Fortunately, it's easy to build trust in a business relationship. Here are the rules, based on a conversation with a true expert in trust-building Jerry Acuff, author of The Relationship Edge: The Key to Strategic Influence and Selling Success.

1. Be yourself.

Everybody on the planet has had unpleasant experiences with salespeople, and many have walked away from a sales situation feeling manipulated. So, rather than acting or sounding like a salesperson, simply act the way you would when meeting with a colleague.

2. Value the relationship.

If you want people around you to value having a relationship with you, you must truly believe that relationship building is important. You must also believe that you honestly have something of value to offer to the relationship.

3. Be curious about people.

People are drawn to those who show true interest in them. Curiosity about people is thus a crucial element of relationship building. Having an abiding fascination in others give you the opportunity to learn new things and make new connections.

4. Be consistent.

A customer's ability to trust you is dependent upon showing the customer that your behavior is consistent and persistent over time. When a customer can predict your behavior, that customer is more likely to trust you.

5. Seek the truth.

Trust emerges when you approach selling as a way of helping the customer–so make it your quest to discover the real areas where the you can work together. Never be afraid to point out that your product or company may not be the right fit.

Many of America’s economic woes could have been avoided, but for a lack of transparency.

I’d argue that transparency gives rise to leadership.

In an open environment, leadership is a must. It requires you to carefully choose the “people on the bus” who are worthy of trust and who will act in the business’ best interests with the information given to them. It also means that you’ll have to explain the information – to mentor and train your team – so they’ll know what it all means.

Transparency allows full and effective delegation. “Here’s the goal. Go make it happen.” Knowing the organization’s goals, financial status, and available resources allow confident decision-making.

Integrity – a cornerstone of leadership – goes hand-in-and with openness. Shady business practices are like fungus and vampires. They don’t thrive in the bright light of day.

Business owners who worry that their employees will know the company’s status are withholding information and keeping their employees in the dark – and still expecting good results. It’s much like asking someone to play a sport without keeping score.

Delegation? A secrecy-cloaked environment throws a blanket over every potential solution. Aside from the top leaders, nobody has the big picture: “What should I do? What can I do? What resources are available? What methods make sense for our current financial situation?” The lack of information will result in questions, false assumptions, and faulty decisions … making micro-management necessary.

The power that a crowd of contributors has to solve problems derives not just from its sheer size, although that is important, but from its diversity. It’s only because the members of the crowd have, as Raymond put it, “differing agendas and approaches” that they’re so effective at finding so many bugs (or so many Easter eggs) so quickly. If the participants shared similar outlooks, they’d all end up looking for the same things in the same places. What an unorganized, fairly random group of people provides is not just a lot of eyeballs but a lot of different ways of seeing. As University of Michigan professor Scott Page writes in his new book, The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Society (Princeton University Press, 2007), “When solving problems, diversity may matter as much as, or even more than, individual ability.”

Raymond also made another, very important observation. What makes the open source model so well suited to finding and fixing software flaws is that debugging is a task that requires little coordination among workers. Debuggers are able to sift through chunks of code in isolation — whether “splendid” or not — without knowing or caring what their fellow bug finders are doing. “Debugging,” as Raymond puts it, “is parallelizable.” All the debuggers have to do is communicate their findings and fixes to some central authority, like Linus Torvalds. The central authority takes care of synthesizing the work of the crowd, choosing the best contributions, melding them together into a coherent product, and then redistributing the work to the crowd for the next go-round.

Fortunately, it's easy to build trust in a business relationship. Here are the rules, based on a conversation with a true expert in trust-building Jerry Acuff, author of The Relationship Edge: The Key to Strategic Influence and Selling Success.

1. Be yourself.

Everybody on the planet has had unpleasant experiences with salespeople, and many have walked away from a sales situation feeling manipulated. So, rather than acting or sounding like a salesperson, simply act the way you would when meeting with a colleague.

2. Value the relationship.

If you want people around you to value having a relationship with you, you must truly believe that relationship building is important. You must also believe that you honestly have something of value to offer to the relationship.

3. Be curious about people.

People are drawn to those who show true interest in them. Curiosity about people is thus a crucial element of relationship building. Having an abiding fascination in others give you the opportunity to learn new things and make new connections.

4. Be consistent.

A customer's ability to trust you is dependent upon showing the customer that your behavior is consistent and persistent over time. When a customer can predict your behavior, that customer is more likely to trust you.

5. Seek the truth.

Trust emerges when you approach selling as a way of helping the customer–so make it your quest to discover the real areas where the you can work together. Never be afraid to point out that your product or company may not be the right fit.

 ... communication doesn’t end when you’re silent, it just lets others create your message!  And during times of uncertainty in organizations, the messages people create and then project into the silence are most likely to reflect their doubts, fears and anxieties, not what you hope they’ll think. And quite often their message may not accord at all with the facts or reality of the situation.

The salience of this for those senior leaders who keep on delaying communication because they’re “not ready,” is obvious: communication is going on whether or not you’re ready, only others are creating your messages for you!  I’ve actually seen cases where, by the time the most senior leader got around to saying something in the midst of an uncertain situation, no one believed them, because the fear-based rumor that passed for communication had become everyone’s perceived reality.

Using social networks to foster connections lets companies match the skills of people working all over the world who wouldn't easily find each other, said Eric Lesser, a research director at IBM's Institute for Business Value. It's especially valuable for companies built by acquisition, whose managers in different divisions often don't know each other, he said.

