My Digital Brainstorm Summary Edition #1: It Starts With Trust
Trust is essential in all areas of life.
Welcome to the first My Digital Brainstorm series roundup. In the first series of posts, I focused on the important role trust plays in building business success.
I began by introducing the purpose of the newsletter and then examined how trust impacts everything from employee engagement to the sales of your products and services.
Below is a summary of the first series of posts that were published on the My Digital Brainstorm newsletter on Substack.
Prologue: The Importance of Knowing Where to Look
This brief prologue post shares advice that many business professionals can benefit from. While expertise is important, knowing where to find accurate information can be just as valuable. Read this prologue post on Substack.
Introduction: My Digital Brainstorm
This post introduces two Substack newsletters: My Digital Brainstorm and The Informed Voter. It highlights the rapid pace of technological change, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence. It also points out that this technological change can lead to disruption and political unrest. The post sets the stage for a thoughtful exploration of how business professionals can navigate today’s evolving landscape. Read the full introductory post on Substack.
It Starts With Trust
This post examines the role trust plays in achieving business success. It emphasizes that it directly impacts a company’s bottom line, with studies showing that trust influences purchasing decisions and that consumers are more likely to recommend trusted brands to others. It also notes that breaking trust can cause customers to take their business elsewhere. Read this post on Substack.
Why Earning Your Employees’ Trust Should Be a Top Priority
This post continues the discussion on trust, focusing on its role in the workplace and its impact on a company’s bottom line. Drawing on recent research, the analysis highlights how trust influences employee motivation, productivity, retention, and overall organizational performance. Building a culture of trust not only enhances operational efficiency and profitability but also supports recruiting efforts, as many employees report they have recommended working for companies they trust. Read this post on Substack.
When You Put Employees First, Everyone Wins
This post emphasizes the important role employees play in a company’s success and argues that businesses thrive when they prioritize creating positive work environments. Drawing on recent research, the post highlights how a positive work environment can directly affect customer satisfaction, employee retention, profitability, and a brand’s reputation. The newsletter concludes by encouraging business leaders to consider their employees’ well-being when making business decisions, not just because it drives business results, but because it is the right thing to do. Read this post on Substack.
Building Trust Through Ethical Leadership
This post examines the important role ethical business practices play in fostering and sustaining trust with consumers and employees, while also helping to prevent corporate crises. In contrast, it also emphasizes that unethical leadership can foster toxic workplace cultures and increase the risk of crises that could damage a brand’s reputation and threaten its long-term survival. Read this post on Substack.
Who’s Seen as Responsible for the Corporate Crisis? Why It Matters
This post introduces Dr. W. Timothy Coombs’ Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT). It outlines SCCT’s core principles, including the importance of prioritizing the elimination of physical and psychological threats to stakeholders, as well as expressing concern for the well-being of the victims of the crisis before addressing reputational issues. It explains that stakeholder perceptions of a company’s responsibility for a crisis, along with its crisis history and prior reputation, significantly influence the level of reputational damage. The newsletter encourages organizations to use SCCT when developing crisis communication plans and when managing real-world crises. Read this post on Substack.
Stay Connected
You can subscribe to receive new newsletters as they are published by visiting chadjthiele.substack.com.
If you prefer to receive the newsletters in a summary format, you can also subscribe to the summary version in this post. Either way, I hope you continue to join me on this journey.
Best regards,
Chad Thiele, M.S.
Note: I used AI tools to help write this newsletter. I used ChatGPT to generate a summary paragraph for each post and then edited them using Grammarly. I wrote the first draft of the remaining content myself and refined it using ChatGPT and Grammarly.