Trust. You probably have a mixed relationship with it.
On the one hand, you want to trust.
On the other hand, you don’t want to get burned.
On the one hand, you think you’re trustworthy.
On the other hand, you couldn’t exactly describe your organizational culture as trusting.
On the one hand, you wish everyone simply trusted.
On the other hand, you know deep down you struggle with trust.
What if trust was absolutely essential to your organization—more essential than you think? And what if there were three simple ways you could built it starting now?
Trust: A Simple Definition
So what exactly is trust? Best definition of trust I’ve ever heard? Trust is confidence. That’s why when you’re trusting someone to help you step off a chair or a ledge, you trust them if you have confidence they can help you get down safely. You don’t trust them if you’re not sure they will. Similarly in relationships and in organizations, trusting means:
You’re confident they’ll speak well of you when you’re not in the room.
People do things they said they would do when they said they were going to do them.
You’re confident that people are doing what they are supposed to do with good intentions.
When trust is absent, none of those things are true. So—with that in mind—how trusting are you? How much is trust a part of your organizational culture?
Why This Matters More Than You Think
Without trust, progress grinds to a screeching halt. While there are many more, here are three ways a lack of trust makes everyone and everything suffer:
1. We becomes us and them
Think about it. You’ve seen this during a strike. What is supposed to be one organization becomes two: us and them. Watch the dynamics of a labour dispute: you would think the two sides are enemies. (Okay, sometimes they are.) But they are supposed to work together to accomplish a common goal. But with trust vapourized, that’s impossible.
And chances are when you look at your organization, you might be able to find an us and them. That’s a tell tale sign you are in a low trust organization.
I promise you your mission is suffering as a result.
I’m not arguing for or against unions here….I’m just saying when people who are supposed to be working divide into camps pitted against each other, everyone suffers.
2. Speed goes down, costs go up
As Stephen M.R. Covey has brilliantly argues in The Speed of Trust, trust impacts both speed and cost.
When trust is low, speed decreases and costs increase. Think about it. People argue, complain, bicker, talk about ‘their’ rights…and as a result progress slows and costs mount.
When trust is high, the speed of getting things done rises (sometimes exponentially) and costs decrease. You just make progress.
It’s impossible to make meaningful organizational progress when trust is low.
3. Healthy people leave
Unhealthy people love unhealthy cultures. Healthy people don’t. They leave.
Healthy people are used to working in higher trust relationships. Their families will often be characterized by higher trust as will their business and personal relationships.
If you hire a person who operates on trust and put them in a low trust culture, either they will change (unlikely), or they will leave. Like Jonah, it will only be a matter of time until the whale spits them out.
If you want to attract and keep healthy staff and healthy volunteers, you need a high trust culture.
So How Do You Build a High Trust Culture?
There are more than a few ways to build a high trust culture, but here are three ways to get started today. You might not see the transformation overnight, but give it a year or two. Make these your default, and you will be amazed at what happens.
1. Do what you said you were going to do when you were going to do it.
This principle has been hardwired into my brain over the last decade by Andy Stanley and Reggie Joiner. They not only teach it, they model it.
Because confidence is the basis of trust, doing what you said you were going to do is the best way to inspire confidence in others.
Keep your word.
Deliver on your promises.
Under promise. Over deliver.
Hit your deadlines. (And if you can’t, give people plenty of notice and work to accommodate the hardship you’ve caused them.)
Show up on time.
Do this personally and organizational and over time, you will inspire confidence. You will become trustworthy. Your organization will be worth trusting.
2. Talk to people, not about them.
It’s impossible to avoid conflict on this side of heaven, so when you have it, go to people, not around them.
Talk to people…not about them.
The natural human tendency is to talk to someone about a problem I have with someone else. And that’s a recipe for disaster.
A great way to tell if you do this is to watch if you ever have to have a conversation because X stepped into the room. If you can’t talk about X the way you were talking about X with X standing there, you have a problem (it’s actually called sin, by the way).
Imagine an organization in which you had confidence that people would never throw you under the bus when you weren’t in the room.
Imagine an organization in which you had confidence that if someone had an issue with you they would go to you.
Imagine a church that functioned that way….
Of course, that is the biblical paradigm for conflict resolution.
We work so hard to create a culture like this where I serve. And while we’re not perfect, this happens far more often than not. Never underestimate how powerful this is.
3. Believe the best
In my view, nobody is better on this subject than Andy Stanley. You can listen to a free podcast from Andy on how to create a culture of trust, not suspicion (Episode 14), in your organization here.
Every day, you’re faced with gaps in information.
Someone’s late.
Someone made a decision when you weren’t in the room.
Someone didn’t deliver.
You can fill that gap in with either trust or suspicion. You can believe the best (maybe they got held up in traffic, or maybe one of their kids got sick) or you assume the worst (they’re always late…I knew they’d miss the deadline).
How you fill in that gap determines the culture you create.
We’re choosing trust at Connexus. Every time we have to make a choice, I want to choose trust.
Often, there is a good reason. And if I’m wrong…well, I’m wrong. And if there’s an issue, then I should see point 2 above and go directly to the person. And finally, I should embody point one above and strive to do what I said I was going to do when I said I was going to do it.
I have worked in a few low trust cultures in my life, and over the last number of years in ministry I’ve been fortunate to work extremely high trust cultures. I wouldn’t ever want to go back.
