Organizational Credibility

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Credibility is not about looking good, it is about being good.

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Sometimes we miss the obvious--that trust, or lack of it, is the core problem. In surveys we have done of executives throughout the country, the number one factor inhibiting improved quality is lack of trust, meaning, "We don't trust senior management." It is often experienced but it's not often talked about. I had one senior executive in one of my leadership seminars who had worked most of his life in a major airline company. He said some of the executives had recently tried to bring the trust problem to the surface, using data from a culture audit that an outside consulting company had completed. Every organization has discussables and undiscussables, and the trust issue was an undiscussable for this company. This group tried to bring the issue up directly with the CEO but they were brushed aside. After a while they bluntly stated in a senior staff meeting that they thought there were significant problems in the company with trust. The CEO just exploded, "We don't have problems of trust! I don't want to hear about this anymore. I trust that you people will do exactly what I say! Don't bring it up again." At last report, this CEO still has not dealth with the issue, and continues to shoot the messengers who dare to bring bad news from the front lines.

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Quality is impossible if people are afraid to tell the truth. - this quote in the abovementioned book is attributed to W. Edwards Deming, the pioneer in the field of quality control

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...if you don't deal with the problems, they'll just go underground.

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