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How leaders can build a culture of trust…and why they should

6/16/2015

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 “Google operates on the belief that people are fundamentally good.” –Laszlo Bock

I’ve been blogging recently about the evolution of talent management: where it has come from and where it needs to go. There are a number of important changes that define how talent management is evolving, but probably the most important change we are seeing is that organizations are getting better at trusting and empowering their employees to do the right thing. There’s still a long way for many organizations to go, but it’s extremely heartening to see some shining examples of companies that trust their employees and the monumentally positive impact that this has on employee engagement.

Google is one of these shining examples of a company that trusts and empowers its employees. In his book Work Rules!, Laszlo Bock, Google’s SVP of People of Operations, explains that “Google operates on the belief that people are fundamentally good,” and the leaders at Google trust and empower their employees to do the right thing. This sounds so simple, yet many companies seem to operate on the belief that people cannot be trusted to do the right thing, and all sorts of controls are needed to prevent bad behavior. When companies like Google have shown the clear benefits of trusting and empowering employees, why is it still so hard for most companies to do?

The benefits of trust and empowerment in the workplace

There is substantial research linking trust with improved employee engagement and organizational performance. One such study, Trust that Binds: The Impact of Collective Felt Trust on Organizational Performance, showed that employees who felt that their managers trusted them demonstrated better sales and customer service performance.

Similarly, it has been repeatedly shown that empowering employees – giving them the freedom to make decisions and get things done – has all kinds of benefits. Empowered employees are more productive, because they can quickly make decisions themselves instead of spending lots of time seeking approval from others. Empowered employees are more innovative, because they have the freedom to think outside of the box and come up with better ways to do things. And of course, empowered employees are happier: who doesn’t prefer having freedom in their work vs. being micromanaged?

But if the benefits of trusting and empowering your employees are so clear and obvious, why are there still so many organizations where it’s lacking?

Why is there such a lack of trust?

There are countless examples of organizations not trusting their employees. Company leaders not allowing employees to work from home because they don’t think employees will work hard when they can’t be physically seen (even though research shows the opposite). Company policies requiring manager approval for even the smallest business expenses. Managers asking employees for detailed daily progress updates so they can micromanage how employees spend their time. Small business owners not going on vacation because they don’t trust their employees to mind the store while they’re away. And so on, and so on.

Why does lack of trust seem to be the default for so many company leaders? Unfortunately, it seems to be human nature for many people to be distrustful, even when the facts are telling them it’s to their benefit to trust people. That irrational, emotional part of people makes it difficult to trust. Trusting people requires a certain degree of vulnerability, and this is difficult for a lot of people. After all, if I trust you to do the right thing, and you take advantage of that trust by harming me financially or otherwise, my natural reaction might be to stop trusting anyone, for fear of being hurt again. So, because of a few incidents of employees behaving badly, the result is often that no employees are trusted.

And because trust is a necessary prerequisite for empowerment, leaders who don’t trust their employees will give them as little empowerment as possible. They will resort to lots of rules, required approvals, excessive tracking and monitoring, etc. Employees, in turn, knowing their leaders don’t trust them, will likely feel resentful of that mistrust, unhappy at work, less productive, and more likely to behave in a way that is not in the best interests of the company (e.g. taking extra sick days). And so the lack of trust becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What can companies do to break out of this vicious spiral of distrust?

How leaders can build a culture of trust

Companies with a lack of trust need to focus on changing the culture…from a culture of distrust to a culture of trust. Culture change is hard…it will take time…and it absolutely needs to come from the top. If a company wants to successfully build a culture of trust, company leaders must work on setting aside their predisposition to distrust people and demonstrating that they trust people through their words and actions. No easy task, to be sure. But luckily, companies like Google, Zappos, Southwest and 3M have successfully built a culture of trust, and others can learn from their examples.

Give people the benefit of the doubt. As Laszlo Bock puts it, “If you believe human beings are fundamentally good, act like it.” While many companies seem to operate under a “guilty until proven innocent” premise that trust must be earned, companies with a culture of trust take the opposite approach. They assume people are good and can be trusted, and they act accordingly. A culture of trust has to start with the leaders taking the view that people are fundamentally good, and demonstrating this mindset every day through their words and actions.

Occasionally, even good people do bad things, and when that happens, company leaders must address the bad behavior and let the employee know it won’t be tolerated. If the bad behavior continues or if it’s serious enough, the employee may need to be fired. You can’t maintain a culture of trust if people see that bad behavior is allowed to go unchecked.

Hire great people. It will be much easier for a company’s leaders to trust their employees when they have great employees. Of course, talent acquisition is an extensive and complicated topic of its own, but it bears mentioning because hiring great people is a fundamental part of having a culture of trust. The key is to hire people who not only have outstanding skills and experience, but most importantly, people who fit your culture. If your goal is to have a culture of trust, where leaders and employees act in a trusting manner, then it’s important to hire people who are naturally trusting of others.

