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‘This is the essence of society and if we lose the trust we’ve really lost what makes us civil as a human race’
a low-trust world you can’t elect to just go out there with- out declaring your intent. And this is not aboutmanipula- tion. Manipulation would be to try to guide someone into something it’s really not, because it looks better. This is about declaring your real intent and being open and trans- parent, knowing that transparency builds trust.”
The Colombia example Covey is well aware of the challenges faced by Ireland in recent years, and the consequent lack of trust in the estab- lishment, but he has seen more dramatic examples of countries where trust has been rebuilt and restored. “I will say this, at the outset it is a challenge because
it’s a little bit like a self-fulfilling prophecy when you’re trapped in that vicious downward cycle and people don’t have trust and confidence,” he cautions. “Then they don’t spend. If they don’t spend, revenues don’t come in, taxes aren’t there and we perpetuate it, so we need to break out of it through good behaviours over time. It has to be over time; it’s not instantaneous, but even seeing some results can help people begin to do it. “Sometimes, focusing deliberately and explicitly on increasing trust can be a useful activity if it’s sincere and if it’s deliberate and if it’s done not as PR but as a deliv- ered process.” Covey offers an extreme example. “In 1999 Colombia
was the most dangerous place on earth. That year it had 80pc of the world’s kidnappings, 55pc of the world’s ter- rorist acts. It was being overrun by drug lords and crime, and a very dangerous place to be. Investment dried up, tourism dried up and they were in real trouble. “Over the last 12 years, we have really seen a remark-
able improvement, in many ways a transformation. Now, I’m reluctant to present them as having arrived because they haven’t; the final chapter’s not written. They’re in the process, but they have made enormous progress. He points to the election of a new Colombian presi-
dent, Álvaro Uribe, in 2002, and to work that was done prior to his arrival. “Between 1999 and 2002 there was a lot of movement
in the communities and among businesspeople to try and say, ‘We need to restore trust, we’ve lost trust in ourselves, in each other, in our neighbourhoods, our
communities.We’ve lost it in the country and we’ve lost it on the world stage and we need to focus on this’. “Indeed, President Uribe made this the actual focus of
his government – his platform was restoring trust, ‘recuperar la confianza’, and he had it in three areas: in security so people could feel safe; in investment, so money could flow in; and in democratic reforms, so soci- ety was more just and fair. “And that remained his platform for the following eight
years. He really focused on it consciously, deliberately, and they made huge progress. Today you see that crime is down by 90pc, foreign investment is up 20 times from what it was in ’99 and tourism is up 100 times. Colombia was just named the third happiest nation on earth! “They’ve seen a remarkable turnaround and they’ve
done it by consciously, deliberately focusing on restoring trust in their society, taking back their country, believ- ing in themselves, believing in each other, building a society of higher trust. “A leader facilitated it dramatically, but before
President Uribe there was a critical mass of people that helped create an environment that could spawn or pro- duce President Uribe. So, sometimes deliberately declar- ing your intent to grow trust can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, but you only want to do it if you’re sincere about it because you also diminish the trust faster if you raise expectations and you don’t deliver.” According to Covey, this applies to companies every bit
as much as it does to nations, and he has seen it first hand in the Fortune 500 companies with which he has worked over the years. “I’ve seen mergers where leaders are trapped inside a cycle of distrust and someone steps forward and calls it out. They can’t talk themselves out of it, but they can at least just pause and say, ‘Here’s what I’m trying to do, we’ve lost trust and we’re going to try to consciously rebuild it.We know that won’t happen with words, it will happen with actions, so here’s what we’re going to do’. “Of course, the leader must then be held accountable
for the results, but they can at least ask for the oppor- tunity. Sometimes you have to tackle it head-on, and sometimes governments have to do the same thing,” says Covey.
Summer 2011 Irish Director 17
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