Lisa Kimmel: Building Trust

Lisa is a global leader in Communications. She’s the managing director of Sector Specialty Agencies (SSAs), DJE Holdings and also oversees Edelman’s Canadian and Latin American operations. Lisa sits on Edelman’s Executive Leadership Team and has played a leadership role in Edelman’s Trust Barometer initiative. In this episode we discuss the difference between trust and reputation, the true meaning of taking responsibility as a leader and much more.

Related links: 

• Robert I Sutton - The No Arsehole Rule

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Produced by Chris Attaway
Artwork by Harriet Richardson
Music by Cody Martin

Transcript

[00:00:00] Lisa: Increasingly, stakeholders have become, uh, more skeptical and cynical around the motivations of CEOs of companies, and so when a mistake has been made, accountability, responsibility is absolutely key. And it's also important to demonstrate vulnerability as a leader.

[00:00:35] Jenn: Welcome 

to The Future and Sound podcast. I'm your host, Jen Wilson.

This is a podcast where we talk about prioritizing people. Planet and profit. In each episode, we speak with world leading experts who help us see the future we want and our role in it.

This is episode 14, Building Trust.

Quick story. I was doing a course with senior leaders in corporate, nonprofit and government organizations across Canada. The course was about learning how to be an effective board member at the University of Toronto. We were doing case studies, looking at business ethics, communication, and as a board how to think about some pretty off the wall cases that had to do with people and trust amongst stakeholders.

One of the examples was one of very successful, charming top tier CEO was caught on camera. Kicking a dog in an elevator. I know I'm a dog lover. I'm an animal lover in general, I obviously had a very emotional response to this case study that we discussed, and the question posed to the group was, What would you do on the board?

Top performing ceo, He's caught kicking a dog now. What was interesting, and we had senior leaders, we had individuals who had led the army in Canada. We had individuals who had been very senior and large pension funds, investors, et cetera. And we all seemed to have pretty emotional responses to this particular case.

And there was one exception amongst the 60 people in the room, and that was my friend Lisa Kim. To her, the answer was obvious. And in this episode, she shares with us how she thinks and how we can apply her clarity of mind to build trust with those around us. Either those around her organizations, the public at large, or perhaps colleagues that would really like to build trust with.

Lisa Kimmel oversees Edelman's Canadian and Latin American operations and sits on Edelman's global operations Committee. In her role, she provides senior council to clients and is responsible for the region's growth strategies in Canada. She's led the region's strategic evolution to best in class communication firm.

Passionate about advancing women in. Lisa is chair of the firm's Global Women's Equality Network, which is committed to fostering an environment where women of all backgrounds can enjoy equal opportunities. She has a long list of philanthropic involvements that are, it's too long for me to list, uh, in full.

What I would say is that Lisa and I met at, uh, the Institute for Corporate Directors Program, uh, in Canada, and she was an instant. Inspiration to me. So Lisa, I am delighted to have you on the Future and Sound podcast. 

Welcome. 

[00:04:12] Lisa: Thank you. I am so thrilled to be doing this with you.

[00:04:15] Jenn: I wanted to start off with a little bit on your journey and how you think.

So I'm interested in digging into how did you get into communications and governance? 

[00:04:24] Lisa: Um, so , uh, interesting story. I wanted to be a lawyer all of my life. And at the time that I was in university, I happened to be dating someone who was in law school, and I also had two uncles who were both in the profession and none of them were overly fulfilled.

So I, it, it, it resulted in me reconsidering, um, whether or not I wanted to pursue a, a career in law. But it also made me, it forced me to think about are there other professions that I wanna investigate? At the time, my mother was doing a significant amount of, uh, event management on a volunteer basis, and it appealed to me.

So after I graduated, uh, from university, I decided that I would do a one year. Postgraduate program in public relations. Obviously, event management is a component of public relations and figured it's an eight month investment. If I don't like it, I will. Apply to law school and here I am 25 years later in the field of communications and I couldn't be happier.

It was absolutely the right choice for me. I've never looked back. 

[00:05:37] Jenn: I'm really interested. I was thinking about this when we were doing our course at the University of Toronto and we had a lot of senior. Policy people, business people, essentially people who wanted to sit on especially publicly traded boards.

