Burson-Marsteller

“I used to be a peaceful man…”

by Maria Lazarimou on 4th August 2011 • The Cast Blog

“I used to be a peaceful man, but they (the politicians) have hit me where it hurts the most…they deprived me of the possibility to give to my kids the possibility to dream”

This is an actual verbatim from a qualitative research, exploring the motives and behavioral drivers of the “Indignant” and it most eloquently describes the unprecedented loss of trust of the Greek people towards all kinds of institutions, including the corporate world.

As I was writing on our own local blog, the Advocates : “When, Jeremy Galbraith, starts his recent article in The Cast Blog with the word Greece you feel that it isn’t necessarily flattering, especially when the words that follow are turmoil, demonstrations, Spain and Portugal. Even more so, when all the above are mentioned in the context of a pan-European survey that portrays a crisis of trust towards institutions and enterprises.”

This is not new. A series of recent research have all come to the same sad conclusion.

Trust is by far the one and only relevant leitmotif of the current political rhetoric in Greece.

In the course of the decades that followed our country’s passage to Democracy after the military Junta, the following concepts have been used as leitmotifs  to characterize the political eras of the last 35 years:

In 1973, DEMOCRACY was the word Constantine Karamanlis used to mobilize Greeks to follow him in the restoration of the regime which was born right here in this country several thousands of years ago.

In 1981, Andreas Papandreou knew that CHANGE would appeal like nothing else to the hearts and minds of the Greek people.

In 1996, Costas Simitis used the word MODERNISATION to respond to the Greek peoples’ expectations to live in a contemporary European country, an equal part of the EU and subsequently the EMU.

In 2004, Costas Karamanlis knew that Greeks would vote for him if he promised to RE-ESTABLISH the State. How appealing and engaging this leitmotif was. Yet only a few years later – in  2007 –  he would admit that what he actually meant, was a MILD MODERNIZATION…. 

In 2009, finally, George Papandreou won the elections by promising that “THERE IS MONEY”, of course failing to clarify that this money would only be available through the signing of a “Memorandum” with the EU, ECB and IMF “Troika”.

Surprisingly enough Greeks complied with austerity measures with no significant complaints, since in their collective wisdom and honesty to themselves they knew that they were also partly responsible for this mess.

Then why is it that now, a year later, so many of them have completely lost trust and are out there in the streets demonstrating their anger and frustration?

Because they have had enough of being betrayed over and over again.

“We cannot be like we were before, because nothing is like it used to be any more” 

In peoples’ minds “before” is when dreams were possible, plans seemed feasible and the institutions were still somewhat credible, or at least tolerated. On the contrary “now” is experienced as being full of “dead-ends” and “without light at the end of the tunnel”. Thus, any planning in life seems like a utopia and institutions (mainly the political world) are out of touch.

At the same time, negative or even sometimes humiliating coverage of Greece in international media is hurting the citizens’ self-esteem, as well as the famous Greek “filotimo”, as they feel it is not fair for a whole Nation to become a defaming stereotype because of the unethical behavior of their politicians.

The same loss of trust is also true for the corporate world, which -once more – is a consequence of the economic/social crisis, but also of the rise of prices, the benefit of businesses at the expense of society as a whole and the increase of unemployment.

The challenge for companies and their spokespersons is that the majority of consumers considers them as dishonest and believes that most communications from companies are lies.

This shows the fundamental need to re-build corporate reputations and change the way companies communicate toward their stakeholders.

Our Trust & Purpose Survey gives valuable communication lessons to all of us who consult clients, but also to our clients, who in the era of Social Media, have to learn to listen to consumers and society and to meet their expectations in order to rebuild their reputation and regain trust.

 (Maria Lazarimou, is Chief Executive Officer of Advocate/Burson-Marsteller, Greece)

---