Most of the organizations I’ve worked with in the past 15 years have had some variation of “trust” in their statement of core values. Sometimes they use words like “reliability” or “confidence,” but at its root, they are talking about trust. One of the first questions I ask the leaders in these companies is, what “trust” means in their organization. The most common response: “Well, we don’t have a specific model, but we all know what it is,” or sometimes I’m told that “it is difficult to put into words, but we all know it when we see it.” For me, these are simply ways of saying, “we don’t know.” And if we don’t know what trust is in a way we can clearly articulate how can we be sure we are living it and how can we teach it to new employees so that it remains a value of the company? It seems everyone wants it, but nobody knows what it is.
If “fiscal responsibility” is one of these organizations’ values, they can show forecasts, reports, budgets, and financial models they use to be sure they are living “fiscal responsibility,” how it is achieved and how to teach it to new employees. And if employees don’t adopt it as part of how they behave, they will not continue to be employees. You can bet they don’t leave it to chance.
We have overlooked the importance of trust and simply “hoped” it would appear.
Why do we pay attention to one and not to the other? Generally, we pay attention to those things we think are important to our success. Somehow we have overlooked the importance of trust and simply “hoped” it would appear. Hope is a strategy but not a very reliable one.
So what is trust? One simple, clear way of defining trust is that it is ‘what allows us to coordinate action.’ And since organizations only exist to produce results by coordinating action, it clearly has a central role in making things work. Another way of thinking about it is that it is ‘a risk assessment tool.’ It is the tool I use to gauge the risk I’m taking by interacting (for instance accepting a promise from someone) with others.
And how do I assess trust? Through three considerations:
Do I believe the other person is sincere in what they are saying? In other words, what they are thinking and what they are telling me are the same. No hidden agenda.
Do they have the competence (capability + capacity) to do what they are saying they will do?
Have they been reliable when they have made similar promises in the past?
Every organization or team I have worked with has benefitted enormously by creating a shared interpretation of trust, articulating, and learning to teach and use it. It is one of the most critical missing skills I see no matter what type of organization I’m working with or where in the world it is.
How would a shared interpretation of trust improve your organization? Please share your views with us.