Take SuperValu, a collection of supermarket chains ranging from Shaw's in Boston to Albertsons in California. SuperValu last year used Yammer to build a network to connect 11,000 executives and store managers, chief information officer Wayne Shurts said. They've organized themselves into more than 1,000 groups to talk about specific challenges.

For example, 182 managers from different chains joined a group to mull common problems of running markets in college towns. Another 153 banded together to talk about running stores in beach communities, where business is seasonal. Those didn't replace any other process, because there was no way to do it before: The managers couldn't all be pulled from their stores for retreats or meetings, and the cost of getting them together would have been prohibitive, Shurts said.

One result: A promotion at college-oriented stores that sold 8,000 $99 mini-refrigerators last fall, each stuffed with $99 worth of coupons to bring the customers back for food. Another discussion led to college-town "beer pong" displays packaging ping-pong balls, red Solo cups and brewskis to fill them up. Both ideas were floated last spring and ready by August, he said.

"You've got to let the conversations happen, even if you might not like all of that conversation," Shurts said. "It's going to happen around the water cooler anyway."

Michael Dell simply gets it.  He understands that businesses can no longer afford to rest on their laurels while the digital bazaar transforms the world around them.  More importantly, however, Dell understands that in order to promote change he must lead by example.  No executive has all the solutions to the many questions surrounding the shifting corporate landscape, but at least Dell isn’t afraid to look for the answers.

 

Using Dell as our model of forward-thinking leadership, I offer these seven traits of what it takes to be an affective social executive.  Fidelman has expertly identified the traits of those executives unafraid or incapable of changing with the times, but now it’s time to seek out the antidote.

#1 The Malleable Mind

Think of the “Malleable Mind” as the counter to Fidelman’s “Short Sleeve Fat Tie Executive.”  Whereas Fat Tie Execs expect to be sole originators of all ideas, cruelly dictating company agenda from the confines of their office, Malleable Minds value the input of their employees.  They aren’t threatened by change—in fact they’re often excited by it, and actively encourage an environment of new ideas and approaches.  Malleable Minds recognize that employee initiative and collaboration are essential cornerstones of the social business, and they encourage their workers to utilize social media and discuss new ideas that might improve day-to-day operations.  Malleable Minds know that you can’t keep a good idea down for long, and see it as their job to absorb information and help put ideas into motion.

Identifiable Traits – Malleable Minds understand that they’re not the only ones with good ideas.  They are unburdened by ego, actively seek feedback on their own initiatives and welcome the opinions of others.  They understand that respect is earned not through an iron fist, but through and open mind.  They may be the boss, but they do not take their positions for granted.

I think a C-level social media role will be profoundly useful, particularly because it would be focused on business and not technology. Such a role provides the needed visibility to the rest of the C-suite that is required to drive real change. Perhaps most importantly, it would get companies to a place where they are accessing the truly transformative possibilities of social media and delivering real results. This would happen much faster than if social media responsibility remains fragmented, inconsistent, and spread haphazardly across the business.

Access to information and people is intoxicating. Creating an online portrait of who we are or who we want others to see is equality alluring.  But without direction, governance, and discipline, we are at risk of giving ourselves to the very networks we value rather than managing the platforms to our advantage. Our participation must be inspired by purpose and parameters. No, we are not obligated to connect with everyone who connects with us. We are obligated to maintain balance in who we are, what we value, and equally the value we invest in the communities in which we participate.

As Clay Shirky once observed, “There’s no such thing as information overload — only filter failure.”

My take? “Information overload is a symptom of our desire to not focus on what’s important.” It’s a choice.

If you try to order these 12 activities then the sequential order would be:

1. Get an intranet sponsor

Their involvement can be crucial in helping you get things done or decisions made. They can act as your ally in giving clear and decisive intranet leadership.  The intranet sponsor may also have a dual role and also be a key stakeholder.

2. Define SMART objectives for the intranet

Ask and answer the questions – “Why is the intranet there?” and “How will we know if the intranet is a success?”  This can be done in discussion with the sponsor and in conjunction with the stakeholders, but it shouldn’t be a once and for all activity.  There is benefit in revisiting and refining the objectives, particularly after concluding the activities undertaken in step 3 and 4.

3. Observe end users

In the belief that an essential intranet is a key working tool it has to be of use and benefit to end users.  To that end you need to be aware of how people across the organisation work.  What are their daily tasks, what information do they need to help them make decisions and how do they source it.  While surveys can help this, it is only through heuristic observation that you get a clear picture.

4. Determine user expectations

While getting this information you will offer no guarantee of everything being delivered but it will help you uncover the “must have” elements as well as the “would like to have” ones.  It can help you make decisions on what features and content should be prioritised for the intranet launch, and what can follow on as part of the intranet evolution (see step 12)

5. Compile content inventory

Having observed and interviewed users as the information and task expectations you can list the content you currently have and assess what content needs to be on the new intranet.  Is current content fit for purpose, is it accurate, relevant and valued? As a rough guide it is not uncommon to cull 25% of existing.

6. Promote the intranet

In fact this is something that has already began, as during steps 3 and 4; observation and interviews you will have mentioned the new intranet and hopefully begun to enthuse people that something better is coming.  As well as word of mouth and informal promotion it can also be the first marketing activity.  A teaser campaign to build anticipation for the new intranet could be one of the first obvious marketing activities for the new intranet. It could be focused around a naming competition (see step 10.)