Trust in one another at work is like fresh air — it's one of those niceties we don't really think about until it's gone. And when it is gone, its absence harms both the organization and its people. Life at work becomes more stressful and a lot less fun, and the company's operating costs climb. But when Trust is lacking, what we can do to create it?
Although we can tell ourselves that being more trusting ourselves will improve things, that approach is unlikely to yield lasting improvement in a low-trust environment. The mechanisms that created the environment are still in place, and they tend to undermine everyone's efforts to be more trusting.
What's needed is direct action to reduce the incidence of behaviors that create low trust. These actions must give their actors complete control over the results, unlike the hope-based tactics, which ask the actors to ante-up in the hope that others will respond only constructively.
Here are some things you can do to foster Trust at work.
- Stay in your own hula-hoop
- If you have any experience with hula-hoops, you know it's impossible to hula your own hoop and someone else's hoop at the same time. If you try, you mess up both. One cause of distrust is the perception of infringement on the rights and responsibilities of others. Whether it's seen as a power grab, disrespect, contempt, superciliousness, arrogance, or any of a number of other patterns, infringement can cause those infringed upon to ask "What next?" They can quickly move to defensive, distrustful postures that might not be specific to the infringers. See "Stay in Your Own Hula Hoop," Point Lookout for June 27, 2001, for more.
- Know your role
- It's easier to stay in your own hula-hoop if you know which hula-hoop is yours. You don't really need to know as much about anyone else's hula-hoop. Know yours and know it well.
- It takes more than being
more trusting to create
a trusting environment - Understand the Fundamental Attribution Error
- When we try to understand the motives of others, we tend to put too much weight on character, and too little on the circumstances that others see. We do this because it's easier for us to make mental models of the character of another than it is to model the world as the other sees it. This leads us to attribute threat to intention, often erroneously. For more, see "The Fundamental Attribution Error," Point Lookout for May 5, 2004.
- Know your favorite tactics for dealing with distrust
- Often, we slip into these tactics without realizing that we're feeling threatened. Noticing your favorite distrust tactics could be your first indication that you feel threatened. And that can be useful if you want a more constructive approach.
One more thing you can do: spread the word. Forward this article to a friend. Pick one you trust. Top Next Issue
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For more about Trust, see "TINOs: Teams in Name Only," Point Lookout for March 19, 2008, "The High Cost of Low Trust: I," Point Lookout for April 19, 2006, and "Express Your Appreciation and Trust," Point Lookout for January 16, 2002.
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Related articles
More articles on Emotions at Work:
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- When did you last receive an email message with a "tweaking CC"? Probably yesterday. A tweaking
CC is usually a CC to your boss or possibly the entire known universe, designed to create pressure by
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- September Eleventh
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- Totally at Home
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— to move not only our bodies, but our minds and our spirits from work to home?
- Irrational Self-Interest
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that people make choices on rational grounds. Is this assumption valid?
- Some Subtleties of ad hominem Attacks
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See also Emotions at Work and Conflict Management for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming May 15: Should I Write or Should I Call?
- After we recognize the need to contact a colleague or colleagues to work out a way to move forward, we next must decide how to make contact. Phone? Videoconference? Text message? There are some simple criteria that can help with such decisions. Available here and by RSS on May 15.
- And on May 22: Rescheduling Collaborative Work
- Rescheduling is what we do when the schedule we have now is so desperately unachievable that we must let go of it because when we look at it we can no longer decide whether to laugh or cry. The fear is that the new schedule might come to the same end. Available here and by RSS on May 22.
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