Do You Trust Me?
Trust is one of the most important aspects of a functioning, healthy workplace. For me, I measure myself against the trust my colleagues place in me. And I can trace when I first started to think about leaving an organization back to an initial instance of lost trust.
How do I package something so fundamental and all-encompassing into a blog post?
Well, you don’t.
So let me start here:
You cannot, I repeat, cannot, assume trust in the workplace (well, probably anywhere, but I’m just tackling our organizations here right now).
Trust is something we actively and intentionally build in our daily work and interactions. And we need a baseline of trust to be able to do, well anything else really, in our organizations.
It seems obvious, but we’re not giving as much attention to this as we need to or think we are.
Building trust
We must invite honest feedback from our colleagues to check if we are building the trust we think we are. And we must take actions so that colleagues trust they can share that feedback honestly. It is a constant cycle - and we have to start somewhere. This is especially true for senior leaders who can be siloed or who people fear speaking honestly to because of their position in the organization
DEI expert Lily Zheng suggests creating a measurement of trust in your organization (like a survey), so that leaders and staff have an accurate understanding of the trust level that does exist. Speaking about interdependence adrienne marie brown encourages leaders to “have a circle of people who can tell you the truth, and to whom you can speak the truth.” You can even google how to build trust and read through the many suggestions as place to start.
Trust through the generations
We’ll keep unpacking aspects of trust here, but one thing I want to note is that trust building isn’t a one size fits all situation. Trust looks, feels, and develops differently for different people. We need to be in tune with these differences to build trust effectively. One place this shows up a lot in the workplace is generational differences.
Purdue Global posted a useful infographic recently about the generational differences within the current U.S. workforce. Notice that loyalty shows up as trademarks of Traditionalists and Boomers - when you choose to work somewhere you are loyal to it and the people you work for. But read your way through the younger generations and each one seeks out more work/life balance. Their personal ambitions, interests, and development grow in importance. So does their individualism.
Do your senior leaders, some of whom have been at the organization for decades, tend to assume junior staff trust them? Do they express frustration that newer employees don’t seem as dedicated to the cause? Do younger employees seem to raise concerns regularly, but rarely directly to senior leaders? Do they usually seem to have one foot out the door at all times?
Generational differences can’t explain everything, but they can help us identify where some of our organizational tension around trust lie. Have you taken the time at your organization to build shared language around trust? To create shared understanding of what trust-building behaviors look like? To hold people accountable when they use the opposite behaviors? To create a culture of trust that all staff buy-in to?
Help your team understand the different ways trust matters to them and you’ll create a foundation for broader organizational trust.
Resources
DEI deconstructed by Lily Zheng has an excellent section on assessing trust in your organization and adapting the DEI plan to the level of trust present. They’re writing specific to diversity, equity, and inclusion, but we can adapt these suggestions for other kinds of trust needed to be built.
The Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey with Rebecca R. Merrill is a useful step by step of how to build trust from yourself outward. I do find it tiresome how deeply rooted the content it is in corporate America, but I list it because of the concrete suggestions and steps included. It’s a decent place to start.