Nikki Haley: Telling the Truth to Establish Trust 

From connecting the dots to telling the truth to pinpointing the number one issue for businesses today, Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (2017 – 2019), supplied some riveting answers and examples to the questions posed during her keynote address held on Monday morning. Her guidance not only involved specific examples related to her time as governor of South Carolina and as an ambassador, but also to her regional and international business experience—which was especially applicable for the crowd at her MODEX keynote. 

As moderator Mitch Mac Donald, Group Editorial Director, DC Velocity, explained, there has never been a time where local state and federal policies have been so tethered to private sector business activity and community. 

Haley has spent her whole life trying to forge paths where none exist and build bridges that connect people, communities and businesses. She has learned that you “don’t talk about how you are different.” Your job is to show people how you are similar. And, when faced with a challenge, talk about the things that everyone agrees on first. 

She has also learned the art of negotiation and the resolve it can take to tell the truth, which is a key part of any business. It is about understanding their fears, she said. If you can address them and give them real goals, you can come to a better solution and gain their trust. For example, when Haley was governor she went on a “secret” trip to Sweden to talk to Volvo to convince them to establish a business base in South Carolina. She told them, “We win together or we lose together. And I don’t lose.” She secured the partnership and closed the deal. Negotiating isn’t about you, she said. You have to talk about what the other one is waiting to hear. You have to listen first. Be patient. When they feel like they are heard, you will establish trust. “My job was not to have them like me. My job was to earn their respect and trust that what I said was the truth.” 

She also stressed the importance of education and its role with business. “Institutions need to be listening to businesses,” she said. Private businesses are the first ones to come up with creative and innovative platforms, while education institutions, not so much. “We have to make sure we connect the dots on that front…..People don’t want to be left behind.” As governor, she connected the dots to bring more international business into South Carolina, which meant partnering with educational institutions to ensure international businesses had the trained talent they needed to run their organizations in South Carolina. The results tell the story; “98% of the people we trained were hired by these companies,” she said. 

Technology is an important part of education, too. We need education and we need educational institutions to change with the times, she said. “Yes, technology will take away jobs but it will create ones too.” 

Learning and training never end, at all levels and positions in a business. It is how businesses adapt to crises, such as the coronavirus. “It is going to get a little more uncomfortable before it gets better,” she said. But every sort of crisis is an opportunity to get better, she said. “This virus is an opportunity to understand what happens when you have a global supply chain that can turn around and affect you.” She anticipates we will see a change in processes and a change in practices, in the long run. Though, it will be a matter of making sure we are strong at home first, then reaching out to do more. 

But her number one concern: cybersecurity. “It is the biggest concern that I have.” She said it is really important that businesses today have a cyber plan. Businesses should have it as a number one issue and government needs to work on it too. “Cyber effects are everyday life, all the time.” 

The decisions a leader has to make aren’t always embraced by everyone, said Haley. Being a leader is not always doing what is popular. A leader had to be able to say things that are a little uncomfortable to say, said Haley.  “I bet we agree on 90% of everything,” she said. That leftover 10% are “the issues that make us fall apart a little bit.” But leadership is not always about what you say, but what you do. Leadership is action, she explained. “When you see something isn’t working, it is your job to communicate why it isn’t working and what you can do to change it.”