Nobody gets to decide they are trustworthy

Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here on a Friday. The sun is shining, so that's all good.

Gosh, Frontier Advisory came out of a desire to change the way high-stakes decisions are made, especially those involving African markets. I think often organizations they have decisions that look really sound around a boardroom table, you know, it in that environment, and they think that's that's a great decision, this is what we should do. But they haven't been properly tested against how people are going to either interpret or respond to them. So we found it Frontier Advisory to bring that reality into the room so that when leaders make decisions, they can make that call with a confidence that has been tested, that's based on evidence, not on assumptions. Because assumptions can be commercially quite consequential. And so the genesis was. That we decided that we wanted to found a business that used the communications reputation stakeholder skills in a way that was more commercially consequential and applicable to what's happening in the world today. Because there is so much instability that we believe that businesses need to think a little bit differently about how they decision.

Brain work. Is is that is that the word you used?

Yeah. so it's quite interesting. We have developed a methodology called the trust dividend. And so the trust dividend is a forward-looking forecast of what's the value of trust is in a business. And we look at your trust capital, which is the trust asset that you have, and that could be everything from traditional, I don't know. Barometers around trust, which are quite sentiment heavy. And that's absolutely an important part of trust, but it's it's not the only part to net promoter scores, to you know, for a particular organization, how quickly do their contracts convert in the last 12 months compared to the 36 months before that? All those sorts of things go into building a view of their trust asset. And then we look at trust velocity, which is the direction in which trust is moving, how persistent it is, and at what pace it's moving. And we put those two aspects together to come out with a trust dividend forecast, which tells organizations what the commercial value of their trust is and what levers they need to pull to go forward. And that's something we've done working across multiple case studies in multiple sectors around the world, looking at the commercial consequence to those businesses of decisions they've made and where trust may have broken down or reputation may have been eroded. to come into that. So the aim really is that brain work is around the fact that poor trust costs a business and we haven't really thought about how consequential that can be and what businesses need to do. We sort of do you do trust as a diagnostic. Whereas for us we say trust is an indication of what kind of benefits or Or what kind of let me start that again. I suppose if you can cut that's why I say we look at we we we look at trust as something with commercial consequence and how much trust or what your trust dividend looks like can often give you leeway when you make a decision. So decision confidence is something that we we try to ensure that the boards and the company leaders that we work with that they can get decision confidence. From us stress testing what they're doing across particular groups. And we use that trust dividend to inform the likely responses. So that's the brain work. There's an actual methodology that's been calibrated to be able to make our evidence checks a lot more realistic and a lot more sound. Obviously, there's no guarantee that someone will absolutely respond in exactly the way. that the evidence indicates. we see that in the world, things change all the time. But it gives a much clearer evidence based view and confidence in how a decision is likely to land. And sometimes it's that the decision is going to land really, really badly. And that's okay too. We then just have to think when we when we talk with the clients, we have to think about what that means? Does that mean that we sequence the decision differently? Does that mean that we recalibrate what they're going to do within the decision? Does that mean that the decision's got to go ahead anyway because there's a regulatory requirement or because there's cost pressures? But we can workshop then how each of those stakeholder groups will interpret what's happening and then do scenario planning around that. So it it it's it's yeah, it's just that we want more evidence. behind decisions rather than assumptions, because assumptions are expensive.

No well, i it's it's exactly that. Is very often the people who are making the decisions, they have a vested interest in that being the right decision. And they've done it absolutely based on how people have behaved in the past. but one thing we know from the last well, since twenty twenty is that people don't always behave the way they behaved in the past. I think the the Other thing is, and especially because I mean you're talking to people who are in reputation. I think you said public relations or whatever, is very often when you work in reputation and stakeholder engagement in an organization, if you know if it's your organization, you often become involved when a decision is already made, it's already been advanced. And what the leadership team is asking you to do is to make it more palatable to the audiences, yeah. So that that they're saying, well. We've decided to do this. Now you need to communicate it and you need to do it in a way that people are going to be okay with it. So what where we come in though is we say, let's take a beat before you say this is the right decision, before you have committed capital to this decision, before you have announced it. You know, let's take a beat and let's look at the evidence for sure. What what are you basing your assumptions on? it's because this is how it's happened in the past. Or it's because you spoke to people. Well, well, who were those people? How close were they to this and how vested is their interest? Let's widen it out. Let's look at the evidence. Let's expand who we're talking to. Let's understand what the regulator thinks about this. Let's see what's happened in the market before when decisions like this have been made or implemented. so so that's you actually have an independent body or an independent. group of people who don't have a stake in that decision helping you to sense check what is going on. So that's where we fits in. We're that independent stress test.

