“Australia suffers from the betrayal of elites. Their arrogance, complacency and denial — with the flawed icons of the Commonwealth Bank and the AMP as representatives of systemic ills — will empower progressive anti-business attitudes for years”.
Paul Kelly, The Weekend Australian – May 5, 2018
I love business. I don’t love being treated like a mug.
I am the eternal optimist. But even with my optimism, I have to say that my trust of business and the people who run them, with a handful of notable exceptions, is at an all time low.
I have always believed that the most precious resource anyone has is the trust of their community. That you gain trust through consistently being who you say you are and keeping your word – even those words implied not just those that are explicit. It’s personal when you break your word. It hurts someone. So, behaviours must completely align with the beliefs you espouse or you are simply trading on trust, not with it; consciously hurting people in the process. How can anyone be OK with that?
And guess what, keeping your word can sometimes hurt. That’s why trust is so valuable.
After being disappointed because my trust was under-valued yet again in business yesterday afternoon, I came across this billboard in Martin Place. I have to tell you…my reaction is that business is EXACTLY as usual. Even this ad smells…you telling me that the AFR is not trading on the idea of trust here?! I hope they have done the work to make this assertion real. Because…that’s my point…
It’s time for business to wake up and get real.
Trust and purpose as the “new black” of marketing and brand positioning is making me furious. Marketers, spin doctors and leaders that are using trust and purpose to differentiate their messaging without really doing the work to be different are squandering the opportunity to be real. They are simply lying to us.
What leaders need is not a purpose based brand strategy. They need someone to call them out. And I’m doing that right here, right now.
Here is the question: when will you stop pretending you’re trading trust for profits, power or personal gain?
I want to know what could be achieved if leaders in business (and government) could really start investing into our trust accounts rather than continuing to squander the mountains of it we had once banked with them.
Leaders…there is only one way for this to be achieved. That’s through having principles and building those principles into the culture and incentive systems of your organisations. To take personal responsibility for that to occur with a vocational fervour. With purpose.
There are no short cuts. You stand for something or you do not. You’re either purpose-led or you are not. You can be trusted or you cannot.
Business, I haven’t fallen out of love with you. But Paul Kelly is right; you are betraying us and playing us for mugs by telling us otherwise.
Am I angry. You bet. So, to work…
