Trusting Trust
Back to humanity basic
We live in a world that is not only complex but also volatile, uncertain, and hard to make sense of, so the U.S. Army War College introduced a concept named VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) which is used to describe the more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous multilateral world perceived as resulting from the end of the Cold War.
For decades, scholars and practitioners tried hard to distil the key drivers of the complex issue of business success and failure. The endeavours have given us a huge library of management books. The collection of books is so voluminous that another new industry has emerged to summarize these books so that busy people are able to get a glimpse of knowledge.
Business is essentially a societal phenomenon. Under a plethora of managerial concepts that were thrown around — strategy, marketing, operations, finance, differentiation, leadership, motivation, etc. — it turns out that the core driving force that makes us a successful society will also make the business successful.
Anthropologists and sociologists can tell us that the success of our society depends primarily on our ability to establish positive and satisfying relationships within the community. We build relationships in small groups and large institutions all the time. It is not difficult for us to build a strong bond between family members. However, when we attempt to build a meaningful relationship beyond more than a hundred people in an organization, we will naturally hit a snag. Harari, the author of Sapien, pointed out that most people can neither intimately know, nor gossip effectively about, more than 150 human beings [1].
A community size of more than 150 people will need something bigger for everyone to hold on to — often in the form of religions, stories, myths or belief systems. Growing beyond the size of 150, a community will need to trust the stories, their leaders and each other. Failure to do so inevitably bring about catastrophes. Trust is the basic building block of human relationships. We see again and again the rise and fall of tribes, kingdoms and nations, like waves of the ocean. Conversely, if we can unite and build a strong relationship with hundreds or even thousands of people, we will have a formidable organization that can compete successfully.
At the smallest unit of the family, distrust between the married couple will almost certainly break the union. Family feud with immediate and extended family members is common when the trust in the family is broken. On a larger scale, we know that trust has long been the bedrock of community and national unity.
In the business world, my very own eyes have witnessed many startups failed after the founding members lost trust in each other. Partnerships break often out of suspicion of ulterior motives of one another. Growing companies stagnate out of distrust between employees and managers. In fact, we developed a whole new field called “industry relations” (IR) and have it dedicated to addressing the repercussion of distrust. Then we have another field of corporate governance (CG) to watch over suspicious decisions by top management. Not that the disciplines of IR and CG are unnecessary; rather they should not dominate the company agenda. We must remember that companies are established to add value to society and earn profits along the way. IR and CG should be there just to mitigate the trust problem that arises.
What if we design-in trust in our organization in the first place? Wouldn’t IR, CG, stifling bureaucracies and red tapes become mostly unnecessary?
When businesses start to get serious about trust, great things happen — as in the case of Alibaba. During the early days of e-commerce in China, very few people felt comfortable buying online as there was simply no trust. Buyers didn’t trust the seller will look after their interest. By addressing trust issues, Alibaba has become the clear leader in China’s vast US$1 trillion e-commerce market[2].
Out of strange circumstances, I started teaching about trust 8 years ago as part of a customer relationship course to the students of the University of Hertfordshire. I thought I never have to discuss the trust issue anymore. Then ViTrox decided to set its vision to be “the most trusted technology company in the world”. I realize that I have to dig into my old files in my library again.
So how do we approach the idea of trust?
As usual, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel or start from scratch. It turns out that two authors have contributed significantly in this field — Charles Green and Stephen MR Covey. Of course, there are countless books and articles about trust today; but the approach proposed by these two authors is a good starting point if you are thinking about designing-in “trust” in your organization.
Stephen MR Covey continues the legacy of his father — Stephen R. Covey — as a proponent of holistic leadership. His father’s “7 Habits of Highly Successful People”[4] has helped many leaders to mature. His book and flagship program “The Speed of Trust”[3] has become widely adopted by many companies. Covey argues that we need to have both good character and competence to gain trust. The character of a leader reflects his integrity and intent; while competence can be observed through his personal capability and his track records in producing results. What makes Covey’s program valuable it that he actually proposed specific behaviours that will enhance trust.
Charles Green on the other hand proposed the “trust equation” [5], which illuminates the four key elements that lead to trust:
Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self-orientation
There are overlaps between concepts suggested by both Covey and Green. For example, Covey’s intent equals Green’s low self-orientation; Green’s reliability is the outcome of Covey’s competence and results; intimacy is a close equivalent to integrity.
The good news is that trust — or lack of trust — need not be seen as your karma. We can behave according to the recommended ways to affect the level of trust we have in our organization.
Having awareness of the central role of trust in our organization development is key. Next, we can build trust by acquiring the necessary knowledge and cultivate behaviours and habits to develop and enhance trust. Eventually, our organization will be united, strong, competitive and successful.
References
[1] Harari, Y. N. (2014). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Random House.
[2] Soo, Zen & Li, Tao. (2018). How Alibaba’s Taobao solved the trust problem in China and changed the way people shop. South China Morning Post.
[3] Covey, Stephen MR. (2006). The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything. New York: Free Press.
[4] Covey, Stephen R. (1989). The 7 habits of highly effective people. New York: Simon & Schuster.
[5] Sharpe, James, & Green, Charles. (2015). A Note on Trust. Harvard Business School.