And we were looking through different case studies and I was really interested to first think about how our course or classmates were thinking about things differently. But in particular, I remember, especially when we were getting into difficult issues of management. How do you think you, you think differently as a PR professional?

Like what does that lens bring to the table? 

[00:06:14] Lisa: Good question. Um, and you know, I reflect back upon our experience in that course and the composition of, uh, the students in the class. And you're right, the majority of the people were either in corporate strategy, there were a significant number of people in finance, and I actually was the only person in the class that came from a communications background.

And you're absolutely right that there. So many instances where when a company is facing a crisis, it is something that in most cases can be overcome. But oftentimes the crisis is amplified or extended because of a communications failure. And the reality is that at the board level, There aren't enough people who actually have a communications background who can manage the communications throughout the duration of a crisis.

[00:07:20] Jenn: In terms of like communications 1 0 1, I know we don't have hours and hours, and you could teach a course on this, but what are some of the things that leaders get wrong from a communication perspective that you tend to start with when you come into a crisis? 

[00:07:36] Lisa: I always think about the importance of reput. And what is it that you can do to shape the beliefs and opinions that any stakeholder that interacts with a company needs to be thinking about and how effectively it is that you are able to communicate? And so oftentimes, um, at the onset of a crisis, a, you need to ensure that you. Communicating immediately, transparently, openly, honestly, even if you don't have all the answers.

Um, because oftentimes you, you know, a company is hit with a crisis and they don't even have all of the facts that are available to them in that moment, and that's ok. It's better to acknowledge with key audiences, with stakeholder groups what it is that you do know. And lead them along the journey as you gather the facts and the necessary information in order to determine what actions you're gonna take to address the issue or the crisis.

And oftentimes, leadership and boards think we need to keep this contained. We need to get all of the facts before we go ahead and communicate. And that is a major strategic error at the outset of any crisis. 

[00:09:07] Jenn: Trust is something that comes to mind and something that you have studied at Edelman with a trust barometer, uh, in depth.

Again, an area that you can speak to for ages and ages, and it's absolutely fascinating. I've heard some of your presentations on the topic, but if we think about it at a high level to begin with, when you advise corporate clients on the concept of trust, what are the most important components from your.

[00:09:34] Lisa: I think that first it is important to define what is trust, because it's thrown out as a term around the fact that we need to build trust or we need to do better in terms of building trust with stakeholders. And what trust really is, is a belief in the future and it's predictive in nature. Reputation is.

Past tense based on what it is that you as a leader or a company has done in the past. And trust really enables an organization or a leader to have deeper and more meaningful relationships with stakeholders when it comes to trust in an organization. We at Edelman define as the most important trust drivers are four things.

The first is around ability. Is the company competent? Secondly, integrity is the company honest. Three, dependability does the company keep its promises? And then the last piece element, uh, in terms of trust drivers is purpose. Does the company have a positive impact on society? 

[00:10:53] Jenn: It's interesting because I'm thinking about the Maple Leaf foods example as you're describing both, you know, getting in front of a crisis, uh, when it comes to, uh, communication and capability around the boardroom table, and then also the piece around trust.

And I'm wondering, Lisa, if you'd be happy to share with the audience a bit about that case and how that maps on to some of the theory that you've just, cha you just shared with. 

[00:11:20] Lisa: Sure. Um, the, the, the Maple Leaf Foods case study is a textbook case study in terms of how to effectively manage a crisis. So, um, for those who are unaware of what happened, Maple Leaf Canadian Headquartered Company, and several years ago, Osis was, was.

Found in, in one of their plants and their meat products were distributed to grocery stores across the country, and obviously had a negative impact on that, on many of their, their customers who were consuming their meat products. What May Leaf did. The outset of the, of the crisis was they got its ceo, Michael, uh, McCain out in front.

He was the face of the company. He took responsibility for the fact that this had happened, that they were responsible for causing the harm that they had, that they had to Canadians who had been affected by it. And they used him as the spokesperson, the face of the crisis, as they navigated through it.

