How to lay the foundations of trust? 10 Tips to embed trust — Trust Part 1
The what, the foundations, the where and the how to’s of trust
What is Trust?
Trust comes at many levels. For me its not just on a one to one basis, within a team (tribe) and or a community (organisation, professional body..)but also within myself to trust in my judgement built from experiences, beliefs and the context I am in. Personal experience and research has shown that trust has an implication to wellbeing, performance and productivity which I will touch on later.
At the SeaSalt Learning Trust conference in Feb 2018 Julian Stodd talked about there being two levels.
Trust comes in two levels: Primary and secondary.
Primary is what you are likely to be more familiar with and had experience of. These may be day to day activities like rituals that have built a culture of trust within the community. Secondary is harder to have and shift to and is often seen in industries like banking, politics and education that have been established for a long time. Here its the almost hidden invisible trust links that are intertwined through the complex human relationships that have been formed.
What are the foundations of trust?
Three influencers of trust: community, beliefs, belonging
- What is your Community structure? How does it REALLY operate?
We see through the work from Julian Stodd that success (and action) tends to happen not from the formal systems or structures in an organisation or a team but though social structures. We are all familiar with organisation charts. But it is the hidden connections (social interventions) that get things done.
These hidden connections are either built and supported by the authorities of power and are clearly seen by them or take place anyway ‘behind closed doors’.
Whilst serving in the military I was all to aware of the ‘deals’ ‘negotiations’ and decisions that were made in the ‘mess’ during coffee breaks and afternoon tea.
I have since seen this in the corporate world where people meet and talk on comfy sofas in large atriums. Some organisations have organised their architecture to almost support a certain culture. As an example Zappos closed off entrances to increase the chance of creating connections by making only one way in and out.
2. What are your beliefs? What is the impact to trust?
Taken from an earlier blog I described beliefs as:
Beliefs are the generalisation we make about ourselves, the people and world around us and these become our operating principles. We act as if they are true as they are true to us. These beliefs can influence how and what we do and be the very foundation to allow us to achieve our success.
Beliefs influence our subconscious and conscious thought patterns and behaviours. These thoughts and understandings give you and I the bounds to define and build trust and what you see and feel is acceptable.
3. What is belonging and conformity?
I am sure you have been in a team or an environment where you have felt very much part of it. There is a a kind of gel between you and everyone one else and you feel you belong. When you have this there is an invisible feeling of trust that has been created. Sometimes its through the uniform and training that you have all completed and others its an overlapping of a purpose.
However when people don’t conform like the rest in the group they feel like outliers and that they don’t belong. As a leader and program manager, I always like the opportunity of a great discussion and different perspective which can add to the creativity of the solution. But this difference can affect trust and the speed to which trust is formed (or not).
So where is the benefit in trust? We have seen in recent years the significant number of successful businesses that have been set up through being at the fringes. Julian Stodd’s research supports the idea that those that don’t conform or work at the edges seem to get ahead.
So how best can we build trust and work at the fringes to get success?
As Daniel Coyle talks about in his new book the Culture Code, building belonging with successful teams has three success key factors: connection, shared future and safety.
In building trust through we can ask three questions:
Are we connected?
Do we share a future?
Are we safe?
Where is trust built?
Face to face, online, through written correspondence, forums, training rooms and the list goes on.
Do you apply the same approach to the different scenarios when building trust?
Face to face and webinar style communication feels like it has a similar approach as you can see facial expressions. However to build online written trust is different. People dont know where you are and you can hide and create a character that you feel that you want to be rather than the actual person. We all know horror stories around that.
When you do meet face to face what is the criteria that you use to define have you got a trusting relationship? Is it you consciously consider? What are the bias’ you are placing behind this?
I discussed this with a fellow attendee at the Trust Conference as we walked to the station (no names as I haven’t asked if I can share and wouldn’t want to remove trust). We felt that trust between us was there as there was an unconscious feeling that having worked in a similar organisation we knew their approach and underlying values.
So the multimillion dollar question – So what?
How can we utilise our new ‘trust’ knowledge to build success with what you are doing?
The how of trust? 10 tips to embed trust
1. Don’t use HR – due to the rules and mechanism of how HR operates, facilitating and enabling change and building trust is best placed elsewhere. As its those that work on the edge or ignore the rules get greater successes and a rules based culture might limit creativity and success.
2. Start with stories – working with stories allows us to connect with similarities and differences. Its seems, on reflection, that this approach is less threatening. Being in the same community you would hope ‘your heart was in the right place’ its connecting or removing the barriers in our minds that is key for trust.
3. Lead with trust and support and encourage social systems. Social systems is where it happens. Allow yourself and your leaders to let go, remove assumptions and start without fear.
4. Connect differences – Respect and share conflict across the community and tribes to allow us to work together. It reminded me of the Sea Salt Conference last year when a group of graffiti artists shared their stories to a bunch of rule abiding corporate people…
5. Be open about your primary and secondary levels of trust where you are - Nudge – be open about what is there in the primary and secondary levels of trust and continually work with people through the speed of change and VUCA world to where you need to be.
6. Define the roles together? Build trust through allowing the communities / tribes to define their roles and cast roles.
7. Be clear about how you manage consequences and stick to it. If you say fail and learn fast is supported and then people are asked to leave after 2 chances what is the message there and how does that squash performance?
8. At the top level create trust three way: customers, suppliers and organisation (community). These functions are there whatever you do. You may like to consider competitors too.
9. Measure with trust at the heart– Find out the winning customer driver and utilise that as part of your metrics. Remembering that different people and tribes will have different belief systems around how trust fits in. Design with customers, share, trial, adjust and continue the loop.
10. Be conscious of the impact of time on trust– have an agreement in your community as to what happens with the impact of time – ‘Time is a competitor of trust’
What accountability and triggers will you have to ensure its not broken?
As a final reflection
Trust, I believe, has massive implications for many communities and tribes - professions and professional bodies, organisations old and new, individuals as subject matter experts. As someone who is passionate about building and implementing the building blocks to success trust has a key part to play.
I see the bounds of trust like the ropes on a deck that guide us around but aren’t rigid and move with the boat in the sea of uncertainty and change.
What is your picture of trust and how are you keeping it on track to success?
my ideas plus reflections from The Trust Conference @SeaSaltlearning
I love rolling my sleeves up and getting under the skin of a significant challenge working with high energy, new and established teams (mostly entrepreneurs, tech and small businesses) to be productive, high performing and prosperous (healthy and happy).
