“Trust is a powerful way to bring a company forward”
How do you define trust?
For me, trust is something that enables you to let go of certain things — so you can really focus and manage the complexity around you as a leader. In a very practical sense, it’s about relying on people and knowing that things will get taken care of. In today’s business environment, trust is a necessity. I think it’s impossible not to work with trust.
What makes trust difficult to grant?
Well, you know, people are not perfect. I use an inner navigation system, which tells me where I need to be cautious. So, I don’t work with incompetent people. I don’t work with people whose integrity I can’t trust. And high-ego people are particularly difficult because self-interest is their goal. In the end, a lot depends on the one-to-one relationship you create.
How do you build and cultivate trusting relationships?
I don’t systematically plan as such. It’s informal. Sometimes, it’s just spending time with the person and listening — that’s really important — and sharing points of view. You need a genuine interest to do this; you need to like people. It’s not a technique. Even though my background is as a CFO, I’ve always had this interest in others, and tried to take care of people and treat them the way they want to be treated. I’ve always enjoyed a bit more intimacy than just a working relationship.
Do you see other leaders underinvesting in trust?
Yes, I do. I see a general habit to define leadership far too much by hard skills. A lot of leaders put this at the forefront. But it makes them in some way inhuman. People can’t “feel” them, and so they don’t engage. They become less committed and then leadership becomes a power game, relying on authority to get things done. For me, the biggest power is not to use power.
Does trust actually improve results?
Yes, there’s lots of empirical evidence that trusting organizations perform better. People invest more of themselves at work. They treat the company as their own, as if they were somehow an owner, and not just agents moving around the corridors. They give more.
How has Ringier Axel Springer innovated in the area of trust-building?
We have done a lot and we are going to do more. In fact, we’ve just developed the first corporate online test, like an app, where people can test their own trustworthiness. What we say is: trust starts with yourself. And if individuals can make themselves more trustworthy, then trust in the organization can grow exponentially. I think over 300 of our people have already tried this test, and we are now developing a 360degree version, where you can invite others to assess you. Then you compare your assessments and, with this, you have the information to really develop yourself and develop trusting relationships with others.
What do you say to people who still see managing trust as a soft topic?
For me, trust is a real currency, the ultimate currency. Trust is a powerful way to bring a company forward. It gives us the speed we need — the speed that structures will never give us — to get the right things done in the right way.
emotion, a fuzzy assessment of our connection to others that we find very difficult to define precisely. But we know what trust looks like when we see it in action at work: people say what they really think, there is a sense of rapport, decisions are made quickly and with the confidence that they will be implemented as agreed, and we don’t need to go over every detail to confirm that what others say is correct. So, trust does exist, and is undeniably good. Maybe a firm definition isn’t really necessary after all.
Nevertheless, Charles H. Green, a renowned US author on trust, has proposed a scientific approach to understanding trust and has developed the “Trust Equation” (see below). This equation draws on research into trust, and provides a
WE ALL KNOW WHAT TRUST LOOKS LIKE WHEN WE SEE IT IN ACTION
convenient way to understand trust and the key factors that help it to grow or that can reduce it.
Let’s look more closely at the elements in the ⋅ Trust Equation:
We are more likely to be trusted when we speak with credibility and people believe what we say. For this, we need competence and expertise, and a sense of conviction when delivering our messages. ⋅
The second factor, reliability, is about actions rather than words. Do we deliver on our promises and do what we say we will do? If we do, we cultivate a ⋅ sense of trustworthiness.
The third factor, intimacy, relates to feelings. It is about having enough confidence in another person to share our feelings and other information with them, knowing they will remain confidential ⋅ and not be used against us.
The final factor, self-orientation, intro duces a big “but” to trustworthiness. If an individual is seen to have a high level of self-orientation, a strong sense of ego or a touch of arrogance, this reduces the force of the first three factors and can radically undermine their trustworthiness and their trust in others. The perceived level of egotism is therefore a key determinant of trust.
