“Trust is the Glue of Life. It is the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It is the foundation principle that holds all relationships” – Stephen Covey.
As I keep researching, analyzing, thinking about how every business (no matter its size, location, industry) can become a successful one, time and again, the focus on fundamentals keep appearing in my mind.
One such fundamental aspect, that provides a very strong foundation for businesses and societies, that provides immense advantage and benefit, is TRUST.
Customer’s trust on our products and services is what comes to our mind immediately. As this is obvious and no business can even survive without this, I am going to focus on other aspects of Organizational trust in this article.
Organizational TRUST is a very powerful mechanism that brings people together.
It is characterized by “trust” on:
- One’s own abilities
- Team
- Leadership
- Policies
- Strategy
- Organization Direction
As a Leadership coach and a Digital Enterprise Architect, sharing my thoughts on how TRUST can be established within an Organization.
a. Resilience
In the face of adversity, if an individual, team member, department, management can stick to its promises, values etc., the confidence and dependability goes up.
b. Transparency
Instead of departmental/information silos, if there is visibility and information with right context & role relevance along the value chain, clarity emerges and that increases the belief and trust on the overall system.
c. Sacrifice
No gain without pain. It involves people, cost centers, internal service providers, internal customers, support department to be willing to sacrifice, get into uncomfortable situations etc., if they wish to build and retain the trust among the stakeholders.
d. Coherence
Communication plays a very important role in building and sustaining trust. Being consistent on NCs (non-compromising aspects), Strategy, Policy etc. goes a long way in establishing trust. That does not mean that the strategy, policy etc. cannot change. It simply means, once a decision is baselined and announced, it should be followed upon consistently by Walking the Talk, without giving place for favoritism, unfair advantage etc. Whenever there is a need to revisit the decision, it needs to be properly communicated to all stakeholders, along with the change in original conditions, need to revisit the decision and the basis for new/change in decision.
e. Data Governance
Today, data has become the New Oil, especially for businesses. Different roles adjust themselves, act and take decisions & learn based on the data that they get access to. However, if the data does not comply with SPOT (Single Picture of Truth) and if it is not real-time, then there is no value for the data. As most of the times, data and information become the foundation for inter and intra departmental collaboration, if there is a lack of trust on the data and its accuracy, it may reflect on the trust between collaborating parties. Hence, a proper Data management & governance strategy, along with Data literacy to team members, is very essential.
Technological innovations (especially those augmented with Digital technologies) along with the right Leadership can build appropriate environments, ecosystems, internal institutions that eliminate all threats that can spoil the TRUST factor, like miscommunication, misunderstanding, rumor-causing situations, factors causing disengagement, wrong decisions etc.
Last but not the least, many businesses focus more on their marketing, sales activities and achieve great success, in spite of weak internal TRUST. All that I can say is that, these may be short-term success and may not be sustainable. Building a strong foundation based on TRUST can guarantee a long-term and sustainable success.
Looking forward to hear your views on this subject.