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Copyright 1999 AXIS Performance Advisors, Inc.
by Marsha Willard. Copyright 1999 AXIS Performance Advisors.
Teams and trust. Seems you can't have one without the other. Many organizations can readily recognize when trust is missing but get stymied when they try to do something about it. AXIS, in partnership with The Performance Center, has developed a one-day workshop on trust in the organization. [See bottom of newsletter for dates and description.] In this issue of the Advisory Darcy Hitchcock interviews Marsha Willard, CEO of AXIS, and Stephen Hacker, director of The Performance Center about trust and how to build it.
Darcy: People seem to yearn for trust in their relationships but they often seem to
mean different things. What, in your view, is trust?
Marsha: The point is a good one; one that applies to many of the "soft" terms organizations toss around (i.e. values, empowerment, quality, etc.) Before an organization or team tries to deal with the issue of trust, it might do well to have a conversation about what the term means to the people involved. Personally, when I trust people, it means that I believe they have the competence and integrity to do what they have agreed to do and that they will honor my needs and interests while they are doing it.
Stephen: Trust is a big word, an expansive concept containing different meanings for people. Therefore, in building trust within relationships, it is helpful to view trust as having three key components: commitment, consistency and capability.
Commitment speaks to both the commitment to each other and the commitment to a joint goal or direction. Consistency is a matter of "doing as you say," or "walking the talk." Capability addresses the ability to accomplish what has been promised, in many cases, the competence to do the job. Underlying these components is a willingness to risk necessary to increasing the level of trust in a relationship.
Darcy: Why is trust important in working relationships, or how much is really
necessary?
Stephen: When trust is not present, an enormous amount of energy is wasted in the form of redundancy and rework. Fueled by doubt, a person invests time and energy in checking up on another's commitments and quality of work. This energy could be more productively applied if there was a bond of trust.
I'm reminded of one organization that had a horrible atmosphere of mistrust. There were video cameras everywhere, e-mail was periodically invaded and read, telephone calls were monitored. They were just waiting to catch someone doing something wrong. In response people developed elaborate behaviors to beat the system. What a tremendous waste of resources and energy. Compare that to a lumber mill that was having trouble with tools disappearing. Instead of instituting a tighter lock down, they established a tool lending policy. Employees were free to borrow the tools and take them home anytime they wanted. Not surprisingly the tools not only stopped disappearing, but tools that had been missing some time suddenly reappeared!
Marsha: Another reason trust is important is because of the interdependent nature of work these days. In the old organization, where employees operated as individual contributors and had sole responsibility for their jobs, the need for trust in others was not critical. As organizations increasingly make use of teams of interdependent members, however, the need for trust among those team members increases and it increases in proportion to their interdependence.
Trust provides the social glue that holds a team or organization together. The more connected or "glued" a group feels the more likely the members will be to share ideas, accept the risk of looking foolish, learn from each other, energize each other, spark each other's creativity and abandon concerns that someone else will get the credit for an idea. There is still the potential for conflict in a high trust group, but these conflicts are more effectively managed because there is the trust that people can raise issues without fear of being hurt. All of this also applies to larger interdependencies like between teams or across departments as well as the relationships between an organization and its partner/suppliers.
Another benefit of trust is that it allows an organization to manage more efficiently. Where trust among organizational members is low, you will often see lots of micro managing behaviors (unnecessary review loops, lots of checks and balances) and volumes of policies and procedures. Where trust is high you can comfortably empower people to behave in alignment with the organization's goals and values. The Nordstrom employee handbook is a legendary example. The handbook is really an 8X5 card with one rule printed on it: "Use your good judgment at all times." Employees know what the organization's value is (good customer service) and they are clearly trusted to deliver it.
Darcy: Let's say I have a bad relationship with someone on my team. Over time I've
learned not to trust them. Frankly my tendency is to write them off and work around
them. What should I do?
Stephen: First check your own trustworthiness. How are you doing in the areas of commitment, consistency and awareness of your capabilities? [See our self-test on the following page.] Don't overlook that you are a part of the relationship and increasing your trustworthiness has a great impact.
Next, use the most important trust building tool you have at hand?your willingness to take another risk in the relationship. In other words, it's the offer of vulnerability you bring to rebuild the relationship. I realize that we would prefer another tool, one that would "force" a behavior on the other party. But inherent in the concept of trust, are dependence, reliance and faith.
Marsha: Building trust requires a pretty significant investment. If the need for trust is low (i.e. interdependency is low or personal need for the relationship is low), avoidance may be the justifiable tactic. Given the increase in interdependencies in organizations, however, it is likely that work arounds will incur costs for the organization in the form of lost productivity, waste or rework. While building trust takes effort, rebuilding trust takes exponentially more. The extra effort goes into admitting to mistakes, continually checking assumptions about new commitments and regularly checking-in to keep the relationship on track.