Similarly, if you have existing employees who are inherently untrusting, and it’s clear they don’t fit well in a culture of trust, then the best course of action may be to let those people go. Keeping untrusting people employed will undermine even the best efforts to build a culture of trust.

Zappos is a company that is well known for its culture of trust, and that starts with hiring great people. Zappos has a unique hiring process that is very heavily focused on cultural fit. What makes it unique? Instead of responding to a job post (there are no job posts), candidates create an online profile and are encouraged to include a video cover letter to “show your true colors.” Then during the interviews, candidates are not only interviewed about their skills and experience, but they are asked several questions to determine whether they fit with Zappos’ core values. Zappos is known for asking off-the-wall interview questions to assess cultural fit, such as “If you could be a super hero, what would you be and why?”

Be transparent. A key part of trusting employees is sharing information with them. A company can demonstrate trust in its employees by sharing sensitive company information with them and keeping them in the loop on important company decisions. Of course, some information can’t be widely shared for legal, ethical or other reasons, but company leaders should continually challenge themselves to share as much information with employees as possible.

Google, for example, shares the results of their employee surveys with all employees. And they don’t just share a high level summary; they allow employees to filter on any view of the employee survey data they want. Google employees – or Googlers, as they are called – not only get a clear view of the employee survey results, but they clearly see how the company leaders are acting on those results. Contrast this with many other companies, where the norm is to guard employee survey data like Fort Knox, and employees rarely if ever see any post-survey communications telling them how their input is being used to drive change. It’s clear to see that by being as transparent as possible and letting employees know they have a real voice in the company, Google is building a whole lot of trust.

Empower your employees to do the right thing…then get out of the way. One of the clearest and best ways to demonstrate trust in your employees is to empower them…give them the freedom to work how/when/where they want, freedom to make important decisions, freedom to try new ideas, even freedom to make mistakes. As long as employees demonstrate strong performance and deliver outstanding results, it shouldn’t matter if they leave early every Monday for a yoga class. It shouldn’t matter if they choose to allocate some of their time to working on a side project. It shouldn’t matter if they want to work remotely. What’s critically important is that employees understand they are accountable for results. As long as they deliver those results, it’s up to them how they want to manage their work.

Southwest Airlines is a great example of a company that empowers its employees to do the right thing for the customer. It’s not just about flight attendants singing and telling jokes during flights. Pilots, flight attendants, gate agents, telephone service representatives...all employees have the authority to make decisions about how to best serve the customer. Endless examples of empowered employees abound, such as the time a flight attendant gave a passenger a bottle of champagne and let him use the intercom so he could propose to his girlfriend during the flight.

3M empowers its employees through its 15 Percent Time Program, where employees are allowed to spend up to 15% of their working time on their own projects. 3M also encourages its employees to take risks by allowing them to make mistakes. In the words of former 3M President William McKnight, “Management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made kills initiative. And it’s essential that we have many people with initiative if we are to continue to grow.” Empowering employees to take risks by allowing them to fail is one of the fundamental drivers of innovation. It’s no coincidence that risk-averse companies that punish employees for failure are generally some of the least innovative companies.

So many companies expend enormous amounts of effort to control employees and limit their freedoms, supposedly in an effort to suppress bad behavior. Back in the days of the Industrial Revolution, where most people worked on a manufacturing line, control-heavy micromanagement may have served companies well. But those days are gone, and in today’s innovation- and service-driven economy, a culture of distrust is extremely harmful. Not only can controls backfire by incenting employees to behave badly in some cases, but implementing organizational controls is very costly. There are the financial costs of the labor and technology for extensive tracking and monitoring. There are the lost productivity costs of reviews and approvals. And worst of all, there are the decreased employee engagement costs of working in a culture of distrust. If only companies would take steps to replace many of these controls with a culture of trust, work would be simpler, faster, less expensive, more meaningful and more fun!

Photo credit: Pixabay
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Want to really reward your employees?  Build a culture of gratitude

4/26/2015

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“The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.” –William James

It is well-researched and documented that rewards and recognition are important drivers of employee engagement. And while I know this to be true, I find it hard to get excited about most company recognition programs. For example, many companies have monthly or quarterly award programs, where managers nominate employees for an award based on outstanding performance, a small committee selects a winner from the nominations they receive, and the winner is given a plaque or a certificate at the next company meeting – and if they’re lucky, perhaps a monetary award as well. I know it’s important to reward and recognize employees, but traditional approaches like this feel like a very small drop in a very big bucket. It’s a nice thought, but at the end of the day, how much engagement does it really drive to reward and recognize a few people, every once in a while?

