AUDIO: Ending the recession will take new levels of trust

SIDNEY, AUSTRALIA
July 22, 2009 12:02am

Who can you trust today? Not Bernie Madoff and the never-ending panoply of swindlers and cheats in business and politics that helped push the nation into the worst recession since the Great Depression.

But now a new book by an international corporate consultant, Vanessa Hall’s “The Truth About Trust in Business: How to Enrich the Bottom Line, Improve Retention, and Build Valuable Relationships for Success,” (Greenleaf; July 2009), provides a new model for businesses that recognize that building trust leads to higher profits, better employee retention, exceptional branding, and a more enjoyable work environment.

“There’s been a breakdown of trust that’s caused the problems we’re seeing right now,” she says. “We’ve forgotten just how powerful trust is, how quickly it can break down, and the pain and destruction caused by a breakdown of trust.”

(Vanessa Hall talks about building – or rebuilding – trust in people and business in today’s CVBT Audio Interview. Please left-click on the link below to listen now or right-click to download the MP3 audio file for later listening.)

“Trust is in decline around the world,” she says. “We’ve lost the ‘art’ of trust. In the work that I’ve done, I’ve found that most people are reasonably trustworthy, but there’s always room for improvement – and often in areas that people least expect.”

Based in Sidney, Australia, Ms. Hall is an international author and speaker whose business, Entente pty Limited, is focused on building trust back into the business world, into homes and communities around the world. She speaks at conferences around the world and has a team of accredited consultants.