Sure, no. so the trust dividend explores how how trust affects people's decisions and what that means commercially for a business. So we're interested in what people actually do. So do they stay, do they buy again, do they share information more easily? Do they give a business time to resolve a problem? Yeah, because those behaviors all have economic consequences. but we also look at the the other side of it, which is Well, if your customer stays, do they stay because switching is difficult or because there isn't another viable your cap w you know, one of the sections of the book is is that captivity is is a different thing from trust. You know, if they can't switch easy, so what's that and what's the metric behind that? Or if the the negative part of trust is if if an organization or a person is trusted and they make a decision and it's a bad decision, sometimes trust is a problem because You let that bad decision carry on for longer because you trust that organization or that person. Yeah. You take longer to so we look at both sides of that and what what is the commercial consequence? What is the yeah, it could be punitive, it could be fines, it could be drop in sales, it could be attrition of talent. You're what are those things that that happen because of trust or because of a lack of trust? and then that connects directly into obviously decision confidence because if you misunderstand why someone is cooperating, you may also misjudge how they'll respond when you change the conditions. Yeah?

Sure. So I suppose it's explaining it in language that connects with the decision that they're actually facing. And often, you know, some people will we'll say, but but we but we we've talked to people or you know an experienced leader must say, well I know I I know what my customers or the regulator, how they're going to be affected. So you I know how they're going to respond. So then you have to sort of earn your place by showing what additional evidence we can bring. So for me, very often the useful question when when I'm talking to clients is, okay, but how do we know That the response we expect is the response we're likely to get. Because someone might have expressed support, but we need to understand what they were actually supporting and under which conditions and whether they can actually deliver it. So, for example, a few years ago, Unilever made a decision that they were going to sort of centralize and the headquarters in London were going to move to the Netherlands. And there was a really good economic rationale for what they were going to do. And everyone understood economically why it was a good thing. And they expected, because everyone understood the economic rationale, that it would just be something that they could do and should do. Yeah. But the response when they actually announced that they were going to do it resulted in such pushback that they they they went back on their decision. Yeah? Because they assumed. Just because someone understands why you want to do something and they they support the economic rationale, like yes, that is the right thing for the business, doesn't mean that as people who are affected or impacted that they're going to support the actual doing of it. And I I think that is really, really important. you know, and also I think, especially with leadership teams, they may have considered many risks like that, that but we need to understand whether they've investigated. the assumptions around those the risks. You know, if this is a risk, what are the things that would happen that would cause you to change the course that you you've decided to take? And they haven't investigated that. And that's where independence is really important because people are often more candid with someone who is outside the reporting line or outside that commercial relationship. So we can ask questions without having spent The previous six months building the case for whatever that decision is. Yeah. So we we we have the freedom, you know, being independent doesn't automatically make us right. We still have to bring evidence, explain the limits of the evidence, and show why or how it affects the business. But it's it's a different conversation. And then the client should come away with a clearer view of the decision they're making, which stakeholder responses they can depend on, and what evidence supports that expectation. Yeah. And if there are uncertainties, at least then they understand what those material uncertainties are and what should happen before the business commits further. Because once you commit it, once you've set a date, you've made an announcement there, then the business is moving forward towards something. And if you haven't really modeled or understood what those commercial consequences are, that can be a very expensive mistake.