And so whether it was communication with employees, but also with consumers, he was the face that communicated to, uh, through their advertising, um, both TV and print. And it was hugely successful in terms of, Helping the company to navigate through the crisis, but then also to rebuild its reputation after they had dealt with this terrible situation.

[00:13:05] Jenn: The word responsibility is really interesting in this context because, So I'm a maritimer. I come from a small town on the east coast of Canada, and perhaps it's this mentality. and McCains are also from, uh, the, uh, the part of the country that I come from. And, you know, imagine a rural context. You know that if you don't take responsibility, if you harm others, then you know that it's gonna come back around. You know, so there's just no, in a small community as a person at an individual level, you know, there's almost more of a feedback loop, if that makes sense. And it was really interesting hearing from, uh, McCain on, Look, I'm sorry, was one of the things that he said, and, and I wanna dig into this, this point about responsibility and, and how you, you think about it when it comes to building trust, especially crisis or even.

When things are going really well, taking responsibility if we're not exactly where we wanna be as a corporate leader. 

[00:14:12] Lisa: Yeah. So I, I would say this, that increasingly stakeholders have become, uh, more skeptical and cynical around the motivations of CEOs of companies. And so when a mistake has been made, Or there's information that needs to be shared with stakeholder groups, whether it's employees, whether it's investors, whether it's customers.

Accountability, responsibility is absolutely key and. It's also important to demonstrate vulnerability as a leader, particularly at this moment in time and moving forward. We're all human. We make mistakes. Companies are made up of people. We make mistakes. And so taking responsibility for when it is that you have made one, um, if you're clear around what are the specific actions that you're going to take to, to address the issue, to ensure that it doesn't happen, um, in the future, that's really key.

And by demonstrating that vulnerability. It creates connection. It helps in building or rebuilding trust with impacted audiences. 

[00:15:35] Jenn: I think that that's just such a brilliant way of putting it. That responsibility is tied to a bit of vulnerability. You know, we're humans running this company and also action, which really demonstrates that commitment, and I'm going to try to apply that to Rico for a second.

Just to be super clear, you know, I have certainly been in, uh, leadership roles with larger companies where you, you just really want to say the thing that makes you look good, don't you? You wanna say, Oh, look at all the things. You sort of wanna sweep a few things under the rug if they're not going so well, and really focus on what's, where we're nailing the strategy, et cetera.

It's actually really. Emotionally hard as a corporate leader to, you know, be a bit vulnerable with your employees or be a bit vulnerable with your stakeholders. It's almost like you must come into the boardroom at times and have to just help leaders who are used to being polished in all fronts. Maybe, uh, manage those emotions a bit. 

[00:16:38] Lisa: For sure. Now, But listen, um, I, I think that the days of leaders appearing as if they're made of Teflon, Are of days gone by, and one of the things that I often talk about with CEOs around how it is that they can build trust reality, is that the expectations of stakeholders have dramatically changed over the last number of years.

And so the characteristics and the attributes that made for a successful leader, No longer necessarily apply today or will apply in the future. So for example, delivering strong financial results used to be the be all and end all in terms of how CEO impact effectiveness were measured. Now there are so many other criteria, um, that are factored into the effectiveness of a leader, including the level of trust that stakeholders have in.

And communication is such a critical part of the job today because you need to be able to communicate effectively even in bad times. And most importantly, and you talked about this earlier, it's not just about what it is that you say, but what it is that you do, and that actions out of that communication is absolutely critical in terms of maintaining and building trust with stakeholders.

[00:18:12] Jenn: When you sit on boards or chair boards, What are some of the ways that you engage with the board from a governance perspective to build or help the organization build trust with their stakeholders? 

[00:18:29] Lisa: So I'm always thinking about, you know, the strategic decisions that are made, the strategy that is developed for an organization. Then what are the potential risks associated with it, and how is it that we can ensure that we're looking at the best ways to both protect the reputation of the organization as well as how it is that we can promote it. And that is really key to maintaining that trust. 

[00:19:04] Jenn: And so when we think about the dimension of trust and environmental performance, there's been a huge backlash against greenwash.

