Day 461: Is it about trust?

I like to try and keep my brain thinking thinking thinking, so I often will grab a book or magazine from my bookshelf - at random - and read an article or snippet, looking for a phrase or word or concept to spark something. So it was coincidence that I grabbed a book full of articles from the mid to late 90s espousing how the Internet was going to change ev-er-y-thing ("Creating Value in the Network Economy", Don Tapscott, Ed.).

The articles were well written, and quite interesting to read, being almost 20 years after initial publication. Some were bang on, and some, well.... some still hadn't come to fruition. One of these articles was about the Virtual Organization and Trust (Charles Handy, auth.), looking at what the new millennium would need to make the virtual organization a reality.

Wait a minute - lots of companies have people that telecommute, work remotely, work in completely different time zones and locales. Sure, but lots of companies DON'T. Why?

This article suggested it was about trust - and tried to outline what the author suggested were the seven rules of trust:

1: Trust is not blind
2: Trust need boundaries
3: Trust demands learning
4: Trust is tough
5: Trust needs bonding
6: Trust needs touch
7: Trust requires leaders

Now I'm not here to write about telecommuting, remote working and the virtual organization, specifically. I'm stating that I think that the seven rules of trust apply to all organizations - virtual or bricks'n'mortar. I see the effects of high-trust and low-trust environments in most organizations I visit, and sometimes both in one organization. I bet if you stop and reflect on your organization, you might as well. So let's take a deeper look at trust.

Let's look at the first one: trust is not blind.

How many of us work in an organization large enough or undergoing so much change that we don't know some of our fellow co-workers? Quite a few I bet. But hopefully we know the people we work with on a daily, regular basis. And once we get to know a new person, understand their role in the organization, we start to develop some degree of trust which hopefully grows over time. The organization I work for has a sister firm just south of us, which for a long time was seen as a black box of unknown-ness. We didn't know them, so we didn't really trust them. So after reaching out to my counterpart in that firm (about a specific issue) and establishing a basic relationship, we have been able to increase the level of trust and co-operation between us, between our teams. 

So I guess I'd agree with the premise that unless you can "see" the individual, it's pretty tough to just give over any level of trust to that person, and by extension their organization. So how does this apply to people we must trust in order to be successful? Like how we work with our supply chain partners? We have to develop some trust with those partners, who we don't usually see every day, we might only see them a few times a year.

Then there's rule 6: trust needs touch.

Touch doesn't need to be constant either - but frequent enough to be effective at keeping us out of the dark. The touch points also need to reinforce the trust, the relationship, and I think also the shared vision. It's a chance to ensure everyone is rowing at the same speed, the same cadence, and hopefully that we are all rowing for the same purpose or in the same direction. This one I like.

How about rule 2: trust needs boundaries.

I like this one - set clear boundaries for expected results, expected performance, then let people get on with it. Trust them enough to believe that they will perform within your boundaries. I think this is really important for creative work like design, problem solving, product innovation. Freedom within boundaries, particularly for self-contained work, lets people have some control over the way they work. If I see you trusting me, heck, I might even trust you... a bit... ok more than before....

I think my favourite is rule 7: trust requires leaders.

The article I referenced above suggests that many leaders are required - at different times and different levels - for a group or organization to be successful at achieving a goal. The author suggests that it is not possible for "... all the leadership requirements [to] be discharged by one person, no matter how great or how good." I want my leaders to be around when needed, to get out of the way when not needed, but to also help keep all of us accountable to each other and the organization. I trust my peers and cohorts when I know they are also being led, that the team is aligned and working towards the same goal, even if we contribute in different ways. 

What stuck with me is that it's for all of us to play the role of leader sometimes. It can't just be one person. But this only works if we all have the same shared vision. Oh, and remember that we are entrusted to take good care of it.