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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business Interview. I'm Sean Almer.

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Speaker 1: We know that trust matters for business. Companies need to

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Speaker 1: build and maintain trust with their consumers, and once lost,

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Speaker 1: it's very hard to get back. That's why the annual

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Speaker 1: Trust Barometer by Edelman is so valuable. This year is

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Speaker 1: the twenty fifth anniversary of the report and the findings

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Speaker 1: are i'd say confronting. Really, we're in a crisis of

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Speaker 1: grievance with a growing sense that business and government serve

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Speaker 1: only a select few. Trust and CEOs and government leaders

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Speaker 1: continues to decline, with a deterioration in trust for both

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Speaker 1: the company that an individual might be working for and

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Speaker 1: business more broadly. But at the same time, business and

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Speaker 1: non government organizations are still considered to be the only

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Speaker 1: institutions that are both competent and ethical ahead of government

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Speaker 1: and media. That trust, though, is fragile. Tom Robinson is

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Speaker 1: the CEO of Edelman Australia and he's my guest in

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Speaker 1: the studio to mark twenty five years of the Trust Barometer. Tom,

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fear and Greed.

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Speaker 2: Thank you very much.

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Speaker 1: Twenty five years of the Trust Barometer impressive.

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Speaker 2: We're very fortunate. I think when Richard Edelman CEO set

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Speaker 2: forth on this kind of journey with this idea that

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Speaker 2: he had back in ninety nine two thousand, it was

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Speaker 2: a really monumental kind of change for us. And I

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Speaker 2: think the way that business leaders, government leaders look at

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Speaker 2: that now, it's quite something.

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Speaker 1: I remember meeting him about it's probably ten years ago.

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Speaker 1: He's one of the more dynamic people I've ever met.

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Speaker 2: He brings a lot of energy, a lot of ideas.

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Speaker 2: He's a fantastic leader for this business.

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Speaker 1: For a business, why does trust matter?

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Speaker 2: Ultimately, it gives you your license to operate trust itself.

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Speaker 2: It's a bit of a leap of faith, it's a

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Speaker 2: leap into the unknown, and it's inherently risky with that

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Speaker 2: in mind, But ultimately it's your willingness to put yourself

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Speaker 2: forward into the arms of something or someone else. And

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Speaker 2: for business leaders, what we see consistently is trust influences

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Speaker 2: and impacts almost every part of your organization, whether it's

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Speaker 2: your ability to demand great pricing sensitivity, influence your supply chain,

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Speaker 2: manage the costs associated with that, to influence kind of

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Speaker 2: policy and regulatory environments as well. It has consequences on

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Speaker 2: every part of your organization.

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Speaker 1: So kinder one oh one, how do you build trust?

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Speaker 2: So for the work that we do, we place trust

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Speaker 2: front and center in almost everything where we work with

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Speaker 2: organizations to understand their trust equity and how that plays

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Speaker 2: out amongst their many variety of stakeholders. Ultimately, it comes

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Speaker 2: down to five pillars of trust as we see it,

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Speaker 2: so ability, dependability, self, purpose and within that, what we

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Speaker 2: then tend to look at is how well you stand

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Speaker 2: up across each of those measures. Where how dependable you

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Speaker 2: are is very much your kind of functional levels of trust.

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Speaker 2: You know, do you do what you're going to say

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Speaker 2: for the purpose of the trust problement? Though, we look

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Speaker 2: at competence and ethics of you as you called out earlier,

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Speaker 2: and those two measures are very good indicators as to

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Speaker 2: the levels of trust.

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Speaker 1: So confidence and ethics, how do you measure those because

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Speaker 1: they're kind of intangible.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Ultimately it comes down to a very simple question,

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Speaker 2: an equation for which we ask our panel, and the

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Speaker 2: panel is made up of about one and fifty respondents

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Speaker 2: here in Australia, so it's representative of the country across age, gender,

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Speaker 2: ethnicity and location as well. Much of that comes down

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Speaker 2: to this question of do you trust or do you

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Speaker 2: believe this institution would do the right thing and does

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Speaker 2: what it says it will. Now, competence is your ability

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Speaker 2: to get things done, and ethics is if you'll do

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Speaker 2: the right thing or not. And it's a belief.

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Speaker 1: Okay, the report itself, as I read it, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of focus on grievance in this whole idea of

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Speaker 1: a of grievance, and I must say I've found my

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Speaker 1: hard to get my hit around that because it just

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Speaker 1: seemed so very negative.

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Speaker 2: It's not the most optimistic of reads this before I

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Speaker 2: give you that, and it's quite challenging when we receive

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Speaker 2: it as well. I think I'll probably take a step

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Speaker 2: back back and quickly.

