It's all about Trust!

Just over 2.5 years ago, Vanessa Hall had an epiphany, with the help of her 9 year old son. An innocent Mothers’ Day gift made at school has set Vanessa on a path that has seen her produce a book, build a business and become Australia’s leading expert on something that impacts us all in our relationships – Trust.

The gift from her son, a one page description of ‘My Mum’ read:

When Vanessa questioned her son Lachlan ‘What do you mean ‘Sometimes she can keep promises?’, he said ‘Well, you don’t always keep your promises!’. Are you serious? Give me and example’, she said to him. ‘Well, a few weekends ago you said we’d go to the movies on the weekend, and then we didn’t end up going.’ Vanessa remembered what happened that weekend. ‘Some people dropped in and they just got busy. I didn’t really think it was a promise, but he did’, she says ‘How does that make you feel when I do that?’, she asked him. Lachlan looked Vanessa in the eye and said ‘I don’t know when I can trust you.’ ‘I felt like he ripped my heart out, but it was a defining moment for me’, says Vanessa. After that incident, Vanessa went on a quest.  “I quit my job, drew up a business plan, put my house on the market to fund the business, and developed the model which I talk about in the book.  I talked to psychologists, counselors and teachers, CEOs, and senior executives and I interviewed them all about trust.”

‘I thought if it’s that easy to break down trust, then we have a real problem. And maybe, just maybe, it’s this breakdown of trust that is causing a lot of problems we see in business, in our relationships and in our society every day.’ says Vanessa.

What she found through speaking with hundreds of people was a unanimous recognition that trust is critical in business, and in all our relationships.  “Yet when I asked people, ‘So how do you know what trust is? How do you know if you’ve got it? How do you actively build it?’ People in business just stared at me blankly. Some people were quite uncomfortable, even getting flushed faces.  They were admitting that there is something critical to their business survival but didn’t know what to do about it.”

People leave relationships because of a breakdown of trust and employees leave businesses for the same reasons.  “It was obvious to me that if I could come up with something that described simply what trust is and how to build it, then I have something pretty powerful.”

Most organizations treat the symptoms and not the cause.  “A lot of businesses are just clutching at straws, they try various methods and training, send their teams off to go-carting to get them working better together,” says Vanessa.  “Or they spend more money on marketing to attract more customers, not realizing that all along it’s this breakdown of trust that is causing most, if not all, the problems.”

Now there is a framework for businesses to understand why their people, customers and shareholders are leaving.  “It’s from that understanding you can actually take appropriate action,” says Vanessa.

Vanessa’s model for trust is based on three core things: expectations, needs and promises - ENPs®.  “I’d like people to be talking about ENPs® all around the world. If you want to build trust, you need to be asking:  What are people expecting of me?  What do they actually really need from me? And what have I promised them?”

‘It’s interesting, having had a career in Compliance and Risk Management for over 13 years, I realized that the only reason we have the amount of legislation we do is because the business world has proven itself untrustworthy. A breakdown of trust is the most critical risk to a business – if your staff no longer trust in the leadership, the simply leave, or they stay and make life hell. The same applies to your customers, shareholders, suppliers, basically every stakeholder to your business.’ says Vanessa.

‘I have a vision that the work I am doing on trust, the insights I give people in business and in relationships around the world will create a more trusting business environment, better relationships at home and a better society for all of us’, Vanessa shares.

Her self published book, ‘The truth about trust in business’ has won a bronze model in the US in the Axiom Business Book Awards, and a silver medal in the Nautilus Book Awards, is available in bookstores in Australia, and is about to be distributed in the US from July 2009.   

“You can have all the dreams and vision of where it’s all going, but when it all starts to unfold it’s actually unbelievable,” remarks Vanessa.

Vanessa says ‘Someone wrote in my testimonials book after a workshop I ran for their organisation ‘Great presentation. I’m ready to trust again.’ For me, that made all the hard work worth it. I’m influencing businesses, but I’m also changing people’s lives. That’s pretty special’.

Vanessa is an acclaimed expert on the concept of trust and has worked with many businesses, including Deloitte, CGU Insurance and NRMA, to help them understand and build trust in their organization. Vanessa is the founder and director of Entente, a leading Australian provider of tools and techniques to build trust in business, homes and communities around the world.

www.entente.com.au

Take care

Vanessa