1. Building Trust in the Age of Trust-Busters
Prepared by:
Elise M. Farnham
CPCU, ARM, AIM, CPIW
President, Illumine Consulting
Today, we are going to explore the concept of trust and why it is so important to us as individuals and to the corporations by whom we are employed.

2. Why is trust important? Barriers Advantages Fears
Moral values not shared
Advantages
Demonstration of shared moral values
Leads to authenticity
An important part of our “character”
Character has two components: values and behavior
We've agreed that trust is formed as a result of "behavior" a major component of each our characters!
Individuals who lack character are those who can't seem to do what is right.
To have an authentic relationship with another human, we must share the common value of trust. Think about it, how many times can someone lie to you before you no longer trust what they say? (audience will usually say 1-2 times, occasionally one person will say 3)
As humans, we are most susceptible to self-deceptions in the area of personal responsibility. Fear of blame and punishment or fear of being rejected by our family, friends and peers can be very strong emotions. This magnitude of fear can lead us to not only disown our bad behavior, but also to rationalize our misdeeds.

3. Studies prove it! Institute for Global Ethics In 1996: Honesty
Compassion
Fairness
Responsibility
Respect
Results from the World Forum sponsored by the Institute for Global Ethics people attended the Institute and were broken into smaller seminars. These five values came up again, and again.
These values are also mentioned in several codes of conduct:
Rotary
Boy Scout Law
Six Pillars of Character developed by the Character Counts! Coalition and the Josephson Institute
CPCU Society and the AICPCU
and others....
A rather small set of shared values seems to be part of the human experience, regardless of nationality, sex, religion, age or social status.

4. How do you know you can trust someone?
EXERCISE: divide the audience into groups 3-5, ask them to come up with 4-5 ways that they know they can trust someone. Then discuss.

5. Review the “New Agent” Case Study. What went through Jim’s mind?
EXERCISE: ask the attendees to review the New Agent Case Study. Tell them not to resolve the dilemma, ask them to just write down – in their group – what was going thru Jim’s mind.
Jim knew:
The public doesn't always expect TV ads to be true to life, most people wouldn’t know that Floyd was a real employee of the agency.
Floyd looked good on camera and made a good image for the company.
Floyd could have made a simple mistake in evaluating the risks and perhaps Jim had allowed him to go out on his own too soon.
Full Coverage may not get around to doing a premium audit for another year, time enough to correct the pricing on the policies.
Floyd had given his customers excellent service.
Jim could advise Full Coverage of the error and ask for their advice?
Jim could advise the agency principals.

6. How can Jim remain true to the five traits?
Honesty
Compassion
Fairness
Responsibility
Respect
Assign one trait to each group, ask them to determine to whom Jim must display this trait, and how…
To whom must Jim display each trait, and, how?

7. What do you see?
(ask a couple of people – try to get them to see the WHITE SPACE)
Yes, there is a black spot.
What about the white space, we’ve overlooked it???!!
What does that mean to us?
The context around us is often missed or underestimated (as in relationships or the culture around us).
Customers tend to identify small and large blemishes in our products and services and they expect them to be fixed.
The Lesson? We should look for the “black spot at times, but we may need to force ourselves to consider the large white area of equal importance.

8. Building Trust Be positive -- and SMILE Be complimentary
Discuss each trait and give an example or describe it….

9. Building Trust (con’t)
Take genuine interest
Find commonality
Listen carefully
Speak the language
Be slow to disagree
Choose your battles
“Speaking the language” means having an awareness that what you understand words to mean, may be different that other people’s understanding. “Insurance” is a foreign language to many people, stay away from acronyms and buzz words.

10. Building Trust (con’t)
Always do what you say you will do
Implement someone else’s suggestions
Try humor
Make yourself useful
Develop intuition and awareness
Adjust your strategies

11. Wrap-up Thank you for coming! And remember:
“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”