on the following issues:

• Do you allow stakeholders to participate in information decisions.
• Do you provide substantial information to stakeholder, information that is useful, verifiable, timely, understandable, reliable and accurate?
• When you make a mistake do you provide a balanced, critical forthcoming admission of that mistake?
• Do you withhold info unless forced to disclose?Are your releases intentionally vague, or only publicize the positive side?

Rawlins surveyed 385 employees of a large regional health care organization and determined that trust and transparency are significantly and strongly correlated -- in other words, sharing substantial information that holds an organization accountable contributed the most to trusting intentions. and the belief in integrity and goodwill was more important than competence. Other interesting findings from his research:

• Sharing substantial information and being accountable was tied to an employees perception of organizational integrity.
• Employee participation and willingness to be accountable was tied to perception of good will.
• Acting with integrity and goodwill are more important to gain trust than demonstrating competence.

Dr. Rawlins may also be the only speaker I've heard of late that closed his presentation with a quote from the bible that I actually found to be entirely relevant to the presentation.   Would that more of our corporations heed these words:

"And this is the condemnation. That light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil, for everyone that doest evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved, but he that doest a Truth cometh to the light that his deeds maybe e manifest, that they are wrought in God.  John 3:19-21"