A management team has a view of how the organization is perceived by its environment. That view comes from conversations, from signals that are picked up, from experience. It is rarely tested against what stakeholders actually say when asked separately. That is not a matter of carelessness. It is a structural consequence of position: those on the inside hear a different version than those on the outside.
The question in the title of this page is not rhetorical. Why does your view differ — and what do you do with that difference once it becomes visible? That is the question that remains after the measuring has been done. We do not answer it for you. We deliver the difference.
The Trust Baseline consists of two parts. An internal survey among management and those directly involved: how is the relationship with important stakeholders assessed, what commitments have been made, how stable does the trust feel. An external survey among those same stakeholders: how is the relationship experienced, what has stuck, what is missed.
The first outcome is not a judgment about who is right. It is the difference between the two views. That difference is where the Trust Baseline starts, and it is also where this front door stops: we measure the difference between what management thinks and what is said. We do not know what a stakeholder thinks until he says it himself, and that is exactly why the external survey is needed alongside the internal one.
More on how to recognize that difference and what logically follows, can be found on how you recognize a blind spot and what you do with the difference.
A survey sometimes produces a picture that does not match what the management team expected or hoped for. That is not a malfunction in the measuring instrument. It is the reason for measuring. The question of what to do with an outcome that is unwelcome is a separate question, and it is addressed on what you do with an outcome you don't like.
This page only describes the measurement itself and the instrument that follows. What the organization subsequently decides is up to the organization.
"We have a good feeling about that relationship" is a statement without a reference point. The feeling may be correct. It may also be based on the last conversation, the last email, the person who voiced their opinion the loudest. Without an external survey alongside the internal view, there is no way to distinguish between a justified feeling and an outdated picture. Why a feeling is not a measurement, and what the difference does with that, is worked out on why a feeling is not a measurement and what you do with the difference.
It is a pattern that recurs more often than expected: a small commitment that is not kept weighs more heavily on a stakeholder's trust than a large investment that fails to materialize. A promise to follow up, a date that was mentioned, an action that was promised in a conversation — those things are remembered by the person who heard them, and often forgotten by the person who spoke them.
That is the reason the Trust Baseline does not stop at a one-time measurement. A commitment tracker is added: a place where commitments are recorded at the moment they are made, so that they do not depend on the memory of one person. In addition, there is a signal rhythm: a fixed cycle in which it is checked whether the picture still holds, instead of waiting until a stakeholder raises the alarm.
Not every stakeholder whose view differs from yours has the same amount of influence on the organization or is affected to the same degree by its choices. To be able to prioritize the difference between views, a way is needed to place influence and impact alongside each other. What that instrument precisely entails can be found on what an influence-impact matrix is, and how to score influence in concrete terms can be found on how you score influence.
The Trust Baseline is under construction. There is not yet an environment in which you can start an internal and external survey yourself today. What there is: a clear description of what the instrument will do, and a waiting list for those who want to know when it becomes available. We do not offer anything here that does not yet exist. Those who sign up will be notified as soon as the first version is ready for use.
The difference between what an organization thinks it does and what actually happens does not only play out in the relationship with stakeholders. It also plays out within the organization itself, in the question of which part of the work is still genuinely human work and which part can now be filled in a different way. FTE to AI offers the work scan for this: a calculation method that maps out, per task, which part of the work can be taken over by AI. Where the Trust Baseline exposes the difference between internal view and external signal, the work scan exposes the difference between what a role currently entails and what part of it is actually still waiting on a human.
Vraag maar. Het interessantste antwoord komt meestal van wie u nog niet heeft gesproken.
Answers come from this site’s knowledge base. Not tailored advice, and not a scan of your company.