Senior Advisor, People Analytics at Reworc.
As businesses attempt to repair and revitalize organizational performance that was destabilized during the Covid-19 pandemic, technical solutions like AI continue to receive massive attention and advocacy. However, organizations are a collection of people before they’re anything else, technical or otherwise. How people form and function together is how an organization performs. The problem is that the way we connect, work together and collaborate has been fractured.
The past three years have left employers, managers and employees in a workspace filled with elevated stress levels, exhaustion, cynical work attitudes and decreased self-confidence. Employees don’t trust their managers, managers don’t trust their teams and employers at large don’t trust either group. Some people could justifiably describe their workspace as the business version of the Hunger Games. From my perspective, the road to revitalizing business and performance isn’t through technology. This is a people issue, which means people are the answer.
Lately, experts are advocating for trust as the people-centric solution to employee engagement and organizational health. Studies have shown that building and maintaining trust translates to a positive return when it comes to performance and the bottom line. But while organizations are talking trust frequently, many aren’t walking that talk. Why? Because committing to it requires a different kind of headspace—one that often feels inconvenient.
What business leaders need to remember is that trust is an “us” thing. It’s not just something this group or that group of people needs; it’s a must for everyone. Think of it this way: If organizational performance is a team sport, then when only 30% of employees trust each other, at its best, an organization can only perform up to 30%.
The complexity of the new normal continues to increase. If we want to keep adapting and adjusting effectively, collaboration through trust must become a critical focus. Its presence strengthens connection and cohesion by nurturing shared interpersonal, intergroup or inter-organizational relations.
Trust Isn’t A Policy Or Procedure
Unfortunately, building trust within your organization isn’t a process or policy that can be directed. It’s something that requires creating the space for trust more than transactional conversations. Oftentimes, this is inconvenient for organizations that pride themselves on having busy workspaces, where employees’ exhaustion is viewed as necessary for getting the job done. But the space needed to connect through trust isn’t about being busy. It’s about sowing and strengthening connections in and between people.
The willingness and vulnerability necessary for trust can be more complicated for hierarchical organizations. While leadership’s active participation is vital for creating an inclusive, trusting space, the burden shouldn’t be on them entirely. Titles can create boundaries, especially between executives and other employees. But trust must be seen as something required to transcend the boundaries of hierarchy. I co-wrote a paper about how the kind of “us versus them” mentality that’s rampant in a hierarchy actually weakens organizational performance. When people push and pull, instead of working cohesively, it makes it a lot harder to walk the trust talk.
When collaboration is sustained with trust, it can give your organization’s teams the confidence to face adverse challenges or unexpected chaos. This is because walking the trust talk allows everyone to show up as their best. Conversely, performing in these circumstances without trust can produce disjointed, degraded performance. This is why everyone must be on board with creating the space for trust to grow.
Trust Requires All, Not Some
The reality is that organizational performance requires all pieces to work together cohesively. The best organizational performance comes when everyone is lifting and moving in the same direction. Remember: Trust is an “us” thing.
Your workplace must make it easy for the talk of trust to be walked. If your immediate reaction to that is “Impossible,” then here are some questions to help you interrogate trust in your organization and ultimately walk the talk.
• How is trust being discussed?
• How is performance acknowledged and rewarded? Is it “win together, lose together” or “us versus them”?
• What’s driving people’s thought process if they trust some colleagues but not others?
• What organizational circumstances might be blocking our ability to strengthen trust?
• What is one small experiment we can try to create space for walking the trust talk?
By seeing performance as a people thing that requires an organizational commitment to trust, you’ll be better equipped to create the space for walking the talk of trust. Even if it’s initially seen as an inconvenience, cultivating trust is the answer to repairing and revitalizing organizational performance.
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