Understanding Trust and the Workplace
Nothing in life works without trust.
Let me say that again—nothing in life works without trust. You wake up in the middle of the night and trust that in your delirious state, your memory of the route to the kitchen to get a glass of water is safe and accurate—you could walk it blindfolded without hitting a single wall or countertop. You trust that the Starbucks you pick up on the way to the office contains exactly what you ordered—coffee. You trust that when you drive through the green traffic light that oncoming traffic will stop at their corresponding red light. I think you get the point—trust is everywhere.
Now, what happens when we lose trust?
In the most basic contexts listed above, I think you can connect the dots for what would happen if the trust was violated—you trip over the shoes that your spouse left in the middle of the hallway as you sleepily walk to the kitchen, you receive tea v. the coffee you ordered, you get t-boned as someone runs a redlight—in all scenarios, you feel violated. On varying levels of severity—this happens in any situation where we lose the fundamental value of trust in a process, person, or organization.
I’m currently reading “Trust: Knowing When to Give It, When to Withhold It, How to Earn It, and How to Fix It When It Gets Broken” by Dr. Henry Cloud. It’s a fascinating overview of what he calls the “fundamentals of trust”: Understanding, Motive, Ability, Character and Track Record. While I won’t cover all of them here, Dr. Cloud explains that most people associate “trust” with being an honest individual, but there happens to be far more complexity to the concept. It’s a totality of the five fundamentals that equate to someone being truly “trustworthy”. With that, he acknowledges the “bedrock” of trust is built on basic character traits of honesty, transparency, lack of duplicity (same person in public/private settings), responsibility, high morals and a handful of other traits. He stresses how a lack of honesty simply cannot be tolerated and must be addressed before any change of a trusting relationship can exist. The entire house crumbles if it’s built on a foundation of dishonesty.
While it seems easy to assume that honesty and integrity are no-brainers for building a trusting relationship—how do we know these things to be present in the person, process or organization that we are dealing with? The short answer is, we don’t. We often go into arrangements with an inherent level of trust. Trust is given upfront and only tends to be retracted if one or more of the fundamental principles is broken. Generally, there is good reason to blindly extend trust—or maybe a more accurate term, “good faith”—we trust the reputation of the person or organization. Maybe a friend works for the company you’re applying to work with, your brother went to school with the person you’re going on a blind date with, you believe in the track record of your college teams new football coach enough to restore your faith in the next season, or you read rave reviews for a new restaurant in town before giving it a shot. We are constantly looking for something to validate our investment of vulnerability, so that we can in turn feel secure in the quality of our decisions.
Over time, if our investments turn out to burn us, we develop a default sense of skepticism. This is the “track record” component Dr. Cloud references as a core fundamental of a trusting relationship. When the behavior becomes a pattern that the person or organization will violate your trust rather than nurture it—the relationship has been compromised. This doesn’t mean that when someone screws up, they should automatically lose your trust—no one is perfect. Note the difference in the following two reactions to a trust violating behavior: “wow, that’s really out of character for them—something must be going on” v. “of course they did that, that’s par for the course.”. People screw up and mistakes are made but it’s how those mistakes are handled, and the behavior change that happens as a result, that makes all the difference. Weighing frequent patterns of distrustful behavior v. isolated occurrences can be a safe litmus test to discern whether you should continue to invest your emotional energy into a person or organization.
But wait, there’s more.
Here’s where things get tricky—if you are reading this as an employer, how can you really know if the candidate you are considering hiring is a trustworthy individual? Background checks? Calling references? Reviewing their training and experience? How do any of these preliminary processes truly address the previously discussed core competencies of trust? We all know the answer to that question—they don’t, and they never will. To qualify if someone possesses the core fundamentals, they need to be questioned on attributes that best represent their aptitude in those disciplines. Questions addressing character, integrity, transparency, consistency, and a comprehensive gauge of the individual’s emotional intelligence all contribute to providing a more reliable picture of the candidates’ trustworthiness.
Employers are responsible for not only recruiting the most dependable and capable individuals, but also for holding up their end of the “trust bargain” throughout the employees’ time with the organization. Bringing in a trustworthy candidate only to betray their trust once they are inside will still lead to counterproductive workplace behaviors. Trust needs to be applied and intentionally worked towards on both sides of the aisle. This concept highlights the critical responsibility of every organization when addressing the complete lifecycle of employee risk. Companies are compelled to hire trustworthy individuals, maintain that trust throughout the period of employment and in the event the trust becomes compromised—they must take swift action to mitigate the damage.
As an employer, while it’s impossible to go into an employment relationship with all the facts—it is possible to go in with enough information to make an objective informed decision. Running background checks, calling references and reading resumes will never come close to creating a fully formed candidate risk assessment. If we know the current measures in place are grossly ineffective—why do we continue to rely on them when making employment decisions? If trust is everything—we need to be more intentional about who we are letting in the front door.
“If trust is not your number one value—it’s over.”
– Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce
When we positively impact risk at the recruiting stage, we then decrease the amount of risk existing within the organization, allowing us to more effectively handle issues as they surface. If you would like to learn more about how we can help your team effectively deal with the full life cycle of employee risk—reach out today and let’s set up a call.
Sources
Cloud, H. (2023). Trust: Knowing when to give it, when to withhold it, how to earn it, and how to fix it when it gets broken. Worthy Publishing
Munir, M., & Azam, R. I. (2017). Emotional intelligence and employee performance: An intervention based experimental study. Journal of Business & Economics, 9(2), 1-19.
