Trust at work...

Trust is one of those core values that we like to hold dear, both at home and at work. Having trust in someone is a liberating feeling, a feeling that we know we are in good hands, no matter what happens. A feeling of something shared. The phrase “Trust me” is the ultimate statement that we use when we have tried almost every other form of reassurance, when we just know everything will be alright.

So trust then, is a good thing and most of us want to see more of it. Lose trust and you lose the relationship. Anyone with a failed marriage will tell you that relationships in which trust has been lost are doomed to a miserable future.

The curious thing however is that trust, like common sense, isn’t actually all that common. Especially not, it seems, in the world of work. The UK CIPD have recently published the results of a workplace survey claiming that  just over a third (37%) of employees trust their organisation’s senior management. By inference therefore the other 63% do not.

The paper “Are organisations losing the trust of their workers?”, published by the CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development, forms part of the CIPD’s 'Megatrends' research project exploring and developing the debate on the economic and social trends that shape the world of work, the workforce and the culture and organisation of workplaces in the future. It makes fascinating reading.

It appears that workplaces are not hotbeds of trust, and if we are to build better organisations then we should build cultures that allow trust to thrive. If we accept this to be true, and that we want more good things at work, then what can we do to improve the situation?

Where can we start? Let's look at the relationship between trust and separation. The more we understand and know each other the easier it’s going to be to build trust. We know this to be true. I am prepared to leave my car keys on the table at my friend’s house, but not to leave them on the desk at the Apple store whilst I shop for goodies. I trust my friends in a way that I don’t trust Joe Bloggs on the street. The further away we are from understanding and knowing others the less likely we feel able to trust them, and the less likely it is that they will trust us in return.

Things that are close to us are easy to see (they are more based in FACT) , but when things are further removed from us, they become more uncertain (they become FANTASY). And the more uncertain they become the harder it is for us to trust what is happening. So we trust people who are close to us more readily than we do those who are far away. It's probably therefore easier to trust your immediate boss than it is to trust someone three steps removed from you in the hierarchy.

Let's explore this in more detail. You know what you do in your job. No one sees it like you do, it's your world and you live it every day.This is reality, or, in other words, this is FACT. But let's move away from you one step and look at your boss's world. You have a good idea of what your boss does, after all, you see a lot of it, but you see it through a lens – your lens – so what you see is just a particular angle. What you see of his or her job is not fact, but a biased view from your perspective , which can be called  FACTION.

Now then, what about your boss’s boss? This person is a further step away from you in the hierarchy so you know even less about them. You probably have a vague idea of how he or she spends his or her time but they are too distant to see clearly. You hear stories and you see stuff , again filling in the gaps with stories that you make up based on those facts as you see them. This is similar the the faction view of the world of your boss, but as your boss's boss is even further away from you then you tend to make up even more of your own stories to fill the gaps. There is less fact, and more making it up. So let’s call that FICTION. You have a fictional view of that world and can only guess much of what happens. And finally, what about your boss's-boss's-boss, someone three places above you in the work hierarchy? Well, they might as well be on the moon. The chances are that you know virtually nothing about this person’s job other than the title and one or two things that you might come into direct contact with. How does he or she really spend their day? You have no idea, but you can imagine and, as before you make up the gaps, but this time there are so many of them that the factual content almost disappears. So let's call this imagination a FANTASY and we’ll be close to the truth. So in terms of our organisational and individual knowledge or view of what is going on at work goes from FACT, to FACTION, to FICTION to FANTASY.

The great thing about this model is that it can apply to almost all relationships. It doesn't have to be the manager hierarchy, it could equally be sideways across the organisation through workmates, other departments, even who works in a row of cubicles. At home it might have relevance for friendship and neighbours (I mean, what do you really know about the people who live three doors down from you?). In each of this situations as we move away from fact and towards fantasy then trust gets more difficult - we just don't know them so well.

So... if we senior managers and junior staff share more things with each other and are more 'open' in our way of working will that reduce the fantasy and increase trust? Well, there is a strong argument to say that it might. But then again it might not.

Consider this:

In a previous blog post I wrote about something that the Duke of Wellington said on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The story goes that his Aide-de-Camp asked the Duke to consider explaining his plan to the army to inspire confidence. The hook nosed Duke apparently replied “If I thought my hair knew what my brain was thinking I’d shave it off and wear a wig”. Blunt maybe, but this man knew his business and in his business, at that time, the idea of openness was abhorrent. Soft approaches to HR were hardly top of his agenda. Sure, trust was a key value in the British Army, but it was not achieved by a culture of openness. Quite the opposite in fact. The Duke's soldiers did trust in him even though they did not know his plan. They trusted in his ability to deliver a victory. Why? Because he had an impeccable track record of success, spoke credibly and championed their needs. Leaders with a good track record can use that track record to inspire confidence. Wellington grew confidence. Wellington grew trust (although sadly the CIPD were not around to measure it!), but not by getting close to his men, or not in the ‘soft HR’ way that we talk about today. Wellington used other methods. He was a strong disciplinarian. The troops knew where they stood. They knew what their leaders expected of them. And they knew what they expected of their leaders. When two expectations like that come in line, then you are breeding the right conditions for trust.

So the point is that it’s a two way thing, and we come back to one of my favourite rants. You see, success at work (which to my mind includes building a culture of trust) is about taking responsibility for what happens and being clear about expectations. And this is especially true when it comes to performance. The connectivity is complex.

Consider two circles, connected like a venn diagram. The circle on the left includes all the important aspects of your job as you see them. The circle on the right contains the important aspects of your job as your boss sees them. The shared area are aspects of your job that you both see as important.

Now, in a relationship where expectations are clear and communication is good, then the more the two circles can be pushed together and the greater the shared area. The greater the shared area the higher the shared expectation, the easier it might be to align goals and the firmer, I believe, are the foundations from which trust can develop. You simply understand each other a bit more.

But what if the circles only have a small area of shared expectation?

As you might imagine, this is not so good. Mutual understanding is poor. Viewed from the perspective of the individual, the danger is that the things that remain outside the shared area in the left circle simply represent the amount of time that you are wasting on unimportant activities (as far as your boss is concerned). You should consider whether you need to convince your boss of the importance of these, and thereby bring them into the common ground, or stop doing them. What remains outside of the shared area in the right hand zone is potentially even more dangerous, because it represents things that your boss thinks are an important part of your job but which you are not doing. In short, this is the degree to which you are failing in the eyes of your boss. Bad news indeed.

What needs to happen here? Well, in short the expectation exchange becomes important again. As the manager you need to be sure that your staff know what’s expected of them, otherwise you are simply setting them up to fail. And when they fail, so do you.

It's easier to build trust when the circles are closer together.

So how do I pull these threads together? Clear expectations bring people together and make a firm foundation for the building of trust. These days we tend to argue that openness and honest conversations are the way to go, but Wellington’s story tells us that this doesn’t have to be the only way. You can keep firm boundaries and still have strong expectations. The combinations and style you adopt will of course develop a unique organisational culture. Be true to your own style.

Learn from others but be yourself. It will work if you let it.

Trust me.

*Fact,Faction,Fiction and Fantasy is discussed in Mick Cope’s excellent coaching book, The Secrets of Success in Coaching: