Raising the Curve of Trust
The genie is out of the bottle. Granting trust, rather than earning it, means redefining how we work together at a time when all of us are working apart.
We’ve heard a lot over the last seven months about flattening the curve. Last week, as I was catching up with an association leader, we started to think about raising the curve when it comes to trust. We were talking about one of the most cantankerous issues looming over associations as they wade deeper into the COVID-19 swamp: how do we raise the trust curve in our workplaces, with our members and our stakeholders?
The trust genie, so to speak, is out of the bottle. Contradictory data and opposing sentiments underscore the need to find whether your association’s trust barometer is going up or down.
Raising the curve of trust
Two-way trust is about the only thing we have to hold on to right now. The way associations nurture trust is to grant it, rather than challenging employees to earn it. Earning trust is a bygone notion; it bolsters hierarchical structure, reinforces power politics and places greater value on the individual than the team.
Granting trust means recognizing structures that were up until now rigid, and largely taken for granted, will become as messy as the cottage junk drawer. As people working from home figure things out on the fly, leaders have to become less fixed on their way of doing things (viewed in some people’s minds as the right way). As we’ve seen in health care, countries around the world are adept at improvising; there are many paths to the same destination.
Granting trust during these times means demonstrating faith. If a report doesn’t hit your desk on time or is not up to standard, have a private conversation with the person to find out what’s going on in the background. Context is everything. If your association finds itself installing spyware to monitor employees’ digital footprints, think about how you will share its purpose and be transparent with findings.
Testing what we’ve learned and how to apply it, will be essential to establishing new patterns, new codes of conduct and new ways to work. The difference now is ways of working will be co-created rather than emanating as edicts from the top down.
Coming clean on trust is an emerging issue for associations of all sizes wrestling in the pandemic ring. As a good friend of mine in the retail business once said, when something good happens to a person, they may tell three or four people. When something bad happens, it goes viral. How we respond to granting and growing trust will affect not just our financial, but spiritual health over the coming months and years to come.
Losing trust may leave your organization more vulnerable than the virus we are now combatting. To be sure, many things will never be the same after this crisis, how we renew trust must remain our north star. Do your part in your association to raise the curve on trust. Even the smallest acknowledgements of granting trust goes a long way.
Think twice: before you judge, think about granting trust.
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