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Speaker 1: So.

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Speaker 2: We were talked about twenty five years of trust, and

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Speaker 2: I think over those many years what we have seen

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Speaker 2: is some big macro trends at play, which I think

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Speaker 2: had really led us to almost this moment where we

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Speaker 2: find ourselves now as a country. And it does feel

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Speaker 2: like we're entering the endgame slightly in all of this

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Speaker 2: so big findings. Our trust is now very much local.

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Speaker 2: I trust people like me, those around me, those that

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Speaker 2: resonate with and share the same common beliefs and values

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Speaker 2: that I do. Whereas once we used to trust our

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Speaker 2: institutional leaders or leaders of influence and power and authority,

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Speaker 2: that's no longer the case. We've seen the role of

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Speaker 2: business come to the fort. Business is the most influential institution,

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Speaker 2: not quite the most trusted this year, but by and

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Speaker 2: large over long term, they are the most trusted. They're

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Speaker 2: seen as having the great this ability to change the

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Speaker 2: course of our future and future optimism. And the other

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Speaker 2: I think is the role of media in all of this, which,

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Speaker 2: unfortunately it does continue to come under the microscope and

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Speaker 2: continues to face many many challenges which are built up

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Speaker 2: consistently over time alongside and amplified by the role of

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Speaker 2: technology in Australia and social media specifically. So all of

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Speaker 2: these things are now starting to play out, and there

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Speaker 2: isn't trust ultimately linked to your economic prosperity. And if

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Speaker 2: you have economic prosperity, ultimately you trust the institutions that

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Speaker 2: are designed that are there you believe to help shape

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Speaker 2: that or you don't. And what we have seen is

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Speaker 2: across our top twenty five percent of household income earners,

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Speaker 2: they have had trust, but even for them these last

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Speaker 2: two three four years have been a challenge and they've

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Speaker 2: put that under pressure.

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Speaker 1: Tom, stay with me, we'll be back in a moment.

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Speaker 1: I'm talking to Tom Robinson, the CEO of Illman Australia.

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Speaker 1: When we left the idea of economic prosperity, creating trust

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Speaker 1: or helping trust, and even that top quartile perhaps not

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Speaker 1: being where they have been previously in the last two

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Speaker 1: or three years, people becoming more distrustful or greater grievances.

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Speaker 1: Is that just a natural progression? Is that something that

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Speaker 1: policy has done as poorly by Is it just a

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Speaker 1: function of post COVID? Why are we in this situation?

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Speaker 2: There are certain elements of that at place, certainly that

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Speaker 2: we can draw from. I think when we look at grievance,

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Speaker 2: we define it, or certainly our respondents have defined it

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Speaker 2: by ultimately a belief that the system favors the rich.

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Speaker 2: The richer getting richer at my expense. Business and government

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Speaker 2: have put rules and policies and strategies in place to

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Speaker 2: hold me back. It creates this zero sum mindset. Your

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Speaker 2: gain is my loss, and therefore I'm not going to

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Speaker 2: listen to you. And that's the real tension point amongst

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Speaker 2: all of these grievances that we now hold. Sixty two

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Speaker 2: percent of correspondents now view themselves as either moderately or

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Speaker 2: highly aggrieved. And historically what we've seen is divisions that

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Speaker 2: are created in Australia have led to a point now

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Speaker 2: of people wanting to actually take action to address this themselves,

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Speaker 2: and that action is coming through in hostile ways or

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Speaker 2: hostile activism, and a belief that actually now the only

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Speaker 2: way to elicit change and to deliver on a better

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Speaker 2: outcome for myself is to attack people online, to spread

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Speaker 2: disinformation or misinformation, to cause damage to public or private property,

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Speaker 2: these types of things, These statements now very firmly agreed

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Speaker 2: with by many particular youngest demographic, youngest age group, our

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Speaker 2: future leaders of tomorrow, and that's the real challenge.

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Speaker 1: I mean obvious analogy to trump Ism in the US.

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Speaker 2: Quite but we are a different country. We have different

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Speaker 2: beliefs and values and regulatory and political structures in plays too,

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Speaker 2: I think manage and mitigate some of what we've seen

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Speaker 2: in the US. But I do think there's an important

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Speaker 2: call out there that ultimately, despite that kind of populist

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Speaker 2: approach and the pushback on certain DEI principles. There is

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Speaker 2: a belief and an inherent requirement for business to step up,

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Speaker 2: to be seen to do more. And if my grievance exists,

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Speaker 2: if my grievance grows, that need is only exasperated.