If you decide to invest in rebuilding the trust in a damaged relationship, try the process outlined below. If it looks too scary to try alone, ask a neutral party to facilitate the conversation.
Each person takes turns completing the following sentences:
This will give you a good start. You will likely need to repeat the conversation or at least check in regularly in some fashion. If someone "screws up" and doesn't live up to a commitment, address it immediately and with candor.
Use this diagnostic to assess your own trustworthiness. Check all those statements that are true for you.
Then think about what you can do to achieve those left blank.
o I say what I mean and mean what I say.
o When given a task or responsibility, I follow through 100% of the time.
o I don't make promises I can't keep and I keep the promises I make.
o I am loyal to those not present (I don't talk about people behind their backs).
o I walk my talk; what I do matches what I say.
o I seek first to understand someone before I try to make my point understood.
o I am empathetic to the situations of others.
o I respect and visibly value what others have to contribute.
o I share my honest thoughts and feelings without disrespecting the thoughts or feelings of others.
o I give needs of the team (project, organization) precedence over my own personal needs.
o Before accepting a responsibility, I make sure everyone has the same expectations about what will happen and when it will happen.
o I know my own strengths and weaknesses.
o I tell the truth about what I can and can't do.
o I keep no hidden agendas; I make my motives, assumptions and needs clear.
o I am a skilled and sincere listener.
o I know how to give helpful and tactful feedback.
o I freely admit when I am wrong and apologize sincerely for my mistakes.
o I am not afraid to speak the "hard truths."
o I seek honest feedback from others.
o I assume others are trustworthy until proven otherwise.
o I frequently empower others to make decisions on my behalf.
o I treat others as partners in the business, sharing both the risks and rewards of performance.
o I let others know when they have not fulfilled an agreement as I perceived it.
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Darcy: How do you build trust with a whole team? It seems that trust in "team" is
different from the level of trust I may have for each individual team member. How do I
trust the team as a whole will operate consistently, have the capability to fulfill its
commitments and be committed to our goal and to me as an individual?
Marsha: Building trust in a team requires attention to team basics beginning with the team's formation. To get off on the right foot, ensure first of all that you select the right members for the team. I don't just mean people who get along well together, but people who have the skills to fulfill the team's mission. (This is building capability.) It is also helpful to facilitate a conversation among team members about what they hope to achieve as a group and what each individual wants to achieve for him/herself. (This builds commitment.) Lastly, they should come to explicit agreements about how they want to work together and how they expect to be treated on the team. (This ensures consistency.)
Once the team is up and running, there are some habits it should develop to keep trust building. The team should be disciplined about providing feedback to members on how they are doing?including recognition for work well done, suggestions for how to contribute better to the team, and reminders of expectations and commitments. The team should also make time to play and allow team members to get to know each other personally to strengthen the bond among them and pay attention to the individual member's needs for support.
Stephen: I agree with Marsha; the foundation is critical. A team is like the child of an organization and like most off-spring, will imitate the character of the organization. This implies that in addition to providing a sound "upbringing" and training to build capability, an organization and its leadership must model the character it wants its teams to develop. It's nearly impossible to have a trustworthy team in a distrustful organization.
In addition to how a team deals with its own members, I'd like to add the issue of how a team deals with other teams or units in the organization. Part of its process of development should include establishing its reputation with others outside the team and assuring that it is perceived as a trustworthy entity. This implies establishing meaningful check-in processes with their customers and others with whom they have dealings.
Darcy: What about organizations that just have a very distrustful atmosphere. How do
you apply your techniques on a large scale to change an entire organization? Or is trust
building inherently a one-person-at-a-time phenomenon?
Stephen: Trust ultimately does come down to individual relationships; however, a sour environment contributes to a distrusting predisposition. You can, though, alter the institutional character and supporting systems to make them more confirming of trust rather than distrust. It means bringing the different interest groups and distrusting parties to the table and focusing them explicitly on the issue of trust. Leaders should take the first steps toward creating a trustful atmosphere. With their pledge to build trust within the organization, the needed changes to institutional systems will become clear.
Marsha: Trust does have a high interpersonal component, but there is a second and equally important aspect that deals with the level of institutionalized trust within an organization. An organization cannot achieve a whole culture of trust without attending to both components. There are two places you can intervene to impact institutionalized trust: leadership and architecture.
Leaders play a pivotal role in the creation of a culture of trust. They must first of all deliver results. An unsuccessful organization is a breeding ground for cynicism and insecurity. Leaders who can't deliver results have no credibility with employees and inevitably appear either two-faced or incompetent. Leaders must also operate with integrity. This means making their values clear and then behaving in alignment with them. It also means admitting when they are wrong and using the mistakes of others to foster learning rather than retribution. Thirdly leaders must demonstrate concern for all members of the organization. And it has to be genuine concern. Employees can spot a fake from a mile off.
In addition to strong leadership, organizations need the architecture (the systems and structure) to foster trust. A starter list of organizational design elements includes: