Trust is in short supply. And its scarcity is affecting everyone in the west.
Our politicians know this. They struggle to respond to voter disrespect as they strive for elusive "authenticity". Policymakers deal with the consequences and complications this causes every day. And business increasingly understands it too, and must now act.
The trust deficit can be particularly troubling for governments, who depend on the private sector to inform and deliver much of our public policy and who need reliable, well-respected partners.
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We saw the evidence most clearly in the recent EU referendum campaign. The voice of business leaders in the campaign went largely unheeded, despite – or perhaps because of – their seniority and experience. At one point, the authority of all "experts" was dismissed, certainly diminished. The result demonstrated the gap that has opened up between governors and the governed, and between businesses and their consumers and employees.
This was the topic of the Management Consultancies Association’s recent Annual Debate, held last month. What can business do to win back trust? Why has it taken so long to recover from the shock of the financial crisis? What is the role of ethics and reputation? How should business view its role in wider society, beyond shareholders, customers and staff?
Almost all of our audience of senior consultants and their clients recognised that business needs to do more to improve its reputation with the general public, to share a greater understanding about the role and contribution of business and to demonstrate its commitment to public – as well as private – benefits.
"These are precisely the times – moments of great disquiet and distrust – when industries need to be strong and to stand up for what they believe in"
One of our speakers, Ben Page of IpsosMORI, reported that only 4% of the public say that business makes them proud to be British. Maybe more encouragingly, 85% want British business to do well.
Labour MP Stephen Kinnock, also on the panel, and whose constituency includes the steel works at Port Talbot, argued that the Brexit vote was a "wake-up call", and that the result expressed – in part at least – the loss of support for business leaders in many parts of the country.
One reaction to this would be a strategy of "heads beneath the parapet" – to hope that the criticism lands elsewhere. And maybe hope that these difficulties are temporary and will blow over. After all, some voters may already rue the fact that they didn’t listen more carefully to the warnings of business during the EU campaign.
My view is different. These are precisely the times – moments of great disquiet and distrust – when industries need to be strong and to stand up for what they believe in. And they need to do so collectively and publicly, coming together for a common goal.
In our industry we’ve done that with Consulting Excellence, a new and ground-breaking initiative for consulting firms that belong to the MCA.
The scheme requires firms to sign up to nine key principles for modern consulting, grouped under the headings of Ethical Behaviour, Client Service and Value, and Professional Development. It is then up to each firm to decide and to communicate how they live up to these commitments.
This isn’t regulation, but nor is it a lowest-common-denominator approach. Rather, Consulting Excellence uses the power of transparency and scrutiny to support firms that strive to be as good as they can.
We know from our research that Consulting Excellence will help our firms to attract really talented individual consultants, particularly young people, to work for them. And it will also help all clients – in public and private sectors – to buy consulting well.
So I am delighted that Consulting Excellence has already been backed by John Manzoni, chief executive of the civil service, on behalf of the government as a whole. And I know that this is the sort of initiative that will give the Crown Commercial Service, as well as individual departments, real confidence in their engagement with consultancies.
Consulting will have a special role to play in post-Brexit Britain. We are the industry that reaches all parts of our economy and society, that drives innovation and change, that mobilises talent and expertise. Consulting can help government through the hard work of the next few years, even as it embarks on new changes to meet the challenges of the Spending Review, while also enabling business and our communities to thrive.
We will do this best in a climate of trust and confidence. All of our industry’s efforts will be more powerful and effective because of Consulting Excellence.