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Speaker 1: Okay, it's interesting business. You know, I hate all the

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Speaker 1: banks exit for my bank. My bank's actually pretty good,

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Speaker 1: but don't like the rest type thing. When business does

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Speaker 1: put their head up, there are many people that knock

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Speaker 1: it down. So if you think of the voice, if

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Speaker 1: you think of same sex marriage, there have been some

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Speaker 1: very vocal business leaders on that. I don't know at

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Speaker 1: the end of the day where the shareholders one from that.

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Speaker 1: But is there some sort of social license that business

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Speaker 1: given that? You know, I like my bank, so my

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Speaker 1: bank actually should have a role in that. Is that

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Speaker 1: how it's going to work out or not.

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Speaker 2: I think there's ctainly a question of governance play as

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Speaker 2: to what societal issues my business should be wading into.

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Speaker 2: And I think that's maybe mean the miss step previously.

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Speaker 2: I think the findings this from the report this year

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Speaker 2: clearly articulate that some of the key challenges that Australians

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Speaker 2: are facing and they want business to address. So things

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Speaker 2: like affordability, climate change, job skills of the future help

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Speaker 2: retrain the workforce, so we're ready to address some of

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Speaker 2: that kind of productivity challenges. So all of this comes

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Speaker 2: to the fore. It's not to business, I think, to

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Speaker 2: wade into every possible societal issue that might come across

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Speaker 2: their desk, but understand where they have the right to play,

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Speaker 2: where the proof points and the history of their businesses

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Speaker 2: is credible enough to actually influence change for their broader community.

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Speaker 2: And that community is not just the Australian public, but

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Speaker 2: also their stakeholders within the business and the shareholders that

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Speaker 2: support that.

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Speaker 1: I have to quickly ask you about media. Of course,

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Speaker 1: we're not getting any better, so we put it that

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Speaker 1: way in people certainly seem to think that media focuses

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Speaker 1: more on ideology and that type thing than they used to.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that's true that nine News ABC, whoever it is

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Speaker 1: the mainstream media I suppose I'm talking about here? Is

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Speaker 1: this that it surprised you? How does the media attend

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Speaker 1: to itself to improve all that?

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Speaker 2: Well, unfortunately it didn't surprise me. I often asked the

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Speaker 2: question myself. I've got two young boys and I worry

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Speaker 2: about the future that they will have in terms of

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Speaker 2: where they turn to for credible, reliable, authenticated information that's trustworthy.

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Speaker 2: You know, I see it day to day. I think

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Speaker 2: the rise of kind of misinformation disinformation is not being

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Speaker 2: managed kind of appropriately enough. I think for media themselves

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Speaker 2: there is possibly a greater need to come together. I

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Speaker 2: might liken it to Kissinger Bush and more recently Starmre

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Speaker 2: on a coalition of the willing. Should that be considered.

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Speaker 2: There are real challenges there about people's belief in that

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Speaker 2: media is trying to purposely mislead them, and you know,

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Speaker 2: those priorities, as you say, are all wrong. Now in

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Speaker 2: Australia we have a structure whereby we currently sit as

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Speaker 2: the most second most concentrated media market in the world,

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Speaker 2: just behind Brazil. We said about thirty six on the

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Speaker 2: World Press Freedom Index. That's behind the Dominican Republic. So

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Speaker 2: these are fundamental problems in the way that our media

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Speaker 2: landscape has been allowed to evolve in how private interests

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Speaker 2: are overriding public interest.

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Speaker 1: We are eternally out of time, but we're too from now. Tom.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of a bit of a groom picture, to

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Speaker 1: be honest.

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Speaker 2: It is, but I do think there's real opportunity within

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Speaker 2: this as well. I think the findings are quite clear

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Speaker 2: this year. I think you take stock, listen, understand the

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Speaker 2: needs of your communities again internally or externally as employers

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Speaker 2: of choice. That's quite critical, but you have a mandate.

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Speaker 2: There's a demand for business to step up and I

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Speaker 2: think it's in the perfect position to do so. That

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Speaker 2: all has to start with understanding your landscape and acting

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Speaker 2: on that appropriately and positively to the impact of your business.

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Speaker 1: Tom, thanks for talking to Fear and Greed.

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Speaker 2: Thank you very much.

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Speaker 1: As Tom Robinson, CEO of Edelman Australia. This is the

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Speaker 1: Fear and Grade Business Interview. Join us every morning for

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Speaker 1: the full episod s O Fear and Greed, daily business

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Speaker 1: news for people who make their own decisions. I'm Sean

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Speaker 1: i Elma. Enjoy your day.