The Power of Trust

How Companies Build It, Lose It, Regain It

By: Sandra J. Sucher, Shalene Gupta

Narrated by: Sandra J. Sucher, Shalene Gupta, Jennifer Aquino

A groundbreaking exploration of the changing nature of trust and how to bridge the gap from where you are to where you need to be.

Trust is the most powerful force underlying the success of every business. Yet it can be shattered in an instant, with a devastating impact on a company’s market cap and reputation. How to build and sustain trust requires fresh insight into why customers, employees, community members, and investors decide whether an organization can be trusted.

Based on two decades of research and illustrated through vivid storytelling, Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta examine the economic impact of trust and the science behind it, and conclusively prove that trust is built from the inside out. Trust emerges from a company being the “real deal”: creating products and services that work, having good intentions, treating people fairly, and taking responsibility for all the impacts an organization creates, whether intended or not.

When trust is in the room, great things can happen. Sucher and Gupta’s innovative foundation for executing the elements of trust - competence, motives, means, impact - explains how trust can be woven into the day-to-day and the long term. Most importantly, even when lost, trust can be regained, as illustrated through their accounts of companies across the globe that pull themselves out of scandal and corruption by rebuilding the vital elements of trust.

©2021 Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta (P)2021 PublicAffairs

Critic reviews

“You can’t buy it. You can’t sell it. You can’t even see it. But if you had more of it, your employees would work harder, and your customers would stay with you longer. Trust is one of the most valuable intangible assets that a company can have and this book will show you how to get more of it. Packed with wonderful stories and practical examples, this book is a great read. TRUST me!” (Erin Meyer, INSEAD, author of The Culture Map and coauthor of No Rules Rules)

“The 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer found business is the most trusted institution. Business has a new mandate to lead as the world combats ongoing crises and widespread mistrust. Against this backdrop, The Power of Trust is a must-read. Both scholarly and practical, it draws on fields from ancient philosophy to modern management theory to analyze and deeply examine the core elements of business trust while taking a lively journey through real-world cases of trust won and lost (and won again). Professor Sandra Sucher and Shalene Gupta make a vital contribution to the trust conversation and provide a compelling call to action for CEOs to build trust by embracing a broader societal role.” (Richard Edelman, CEO, Edelman)

“Full of fresh insights brought to life by compelling examples, The Power of Trust is a rich and rewarding read. It’s also extremely timely. With more and more companies today pledging to balance the interests of all of their stakeholders, and not always put their shareholders first, Sandra Sucher and Shalene Gupta make clear that the driving question executives should be asking themselves every time they make a major decision is, ‘Will this enhance trust among those we claim to serve - or betray it?’” (Rick Wartzman, author of The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America)

Succinct but Impactful

Powered by compelling examples, Sucher and Gupta stay on point with chapters in just the right chunks of motives, impact, recovery, etc. This book doesn't try to do too much but keeps it succinct and thereby impactful.