This idea that, you know, in 2019, uh, we saw that increasingly investments, uh, focused on esg, environmental social governance performance. We're just flying huge amounts of demand, um, from high net worth individuals, from younger investors. Pension funds, everybody wanted it on the band way. And now we're seeing legal action, uh, across Europe and in North America against companies who've maybe gone a little bit too far in stating what they are doing in terms of performance.

So I'm wondering, Lisa, with your communications background, how do you define greenwashing and how do you think leaders can demonstrate that they're not partaking. 

[00:20:04] Lisa: So, uh, so first off, I wanna preface, uh, this by saying I am by no means an ESG expert, but the way that I would define greenwash is really when a company makes false claims, misleading claims that it or its products or services have in terms of a positive environmental impact, when in fact the company or the products or services don't.

[00:20:33] Jenn: And so when you think about if you are, say you're an investor and you're going to pitch to, uh, asset owners who are looking to invest into your, your fund, and you know that ESG is really important. We've talked about responsibility, we've talked about a bit of vulnerability, we've talked about the importance.

Not needing to be a a teon leader. Say you're sort of middle of the pack ESG performance, but you personally really care about it. What would be some of the things that you would keep in mind in preparing for that presentation? 

[00:21:09] Lisa: So I think first off, really important to do the necessary research to identify the most important material impacts that the company can make on the economy, the environment, and on society.

Secondly, I would ask myself, what are the real, uh, specific ongoing actions that the company can take to minimize the negative and increase the positive impacts on the environment? I'd also consider. Looking at how it is that the company is dealing with impacts in a, in a complete, holistic way, and not just focusing on the actions that are good from a marketing perspective.

They need to be tangible. Uh, they need to be real. And so I think importantly, it's critical to abide by. Recognized incredible standards programs, uh, so for example, the UN UN Sustainable Development Goals, and then how it is that you can effectively, uh, measure your company's actions against those credible goals.

[00:22:26] Jenn: It makes a lot of sense. We're definitely seeing metrics as being increasingly important at RICO as well. So looking to the future in the next three to five years, because obviously it feels like things are changing pretty rapidly when it comes to not just sustainability, but you know, trust building relations between business and society.

If you turn your mind, Lisa, to macro themes in the next three to five years, What do you think are gonna be some of the major trends from a trust building perspective that are gonna be important for corporate executives to keep an eye? . 

[00:23:04] Lisa: So, um, two that come to mind and I'll build on those are around purpose and the second being employee experience.

So when it comes to purpose and given all of the conversation, um, and debate around esg. Specifically, it's no longer about delivering a high quality product or service that's table stakes for any company today. It's that stakeholders care as much about what it is that a company's doing to positively impact society.

So yes, the expectation, particularly as a shareholder, is that you're delivering strong. Financial results, but that impacting society in a positive way is as important as the financial performance of a company. And you really have seen over the last several years this shift from a share shareholder to a stakeholder society.

And really companies are being evaluated against their ability to deliver. On purpose and positively impacting society more so than ever before, and that trend is absolutely gonna continue. The second thing that has really arisen since the beginning of the pandemic is this dramatic shift in the employee experience.

In my view, and I've actually always felt this, it's not just since, since Covid began, A company's most important stakeholder group is your employee. because they can be your biggest advocate or your biggest detractors, and you're seeing that at so many companies over the last couple of years that employee activism is rising and that can have a material impact on the performance of a company.

If, for example, a company makes a decision, a business decision, that its employees aren't behind. They will speak and they'll speak loudly about their views on that decision. And so what's happened is that with the dramatic shifts that are happening in the workplace and in terms of employee expectations, companies have to be more flexible and responsive to the needs of their employees.

Particularly in an era where loyalty to an organization is waning, we're experiencing the great resignations. And so both leaders and companies need to think about what it is that they're constantly doing to build and enhanced trust with employees, whether it's related to their return to work policies, whether it's tied to, uh, racial justice, employee diversity, mentorship, coaching, compensation, and the list goes.

[00:26:13] Jenn: on the second point, you talked a little bit about metrics. In a sustainability context, what are the most sophisticated companies doing, just on the employee point, Cuz you can imagine if you're leading a large organization, you get your policies right. But you know, in your experience, how are you seeing some of the top communicators in a corporate setting really keep their finger on the pulse in terms of what employees are actually thinking or saying?

[00:26:39] Lisa: There, there are tools that are available to solicit input from employees. You know, obviously you have surveys that you can do to measure. Employee sentiment. Leaders need to step up and be more focused on communicating directly with employees, whether that be through one on ones. Obviously in large organizations that's more difficult, but going on listening tours to various.

Offices, you know, you might even wanna segment it based on specific function within an organization or different levels within an organization so that you really have a finger on the pulse of what employees are thinking about, how it is that they feel about how the company is performing, what the company can be doing better.

And by doing that, that helps to build the necessary. And it also allows for leaders and companies to make decisions that will hopefully build trust with this key stakeholder group. So as an example, One of the things that I actually did at the beginning of the pandemic, once we were all forced into to being, uh, to working from home, was I actually set up virtual 15 minute coffee chats with employees across my organization, every level, every function.

And it was ironic in that I actually never felt closer. To my employees and had a better pulse on what was happening through those 15 minute interactions. And by doing that, and what I would do is I would literally just block an hour of my day to get four. Floor employee meetings in, and I've been doing that for, uh, the last two years.

And it's allowed for us to solicit employee input and to adapt how it is that we engage with our employees, their experience as employees, as a result of the feedback that they've been able to share with me. 

[00:28:51] Jenn: And when you receive that feedback, I'm just fascinated by this. So I love the idea of a block every day or every week to really connect with employees.

What's your process? We have a lot of business leaders who listen in to this podcast and they, they love really like practical, Okay, what am I doing on Monday morning? What's your process for taking that feedback? and pulling it into strategic or steerco level discussions and, and really feeding that into the changes and taking action.

[00:29:22] Lisa: Good question. So first off, I started doing this, and to me it's all about leading by example and then encourage members of my own leadership teams to initiate a similar process. And then when we get together as a group on a biweekly basis, we actually have opportunity to talk about what it is that we're hearing from our employees and what are the, um, the key issues.

Are they issues that we can address? If so, how are we gonna go about doing it? But I think equally important when we're hearing feedback and we don't necessar, we can't do something about it there, and there's a reason for that. It is contingent upon us as a leadership team, as an organization to communicate to employees why it's not possible.

So as an example, We are in the professional services industry and in Canada, and it varies by province. Professional services firms typically have not paid over time. To non-management employees, and given all of the shifts that have occurred over the last couple of years, looking at overtime was an issue that had surfaced from time to time with some employees at the junior level asking why it was that we didn't.

Pay over time, and we actually made it a decision a couple of months ago that we are now gonna do it, it's the right thing to do. And so just this week we announced to our employees that those, and, and it's based on the, um, employment. Standards Act, um, how it is that they define who are exempt or non-exempt from overtime.

And so we introduced an overtime policy and announced that we would be paying it from the beginning of our fiscal year, which is July 1st, But we actually made a decision that we would do back pay beginning on January 1st. So it would be reflective of the time that they had put. Over the expected number of hours per week for the entire calendar year.

The response to that was so effusive because A, it demonstrated that we had listened to those employees who had asked the question, and you know, of course that. If a couple of employees ask that question, lots of others are talking about it, and it's the right thing to do, and particularly in inflationary times as the cost of living is going up, whatever it is that we can do as an organization to better support them financially, we're going to do.

It's a really good example of, uh, two of the elements that you shared with us off the top of this interview. A bit of vulnerability. Look, this is something that we haven't been doing. We feel it's the right thing to do. and also the action paired with that and communicating that, that's, that's what you're doing.

[00:32:31] Jenn: That's a really inspiring example. Now Lisa, I wanna shift gears slightly to talk, uh, briefly about diversity before we wrap up our interview. You are a leader. In building a diverse organization, and I'm just interested at a high level, what are some of the most important themes that you consider in increasing diversity within out Edelman?

