This morning I had the pleasure of hearing Sam Palmisano (Chairman, President, and CEO) of IBM speak on the topic of Leadership, Trust, and the Globally Integrated Enterprise.  IBM and the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore were kind enough to make this event possible, and many thanks to them.

What really caught my eye was Sam’s “overriding” interest in trust.  Above all other issues, globalization has raised the importance of trust.  He asked us how we can ensure trust amongst all stakeholders when business uses increasingly distributed models?

 To illustrate, Sam discussed the international corporation (operates out of the home country and sells goods internationally), the multinational model (many company locations overseas and all of which are miniature versions of the home HQ), and the globally integrated enterprise (all functions and services are distributed around the world, integrated fully via technology, and the company literally becomes a global enterprise). 

So how do you build and maintain trust in a globally integrated enterprise?  Sam’s answer was to “lower the center of gravity.”  Decision making needs to be pushed downward and you need to attract and develop the right people who can make these decisions within the context of a lowered center of gravity.  But people are people…and they will make mistakes or do something they shouldn’t.  The company’s leadership will remain responsible for these missteps and it is a fundamental duty of leadership to address these issues proactively and wisely. 

This is all very general and the talk was short (no more than 25 minutes).  But the ideas are interesting and I am sure we are able to tease out some useful material.  For me, I cannot help but make connections back to Edelman’s Trust Barometer.  Sam say’s trust is of “overriding” importance, and Edelman tells us that businesses generally receives little trust around the world (but more than media and government, generally).

It sounds to me like trust–on many levels–is in fact an overriding issue of corporate leadership.