The Speed of Trust - Page 6
The Five Waves of Trust
11
13 Behaviors
Listen first
Trust grows by leaps and bounds when you get into the habit of listening before you speak. Try to understand what’s being communicated and diagnose with empathy. Listen with your eyes and your heart to the people you work with. Never assume you have all the answers until you’ve had the opportunity to ask lots of questions and seek clarification. “If there is any great secret of success in life, it lies in the ability to put yourself in the other person’s place and see things from their point of view – as well as your own.” – Henry Ford “Leadership has less to do with walking in front and leading the way than it does with listening to the needs of the people of the company and meeting them.” – Charles Cawley, chairman and CEO, MBNA America
Alignment
Organizational trust
3
When you work with people you trust, more can get done. Organizational trust is derived from alignment – having the organization’s systems, structures and rewards aligned with one consistent objective. When everything is aligned correctly, trust grows. When these various elements are misaligned, trust is reduced or dissipated. The first wave was to build self trust by increasing your integrity and credibility. The second wave dealt with building stronger relationships and greater relationship trust by behaving consistently. Once you have achieved those things, you then move on to the third wave which deals with creating and maintaining a high-trust organization.
12 Meet commitments
13 Behaviors
3 Alignment
The quickest way to destroy trust is to say one thing and do another. And conversely, the most powerful way to enhance and build trust is to say what you’re going to do and then follow through and do precisely that. The only way you can do that long-term is by being careful and deliberate about what you commit to do. Make keeping commitments the symbol of your life, both personal and professional. Never fall into the trap of breaking a confidence or attempting to fudge your way out. Make your word your iron-clad commitment and trust will soar. “It is a leader’s responsibility to demonstrate what it means to keep your word and earn a reputation for trustworthiness.” – Hank Paulson, chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs
1 Credibility 2
Consistent behavior
People work best when they are placed in a high-trust environment rather than one where everything is locked down tight. To create just such a high-trust environment, all structures and systems need to be aligned with that objective. If people inside your organization don’t feel like they are trusted by the management, all kinds of problems can crop up. These problems in effect become taxes on the performance of the organization. Some typical low-trust taxes would include: • High levels of redundancy and duplication of effort. • An extensive bureaucracy with rules, regulations & procedures. • Active internal office politics. • People becoming disengaged and distant. • High levels of employee turnover. • Regular turnover of stakeholders other than employees. • Fraud. By contrast, when trust is high within an organization, there are significant dividends: • Shareholder and customer value increases. • Accelerated growth in sales and profits. • Enhanced ability to innovate and be creative. • Improved levels of collaboration and teamwork. • Greater ability to form strong partnerships with others. • Better execution of the company’s strategy. • Heightened loyalty and brand strength. Whether you have the drag of a low-trust environment or the advantages of a high-trust organization is entirely up to you. It’s all a matter of the systems, the structures, the processes, the policies and the various frameworks you put into place and require people to use each day. Trust is a hidden variable which can impact on everything your organization does. “As a leader, you can be successful at the Self Trust and Relationship Trust levels so that people trust you as a person, but then fail at the Organizational Trust level by not designing and aligning systems that promote trust.” – Stephen M. Covey
13
13 Behaviors
Extend trust
To earn trust, demonstrate your ability to trust others. Extend trust abundantly to those who have earned it. Extend it conditionally to those who are still in the process of earning it. Err on the side of being too trusting rather than withholding your trust inothers. Over time, you’ll learn how to appropriately extend trust to others based on the demands of the situation, the risk and the character and the competencies of the people involved. Make learning how to do this a priority because to be trusted yourself, you have to learn how to trust others. “Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson “People ask me how I’ve had the interest and zeal to hang in there and do what I’ve done. I say, ‘Because my father treated me with very stern discipline: he trusted me’. I’m stuck, I’ve got to see the trust through. He trusted me. I trust other people. And they did the job.” – Robert Galvin Jr., Former CEO, Motorola “Companies should trust people to work at home more. Commuting kills so much time and energy that could be spent creating.” – Richard Branson, founder and chairman, The Virgin Group
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