Exercise: Assess your own trustworthiness using the Trust Equation
Think about your own level of trustworthiness using the four factors in the Trust Equation: your credibility, reliability, intimacy and level of self-orientation. Then explain the model to a few key colleagues and stakeholders, and ask them to assess your trustworthiness from their perspective. Over a coffee or lunch, compare your assessments and explore insights that can help you to work together better. Conversations about trust are a great way to start building trust.
3. What factors can erode trust?
If trust is simply a matter of talking about four relatively uncomplicated factors, why does it seem to be so problematic to build? In reality, there are many factors that can destroy people’s willingness to trust others, which we will examine in this section:
Workloads. The combination of a high workload and a lack of resources puts enormous pressure on people who want to deliver on their promises. It can
compromise their ability to deliver the quality that they want — and that is required. So, if someone is late in performing a task or delivers a job at a standard lower than is required, they may still deserve your trust. Rather than viewing a failed promise as an automatic reason for reducing or withdrawing trust, the real lesson may be to clarify the risks to high performance more clearly up front.
Poor communication. A lack of clarity about goals and roles in organizations often leads to a mismatch between the effort required and the effort invested. Confusion means that people may do the wrong thing, or do things that are not their responsibility. Combine this confusion with cultural differences, different communication styles and the fact that people often work with others who are located in other offices and whom they know only superficially, and problems easily arise. But rather than viewing these problems as a reason not to trust others, we should view them as a call to communicate better, set clearer priorities and build better relationships.
Competence levels. International teams are often made up of individuals with different levels of competence. This can result in tensions, with the more expert people frustrated by the inability of others to deliver, and the less expert people irritated by what they see as the arrogance of the more expert. The lesson here is to use knowledge gaps as opportunities for knowledge transfer. Instead of losing trust and blaming others, we should be supporting them. This, in turn, will foster trust.
Leadership roles. Leaders gain access to privileged and confidential information as a result of the nature of their role. This means that they may be unable to be fully open with their teams. They also have to maintain a professional distance in their relationships, and may from time to time be the bearers of perhaps devastating messages on job cuts. So, it is no wonder that trust in leaders is sometimes low. The lesson for leaders is to explain to team members the restrictions imposed by their role and to ensure that their positive motivations are articulated frequently. Leadership styles. Some leaders believe in the intrinsic creativity of people to perform if they are set free. Others believe in the need to control people and push them to perform. The former are often accused of not caring, of being too distant. The latter are often accused of micromanaging. Leaders need to explain their style and establish a working “leader-team contract” in order to avoid false interpretations of their behaviour.
Emotions. Few leaders are promoted because of their powers of empathy. Most are promoted because of their technical ability and the fact that they are highly self-driven. The latter quality can easily be perceived as ego and selforientation. The lesson for leaders is to be as excellent emotionally as they are technically, to take time to show people clearly that they care and are there to help others succeed. In this way, leaders can build the necessary trust. False assumptions. Perhaps the single biggest barrier to trust lies in false assumptions about the concept itself. People are often slow to engage with the idea of “trust” because they focus too much on the risks inherent in making oneself vulnerable to others: “If I tell him this, will he use this information against me?” And this fear is potentially justified. The other person may use the information against you. We shouldn’t trust others blindly, of course; that would be foolish and naive. But trust is not an absolute concept
LEADERS NEED TO SHOW THEY ARE THERE TO HELP OTHERS SUCCEED
anyway, but rather a relative, situational phenomenon. What we need to do is determine the level of trust that we need with each individual for each situation and, if there is a gap, to work to increase trust to the required level. For example, if we want a team member to be able to perform without our supervision, we need to help them to increase their skills so that they get to the point where they don’t need supervision. And to get to the outcome that we want — trust in their ability to work alone — we need to make a start by offering some level of trust. “Light trust” is needed at the beginning to get to “deep trust” at the end.
4. How can we generate trust?
Being able to generate trust is a leadership competence that needs to be practised if you are to do it well. The “C9 Trust Tool” (see p. 43) is a practical framework that can be used with teams to compare the current level of each of the nine “C dimensions” against the level that the team feels is required. If there is a gap, you should talk to your team about the reasons for the gap and how best to close it.
Working with the C9 Trust Tool can help you to understand the levels of trust required by your team for your specific tasks — and to agree together on ways to develop a culture of trust.