On Trust
Eduardo Nofuentes
Photo taken by Bianca Tuckwell
Trust is a word that is everywhere in the workplace these days.
We see it in company values, we hear it in meetings and we use it as a reason for things going or not going well in organisations. And for good reason!
Trust is a key foundation of cooperation; and in today’s world of work, you can’t achieve much without cooperation between people, departments and functions.
But as much as we hear it all the time; I get a sense that it is one of these words that is used a lot, but we don’t really understand its meaning.
Trust—or the belief that someone or something can be relied on to do what they say they will—is a key element of social relationships. It is critical for romantic relationships, friendships, interactions between strangers, and social groups on a large scale. Indeed, society as a whole would likely fail to function in the absence of trust.
In my mind, it is one of the top elements or even the key element of success in organisations.
How well trust flows through an organisation. The better it flows up, down and sideways, the quicker that company will be able to make decisions, react and build an empowered and engaged workforce, and deliver more value to their customers.
I see trust in two different ways; firstly, as how it is created and secondly, how we “give” it. This applies to anyone in an organisation, but it is even more critical as a leader or business owner.
So how is trust created?
David Maister, former Harvard School Professor, talks about trust through the lenses of being trusting and trustworthy. He uses “The Trustworthiness Equation” to describe three things that help create trust.
The first one is credibility; which is the experience we bring, the words we say and the way others experience our expertise.
The second one is reliability, which is the actions we take, our predictability and how dependable people find us.
And finally, intimacy, which is the level people perceive they can confide in us and they find us discrete and empathetic.
So according to Maister, the sum of Credibility, Reliability and Intimacy is what sits at the top of the trustworthiness equation and can help us build trust with others.
On the other hand, there is one element that he puts as a denominator in the equation that destroys trust: Self Orientation; namely, the extent to which others feel we are focused on ourselves rather than on them. So, no matter how high your credibility, reliability and intimacy are, if people feel you are focused on yourself, building trust will be difficult.
And what about “giving” trust?
How to give trust is one of the puzzles I see many leaders trying to resolve these days. Leaders, intuitively know that to create empowered and agile teams, they need to give trust.
But how do you do that? Is it an all-of-nothing thing? What if I give too much and then things get out of hand and/or my teams start committing mistakes? How can I balance that?
In my opinion, giving trust is not about giving “carte blanche” to everyone to do whatever they want. There needs to be some guardrails around giving trust.
What has worked for me and I have seen work really well is to use “team alignment guardrails” in order to give trust.
So, what are those team alignment guardrails?
Every team and organisation should be very clear about their purpose (why they exist); their vision (where are they going); their values (how are they going to get there) and their DNA (how they want to be perceived by others).
If those four things are very clear, then you can give trust to your people and let them use those “guardrails” as their compass. So, for example, if one of your agreed values is collaboration and someone in your team continues to behave as a “lone wolf”; then you can have a conversation about that “guardrail” not being met with that person.
I remember a real example of one of my clients where their travel policy was one line: “Book your flights and accommodation as you would do it for yourself”.
Now, the thing is that one of the values of that company was “Act like an owner”. This meant that nobody “abused” the system and everyone was trying to do their best for the business. The result is a lot of time saved in useless approval processes which tells your employees that they are not trusted and stops them from feeling empowered or doing what matters to your customers.
And when in doubt, just remember that trust giving simply means giving a head start to the beautiful and productive relationship you're about to build together.
What do you think?