So in in highly emotive sectors, you're often quite clear about how stakeholders respond to the typical things that companies do. What you have to do is you is you've got to model the ecosystems. so I'm trying to think if there was any instance where yeah, so a mining client, which who was very active in rural communities. so this wasn't this was they they did what typical mining clients do and and and it's great and it's important. You know, they focused on they put some schools into the community and they focused on making sure that the water supply was clean before it was turned to the water table, etcetera. All all all those sort of things that that that you know good mining companies do. But And those were good decisions. I'm not saying they weren't good decisions to do, but when we this the communities in in that particular were very disaffected and they had a a real problem with disaffected youth, especially sort of young males in in lots of drinking, drug abuse, crime. and and while they had helped the community in terms of the the the sort of the water supply and putting schools in, etc. What they hadn't thought about is what what what is the root cause of of this this this disaffected youth and this problem. They hadn't gone to talk to the communities and you and and then when we came in and we sort said, Okay, well, you've made certain assumptions that that's what communities need, but so often we don't go and s talk to the community themselves and say, What what what's what are your concerns? What are your problems? So and I know I've taken a very long time to get to this. So so we met with some of the leaders and but also took the time to meet with some of the the the the groups of women because often the the the conversations that women are having rather than in sort of the more traditional councils are are closer to the root root cause and and we got to understand that the community was really worried about this this youth problem and they were really worried about was and and the results also was that there was an increase in the number of teenage pregnancies because young people didn't have anything to do. So we sort of worked with them and said, well, actually, what you need to do is you need to ignite some kind of value chain that structures a way for these young people to get into your business or that you support the local businesses around your your your minds, that they will employ those people because youth get aggressive when they feel hopeless, when they feel that there's no way forward, that there's no way out. that they can't do anything, that then they they they their behaviors deteriorate. So rather than doing the stuff, you know, making the mistake of doing the stuff that is traditionally what sustainability or ESG or CSR says that you should be doing when you go into a community, think of it from the community's point of view out and focus on those things first. So I think that is so we weren't involved when they and it wasn't a mistake, but it it was a a naivety Work out what's material to the people who are fundamental to whether your business is successful or not, and then structure your your ecosystem strategy around that to get the outcome that you're looking for. And in that way people people progress, the community progresses and your business progresses. So that was a very long winded way to answer that question.

Yeah, I have. I often say that trust is invisible, but behavior leaves clues. And often to clients, I say, you know, you are judged on what you do when no one's looking. And you need to ensure that within your organization, how you consistently behave as an organization, inside and outside the organization, is much more visible than you think and is what you're going to be judged on, not what you say. Yeah? Not the phenomenal content that you put out there. And we had that conversation before the podcast started about AI and how sophisticated communications is and how and how beautifully it's put together now. And people are aware of that. So it's really easy to look good or to speak Properly about your business, it's how your organization behaves when no one's looking. That is how it's judged. Because the other side of AI is I can find out just about anything I want to about your organization and how it's behaving from conversations on social media about your organization or someone in your organization, from job boards, from you know what I can get a really, really clear picture. of how your organization behaves when no one is watching. So we really need to focus on those aspects because, you know, trust is an important thing, but you but you're not trusted just because you say you are, you know, you don't decide whether you're trustworthy. Your audiences do. Yeah? And and most most of us believe we're trustworthy. And we might have good reason for believing that. You know, we know our intentions or how hard we work or or the promises we've kept. But we don't get the deciding vote. Yeah? And in our organizations, we don't get the deciding votes of whether we're a trustworthy organization or not. The customer decides whether to trust us, or our employee does, or the supplier does. And that ultimately exists in their interpretation of their experience of us. Yeah? How they interpret the decisions we make. how they interpret the behaviors we perpetuate as an organization. And so that distinction matters commercially because we make quite significant b business decisions. that rely or on what we think other people think about us. And we don't evidence check them. Yeah? People sit around a boardroom table and they say, This is what we need to do for the organisation because our costs are rising. We need to do like it's the right decision. And they do the operational due diligence and they get the financial team to go into the financial due diligence and they go and get the legal team to go into the legal due diligence. Can we get this passed? You know, technically, does it fit you? And we don't spend enough time thinking about who do who which or you know, which people will either make this fail or succeed. And so what do we need them to understand? Or how do we need to sequence this? Or what do we need to change within this decision to make sure that it can be successful? Or is it actually going to be a commercially disastrous decision because of those things? And maybe we don't proceed.

In January. Well, on our website, obviously, frontieradvisory.com, Frontiersfelt with an E, because in African markets, there are more French speaking African markets than there are English. or you know, contact me on LinkedIn. I'm there. Kim Polly is my name. on our website there's an email address that you can contact us on. Yeah, but love to we we would really love to have the opportunity to chat to people. I mean, if anyone is, you know, thinking about a sort of tough decision or a tough stakeholder group, and they just want to talk about it, you know, if you want to sort of think about whose behavior needs to remain as you expected for a decision to work, or decision that you that you're making at work, and what evidence you have that, you know, that might change your mind, reach out, you know. If you've got a decision in front of you, I'd be very happy to talk it through with you.

It's a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.