How to cultivate trust

‘Trust and confidence is crashing’ – the headline from an article summarising the feeling of supporters at this year’s World Economic Forum at the Swiss retreat of Davos. With the ever-present tensions surrounding the economy, jobs, inequality and migration among other things, it almost feels like it could be applied to pretty much any current affairs bulletin right now.

The question of how to build and develop trust creates a huge challenge for today’s leaders. It’s something that affects us personally, on a day to day basis, and it seems the issue has certainly escalated over the past year, on a global scale.

‘A lack of trust in business’ was listed as a key concern of 55% of CEO’s as revealed in a study carried out by PwC last year.

So how do we go about designing a culture of trust? Particularly in a world where we have increasingly less personal interaction. How can we form relationships, perform and achieve success without it?

This month’s Harvard Business Review highlights an interesting piece of research around this very subject: how to build trust, the neuroscience around it and the incredible effect it can have on us as individuals and in turn, on company performance.

Carried out by Paul J. Zak, university professor and author of ‘Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High Performance Companies’, some of the individual points highlighted in the results may not be entirely surprising, however the combination of key findings are certainly worth noting. Zak has identified eight (measurable) management behaviours that will foster trust - and can be managed to improve performance:

Recognise excellence – using the power of peers to celebrate success
Induce challenge – assigning achievable jobs with moderate stress
Give people discretion – autonomy promotes motivation and innovation
Enable job crafting – providing choice alongside accountability
Share information broadly – ongoing communication + openness = engagement
Intentionally build relationships – socially connected employees perform better
Facilitate whole person growth – are we helping you get your next job?
Show vulnerability – secure leaders ask for help

The stats also speak for themselves:

“Compared with people at low-trust companies, people at high-trust companies report: 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, 50% higher productivity, 13% fewer sick days, 76% more engagement, 29% more satisfaction with their lives, 40% less burnout.

Food for thought indeed. And there’s a lot more to discover in the full article which you can check out here, particularly if you’re interested in the science behind it all.

According to Zak, the way to cultivate trust is to set a clear direction, give people what they need to see it through, and then get out of their way.

‘A high-trust culture improves how people treat one another and themselves’. Says it all really. And something I think we could all benefit from these days.

If you need further tips about how to build trust within your team or organisation, get in touch with Tania at tania@twcreativecoaching.com

Posted on Thu, January 26, 2017 in General Leadership Organisational Development
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