10. Shiv Shivkumar on Trust at Praxis

Shiv Shivakumar is the Group Executive and President of Corporate Strategy & Business Development at Aditya Birla Group. He spoke about building TRUST in an Untrusting world at Praxis. He spoke about trust is the essence of all relationships as every relationship is based on trust. In our workplace, we always tend to do our best work when our boss trusts us. This makes us never want to let our boss down hence, it makes us work hard and put extra effort. Faith, reliable, commitment, responsibility, confidence, assurance, benefits, conviction are all the words we associate with trust. He gave us the answers to why this world untrusting:
• Poor leadership
• Doing the wrong thing
• Rapid change and inability to cope with it
• Fake news
• Greed- pay inequality
• Not bothered about me
• Nothing permanent
• litigation
He mentioned that nowadays there is no contract between two human beings, but contract with only the deals. He spoke about how important perceptions are and how they matter. He questioned us on what do we trust in this world? Which city do women trust to be safe? Which leader will you trust? Which colleague do you trust? The one who keeps secrets rather than the one who blabbers about what you tell him. In our work we tend to trust leaders with AIM, authentic and not arrogant, institution builder not individualistic and motivational not someone malicious. At a brand level, there are only 33% of consumers say they trust the brand they use. Which is a problem as well as an opportunity. He was the Sr. Vice President of Emerging Market in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and the Managing Director of India for Nokia. He spoke about Nokia’s journey as the most trusted brand from the 71st rank in the year 2004 to being in first in the year 2007 to 2010. He ended his session by giving the PR leaders some tips:
-SPIN is a SIN
-Tell the truth
-Don’t dribble in information
-All leaders are not good spokespersons
-Media has a job to do