[00:32:57] Lisa: So I oversee our Global Women's Equality Network, which was established in 2011. Richard Edelman made a commitment that, uh, when we looked at the data and composition of our workforce, The communications industry is dominated by women, but when you looked at the level of seniority and the percentage of women in those roles, there was a significant gap.

Males were significantly overrepresented in senior level positions, and so at the time, he committed that within five years we would get to gender parody at the most senior levels of our. Now, we didn't achieve that objective within his five year timeframe, but I took over in 2016, at that five year mark, he recommitted to.

Getting to that 50 50 goal, and we finally achieved it in July of 21. We're now at a point where we actually have more women than men in senior roles across our global network. So incredibly a proud of that achievement. But of course there are also other dimensions of diversity beyond gender. So as an organization, we absolutely are committed to diversifying our workforce from, uh, ethnic standpoint around sexual orientation, and the list goes on.

So one of the things that we have done is we've created affinity groups for those different communities. And we are also, from a recruitment standpoint, very actively looking at non-traditional ways and places where we can attract more diversity in terms of the candidates that we bring into the organization.

There's still much work to be done, um, but we're absolutely committed to doing that. 

[00:34:58] Jenn: First of all, congratulations. You know, exceeding 50 50, uh, in senior roles is a, is a huge achievement. And I'm interested even with this Great, uh, success, obviously, you're, you're also mentioning areas that involve next steps.

What are some of the hardest pieces of this, of building a truly diverse organization and, and how are you managing the tough bit? 

[00:35:22] Lisa: So it's one thing to commit to, uh, bringing in diverse peoples into an organization. It's another thing to ensure that they're, they feel included. The I in d and i and. We have feedback that sometimes those people, once they're in the organization still feel or feel like they're unseen and unheard.

So we've done extensive training across the organization, but specifically at the leadership level. Because it's really important for leaders to be thinking about how it is that they can be inclusive in their leadership approach, philosophy, style, and also to learn from people who come from different backgrounds.

Um, and that has proven to be successful, but it's absolutely a journey. And, you know, we're just at the start of it,

[00:36:21] Jenn: really inspiring. Lisa, um, I have one final question for you. I could ask dozens more, but I know that, uh, you have a busy schedule and it's one of my favorite questions. I love this question.

What if you were to choose one book that's really influenced the way you think or operate in your work? What book would that? 

[00:36:45] Lisa: So there are so many, but the one that I would say, and, and it's an oldie, but it's a goodie, and that is the no asshole rule. .

[00:36:56] Jenn: I love this. 

[00:36:57] Lisa: So my leadership philosophy is all about treating people.

With fairness, with respect, with dignity, and I will not work with assholes. I won't tolerate assholes in, in my organization. Um, because at the end of the day, and I, and I talked about this before, To me, employees are the most important stakeholder. And our responsibility as leaders of organizations is to ensure that our employees are motivated, inspired to do great work.

And if they are, the, the business results will follow. And so to me, that culture piece is the linchpin for any successful organization. You can't have assholes in a great workplace culture. 

[00:37:53] Jenn: Nobody wants assholes in their organization. Um, into that. Lisa Kimel, thank you so much for joining us. 

[00:38:02] Lisa: Thank you so much for having me.

It was a pleasure.

[00:38:13] Jenn: Thank you to Lisa for joining us. You can learn more about her work by checking out the links and the episode description or by visiting re.co.com/the future and sound. By the way, some of you may be wondering what happened to the dog that got kicked in the elevator by the ceo. I told you about him at the beginning of this episode.

Well, as Lisa clearly articulated in our conversation, That ceo, he lost trust if trust is predictive in nature. The board took a look at it and saw that it'd be very difficult for them to have confidence in this particular CEO's ability to rebuild trust with stakeholders, including employees, um, the general public, and that that would have a negative impact on the company in the long term.

So they fired. I mean, I think I got to that answer in an emotional way, but Lisa articulated it much more beautifully.

The Future and Sound Podcast is written and hosted by Jenen and produced by Chris Awe. This podcast is brought to you by Rico, a software as a services company, helping clients achieve resilient competitive advantage in the long term. If you enjoyed this podcast, don't forget to tell a friend about it, and if you have a moment, rate us in your podcast app.

Until next time, thanks for listening.