What if there was a better way? What if companies could use rewards and recognition to make all employees feel more appreciated, more valued, more engaged, on a regular basis, all without spending a dime? There is, and they can…and it all starts with two words: Thank You.

Unleash the power of Thank You

Everyone knows that saying “thank you” is a good thing: it makes you feel happier, it makes others more willing to help you, and it fosters good relationships. Most people say thank you regularly to the people in their lives outside of work, but strangely, saying thank you at work is much less common. According to a survey by the John Templeton Foundation, people are less likely to express gratitude in the workplace than in any other area of their lives. For some reason, the typical mindset in the workplace is that an employee’s paycheck is his reward for doing good work, and additional rewards should only be given once in a while, for truly outstanding performance.

Yet this mindset makes no sense. Yes, employees expect to be paid for doing their job, but they want much more than just a paycheck. Employees want to know that their work is appreciated and valued, that they are making a meaningful difference. Saying thank you to someone is a powerful intrinsic motivator, it takes very little effort, and it doesn’t cost anything. Why would companies not want to reap the benefits of gratitude?

And those benefits have been well proven through research. In one set of experiments by Adam Grant and Francesca Gino, their research showed that employees “experience stronger feelings of self-efficacy and social worth” as a result of being thanked for their efforts. It just makes sense: if people feel appreciated at work, they will feel better about themselves and more motivated to do their best.

In fact, gratitude benefits not only those being thanked; it benefits those doing the thanking to an even greater degree. For example, being grateful has been shown to reduce stress levels and health issues like neck and back pain. Other proven benefits of being grateful include reduced levels of depression and aggression, increased happiness, increased self-esteem and increased resilience to overcoming trauma.

Building a culture of gratitude

So, with so many benefits and negligible cost, what can companies do to build a culture of gratitude? Start by setting a good example at the top, and find creative ways to encourage employees to thank each other.

Leaders need to set the example.
Like any cultural change, building a culture of gratitude needs to start with a company’s leaders. They need to demonstrate gratitude by saying thank you – frequently, consistently and sincerely. They shouldn’t just thank other leaders; in fact their thanks will likely have the most positive impact on more junior employees. It won’t happen overnight, but if all leaders say thank you on a regular basis, eventually employees will not only notice the change, they will start to emulate the example set by their leaders and say thank you to each other.

It is extremely important for leaders to be sincere when saying thank you. If they are only doing it out of a sense of obligation, employees will likely notice the hollowness of the gesture. Leaders should strive to be mindful of everyone’s contributions and sincerely thank people for making a difference. This can mean thanking employees for significant accomplishments like completing a project, but it can just as easily mean thanking employees for smaller contributions, like helping to plan a company social event, submitting a weekly report on time or brewing a new pot of coffee in the office kitchen. Even if something is a part someone’s job, it doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be thanked for doing it.

If leaders aren’t used to saying thank you at work, it’s not realistic that they will suddenly start giving sincere thanks all the time. To help leaders adopt a practice of gratitude, encourage them to spend a few minutes every day, making a list of things they are grateful for, including things in the workplace. This will help them adopt an attitude of gratitude and give them ideas for when to say thank you at work. Over time, saying thank you at work will come more easily and naturally.

Encourage employees to thank each other. In addition to leaders setting a good examples by saying thank you, there are lots of creative ways that companies can remind and encourage employees to say thank you. Here are a few ideas:
  • Have a “Thanks” award program where anyone can send a “Thanks” award to anyone else in the company. The note of thanks is sent to the employee and the manager is CC’ed. Optionally, “Thanks” award recipients can be given a small gift with their award, like a gift card or company logo merchandise (in that case, it probably makes sense to put a cap on the number of gifts an employee can receive each year, so people don’t abuse the program).
  • Have a “Thanks” wall: a display wall in the office where people can put up post-it notes to say thank you to anyone in the company. This is a great visual reminder of the importance of gratitude in the workplace. Employees should be encouraged to use the post-it notes as a supplement to saying thank you to someone directly, not as a replacement for it.
  • Make it a regular part of company meeting agendas. For example, weekly staff meetings can include a “Thanks” agenda item where leaders spend a few minutes thanking employees for something they did in the past week. They can also invite others in the meeting to contribute by saying thank you to a colleague.

Culture of gratitude vs. formal reward programs

Of course, formal reward and recognition programs are great, and I’m certainly not suggesting that companies replace them with a culture of gratitude. Formal rewards can be an important supplement to a culture of gratitude. In fact, having a culture of gratitude may make formal rewards and recognition even more valuable, because employees will know that they are not just a symbolic token but a sincere expression of appreciation.

What are your thoughts on gratitude in the workplace? Does your company have a culture of gratitude? What else can companies do to build a culture of gratitude?

Photo credit: Wikimedia

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    Jackie Bassett is a Director of People Strategy for UChicago Medicine, who is passionate about people...and helping organizations thrive by putting people first.

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