The Trust Recession™ is real: CEOs and boards are taking action

Recently, my VisiVera LLC co-founder Woody Driggs and I were invited by Carolina Gonzalez Alcantara Lammoglia from EY to spend several days in Mexico City to meet with EY client CEOs, CHROs, and board members, from national and multinational companies. The topic was:

1. The Global Trust Recession. How today's growing levels of societal, government and business distrust can negatively impact multiple aspects an organization's performance including: erosion of brand value; lower sales and profitability; decreased innovation; employee dis-engagement; decline in customer loyalty; disruption of internal culture; financial underperformance, and more.
2. Ways to Proactively Mitigate the Negative Impacts of the Trust Recession. Including use of innovative diagnostics to identify and measure trust gaps; upskill executives and team leaders to become role models in applying the Trust Mindset and science-based trust building skills and behaviors; update to performance management platforms to ensure leaders are held accountable to building more trusted relationships inside and out.

During the course of our conversations most executives realized that many of their current business performance challenges could be traced back to trust gaps within their teams rather than traditional "root causes" they thought were the problem. As one said, “I thought it was our culture. But now I see—it’s a trust virus coming in from the outside.” Others recognized trust as a strategic and competitive advantage that is measurable, repairable and teachable.

This trip made clear that the Trust Recession is a global challenge. It is accelerating. It is an unstoppable external force that will try to invade an organization from the outside in. Most executives shared they were unfamiliar with the trust diagnostics, trust mindset, trust skills and trust building behaviors required to effectively respond to the trust virus before it deeply infects their organizations.

We’re honored that a top Mexican business publication, El Economista, picked up the story and interviewed us about VisiVera's mission as A Growth Accelerator for the Trust Recession. The English-language translation of the article can be read below.  The original Spanish can be found Here.   The article accurately captures what we heard again and again from the C-Suite during this trip. And also what we continue to hear from executives we talk to in every industry:

👉 Trust is eroding

👉 Belonging is fading

👉 Companies need to refresh their leadership and operational playbooks if their vision of growth and success includes being a trustworthy organization inside and out.

Thank you to everyone who welcomed us in Mexico City. This is just the beginning.

Trust... and Grow Well,

Jeff and Woody

#TrustRecession #VisiVera #TheTrustMindset #TrustandGrowWell

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ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Trust Recession: A Domino Effect on Employee Engagement and Profitability.

Published: May 13, 2025 | Updated: May 14, 2025

By Sonia Soto

When there is a lack of trust between organizations and employees, the entire system—including its foundations—weakens. This impacts the company’s profitability, just to name one variable.

A trust recession has a negative impact on business growth

In any kind of relationship, trust is the foundation—and that includes the workplace. So what happens when trust between organizations and employees is lost?

According to Jeff Stier, a technology and innovation expert at EY, we are currently experiencing a trust recession, which he defines as a decline in trust fueled by polarization, misinformation, and rapid change.

Unsurprisingly, this phenomenon negatively affects business growth, impacting everything from revenue to productivity, company culture, teamwork, and employees’ sense of belonging.

In fact, a Gallup report on the workplace reveals that only 48% of employees strongly agree that they trust their immediate supervisor.

The Trust Challenge: A Domino Effect on Business

According to VisiVera, when a trust recession occurs, the entire system—including its foundation—starts to weaken. This, in turn, impacts company profitability, creating a domino effect.

At the same time, customer loyalty declines and churn increases. Trust erosion also undermines employee engagement, motivation, and creativity.

At a time when transformation is the norm, the trust recession also affects change itself: innovation activities stall and adaptability slows down.

In terms of workplace culture, trust loss increases anxiety about job security, especially as AI continues to change job requirements and skill development needs.

Additionally, disconnects between strategy and operations, and an overemphasis on internal matters, reduce collaboration and stall critical decision-making, according to the founders of VisiVera: “The erosion of trust reduces belonging, making employees feel excluded, skeptical, or marginalized.”

The Virtuous Cycle: Belonging, Trust, and Results

Jeff Stier and Woody Driggs—co-founders of VisiVera, a consultancy focused on trust—state that trust leads to belonging, which fuels engagement, which ultimately drives productivity.

To activate this virtuous cycle, organizations and leaders must:

• Build trust – Employees who feel their coworkers and leaders have their backs create safe workplaces: “I feel safe here.”
• Foster belonging – When workers feel accepted, included, and seen as part of the team, it builds a culture of: “I matter here.”
• Generate engagement – A person who feels safe and believes they matter puts in their best effort, going beyond the bare minimum: “I care about what I do here.”
• Deliver better results – When trust, belonging, and engagement are strong, companies see higher performance: “We do more, and we do it better.”

According to VisiVera’s research:

• 88% of employee engagement can be attributed to their sense of belonging within the organization.
• And nearly half of what drives belonging comes from how much people trust those around them (49%).

Stier and Driggs conclude that while many executives consider trust to be a soft skill, the CEOs, executive teams and board members they met in Mexico agreed that "soft" is a misperception. In fact, being know as trustworthy brand or organization built on the foundation of trustworthy leaders, executives, employees, teams and cultures is: “strategic, measurable, a Force multiplier, and a competitive differentiator.”

Therefore, companies should view trust as an intangible asset that must be embedded and held to account as part of their corporate strategies.