After 40 plus years of working for and with private and public organizations, I have found a steady erosion of trust among boards of directors, elected and appointed officials, executives, senior management, employees, and organized labor. Consumer and customer confidence in products and services regardless of whether or not they are provided by government continues to wane. Organizational values such as integrity, respect, courtesy, transparency, innovation, and quality service are noble but absent trust they are rendered meaningless.
So why is trust so important at work? Steven Covey believes that “Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It is the foundational principle that holds all relationships together.” When trust is present, people step forward and do their best work, together, and efficiently. They have a common purpose, take risks, think out of the box, have each other’s backs, and communicate openly and honestly. What I have seen is when trust is absent, people jockey for position, do not share information, play it safe, and talk about rather than to one another (this a common human behavior that undermines teamwork). Trust is very fragile. It is easy to break, easy to lose and one of the hardest things to get back. As children we are encouraged to trust and respect others – parents, relatives, teachers, doctors, religious leaders, police officers, fire fighters, etc. However, what we learn as we mature is there simply is no trust without risk; trust without risk is an oxymoron. Benito Mussolini said “It’s good to trust others but, not to do so is much better.” It certainly is less risky.
The literature identifies three types of trust: 1) Strategic Trust – trust employees have in leaders to make the right strategic decisions, 2) Personal Trust – trust employees have in their managers to treat employees fairly, and 3) Organizational Trust – the trust employees have in the organization itself and not in an individual. When assessing Organizational Trust employees are assessing whether the organization makes good policy decisions, develops well designed processes, and/or keeps its promises. The three types of trust are interconnected; any time someone in a leadership or management position violates one type of trust, it will most certainly adversely affect an employee’s perception of the other types of trust. For years I have reminded executives that trust must be earned and continuously measured. Robert Galford and Anne Seibold Drapeau (HBR, February 2003) observed that if employees think an organization acted in bad faith, they will rarely forgive and they surely will never forget.
Don Meinert (SHRM, May 24, 2018) reported that of 1,202 U.S. working-age adults surveyed, 23 percent said they would offer more ideas and solutions, and 21 percent said they would be willing to work longer hours, if they trusted their leaders. Furthermore, 33 percent indicated they would stay longer with an employer if its leaders kept their promises, and 28 percent said they would extend their tenure if transparency was practiced at all levels. These are interesting findings especially for an organization experiencing a high turn-over rate.
This begs the question, should organizations invest time and resources in building trust? Will organizations reap their ROI? My answer is yes! First of all, organizations have to recognize that the lack of trust is contributing to employee skepticism, job dissatisfaction, low morale, sick-time abuse, turnover, lost productivity, and increased allegations of favoritism and discrimination. Organizations we have worked with and studied usually attribute this behavior to a leadership void, mismanagement, outdated or poorly thought out policies, unclear mission and goals, lack of consensus on the nature of a problem, inflexible merit systems, poor labor/management relations, passive/aggressive behavior, hubris and arrogance, unrealistic organization expectations, millennials, fear of change, and poor communication. And the list goes on and on.
For some reason, organizations are reticent to acknowledge the root cause of this behavior is a lack of trust. Galford and Seibold asked a group of managers whether they and their closest managerial colleagues are trustworthy and most will claim that they themselves are trustworthy and most of their colleagues are as well. Why - because “I am straight with their people” or “she keeps her promises”. When they later asked these managers whether they thought they and their colleagues were capable of building trust within the organization, a sizable percentage said they have little or no confidence in the group’s capacity to build and maintain trust. This would suggest that the lack of trust is not because they themselves are not trustworthy but rather the inability of the group to be trusted.
Rather than focusing on strategies for building trust, organizations will focus on organizational performance or management systems deficiencies. Resources are allocated for efficiency and effectiveness studies, performance metrics, leadership and management training, staff development, employee recognition, team building, employee relations, workforce diversity training, strategic planning, and employee engagement. Greater emphasis is placed on employee performance evaluations, technology enhancements, greater transparency, flexible work schedules, work/life balance, telecommuting, and equal employment opportunities for all. Oftentimes, organizations are reorganized, non-performers are disciplined and ineffective leaders and managers are either terminated or replaced. What we have found is these are band aid approaches intended to mitigate the adverse effects of the perceived problems. Building trust within an organization and externally with customers and other stakeholders served by the organization will go a long way to helping an organization identify the real problems.
What can an organization do to build trust? David Horsager, CEO of Trust Edge Leadership Institute recommends the following 8 C’s –
1. Clarity. Give employees a clear vision of where you want to go and what their role is.
2. Compassion. Leaders who care more about others than themselves inspire trust.
3. Character. Choose to do what’s right rather that what’s easy.
4. Competency. Stay relevant and capable.
5. Commitment. Stick with your employees in the face of adversity.
6. Connection. Cultivate strong relationships with workers.
7. Contribution. Produce results.
8. Consistency. What one does all the time shapes what others expect of us.
Amanda Setilli (Career Press, 2017) provides some common mistakes organizations make that destroy trust –
1. Avoiding conflict. Discouraging disagreements stifles open discussions.
2. Breaking promises. When you do not follow through on things you say you are going to do.
3. Focusing on compliance. Instead of implementing layers of rigid rules share the end goal and trust employees will do the right thing.
4. Failing to communicate. It’s always better to tell the truth than to be silent. Employees want honesty.
5. Assuming trust. Work diligently on trust, build trust and check to be sure it is there.
The takeaway for this is that too little trust and too much fear in a workplace results in a toxic work environment. We, as a society, are now living with a human virus that is threatening the world and fosters fear and uncertainty. Daily we are asked to trust our national leaders to be transparent about the health risk of this virus and what is being done ensure the health and welfare of all Americans. We watch and listen closely to what is being communicated to avoid panic and mitigate fear. We are being asked to trust our national leaders to make sound decisions and do the right thing. This brings to mind a famous quote of Friedrich Nietzche that I hope we will never have to reiterate - “I’m not upset that you lied to me. I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”