Building Trust

Written by Jason Haines

“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.” -Stephen Covey

Trust is a very hard thing for many people in the world, and seems to be the one thing that is hardest for a leader to gain from people that are in their stead. Why is it so hard to gain and earn trust if most people are really looking out for the best interests of others? How do leaders gain and lose trust of their people and what can they do about it? What is the biggest way that Lean can help to gain the trust of the people that are part of your organization? I would like to try to answer these questions in this short writing that I am presenting this week.

In all the places I have worked or lived there are many people that simply don’t know how to trust in others, even when they are given no reason to trust the people they are around. The area I lived in, Southeast Ohio, there were many people that trusted no one except for family and sometimes not even them. I had a mother who just recently passed of cancer who never received treatment because she thought the health care system would take her money and that was what they were out to do. And there are many people out there just like that, read the book Hillbilly Elegy and you can get an understanding of people and their distrust of things. But why is there distrust in the first place?

There are many types of distrust in the world, an organization, or in a relationship in general. Some of these are due to doubt, suspicion, anxiety, fear, and self-protection. One of the big ones that I have witnessed in places that I have been a part of is the self-protection, but I think that many times you must have one or more of the above said items to have some sort of distrust. You will see self-protection in the workplace because people have a distrust for the leadership in the facility mostly because the leadership in the facility has shown a distrust for them. Attitude reflects leadership.

People, even if words are not said, can understand when there is distrust or anything else that a leader feels or exudes from themselves. A lot of times this is because all eyes are on the leader and their actions to the people. If a leader is not confident people will notice, if they are nervous people notice, and if they do not trust the people the people will notice. This happens at all levels of leadership and in any role of leadership. So how can a leader learn how to gain the trust of their people?

If there are no perfect employees, and many of the people leaders must work with were not chosen by the leader themselves, how can a leader build trust? This is a question that I have had to answer in many leadership discussions; sometimes I had the wrong answer and other times I had the correct answer. When I chose to start my Lean journey I discovered that trusting would help me become a better and more caring leader to help the people as I had always wanted to do. Lean has a set of tools as many of us know, but it also has a way of coaching, mentoring, and teaching people so that they can learn and grow as well. Because as we all know, true leaders, want to grow their people as well as themselves and to succeed as a leader we must help our people first. I know, many of you are saying that you always say work on yourself first, and yes this is true because if you are busy you cannot help others, but once you become less busy or more put together you can start to grow others.

Why did Lean help me see a better way to lead? Well for one I like to be hands-on and help people out and Lean gave me this opportunity. It doesn’t say to do the job of the people, but it does say to help where help is needed. And this can be in any way such as going to the Gemba where you are trying to see areas that can be fixed, improved, changed, or any number of things that you go to the Gemba for. When we go to the Gemba we are doing multiple things such as seeking to learn and building relationships with frontline workers and leaders. This relationship building will start to build trust because when we go out to the Gemba we are taking interest in the people doing the work, we are not accusing and making assumptions, and we are getting out away from our desks and into the thick of things. People love talking about their work and enjoy seeing when others are interested in the work.

Another level of going to the Gemba that many people miss though is getting people to understand the importance of what they are doing. I always wanted people to understand that their jobs were important regardless of level or position but sometimes I got wrapped up in other tasks that I unknowingly disregarded growing my employees and helping them understand their importance. The Gemba walks are a way to discuss with people their understanding of their work and why it is important to the whole system. Also, while on the Gemba you show the people doing the work that they are important, and their work matters to everyone. In traditional management people were just a number that can be replaced tomorrow, and people see this, and their attitudes will show that they distrust the leadership and organization of they are treated like a number.

The main thing to always remember when we go to the Gemba is to show respect for the people and ask open ended questions that aren’t focused on blaming but instead inquiring. First get the how and then ask why things are done a certain way. When showing respect and asking questions that are not placing blame, people will start to understand that you are there to help them and change the way things are done. To0 many times managers go to the shop floor when there is a problem, and I mean only when, and jump to conclusions, make assumptions, and firefight a workaround that only makes the job harder and more frustrating. When we are going to the Gemba we are first trying to get an understanding and then we are empowering the people to make the changes that they need to make so their jobs will become better. How are we empowering the employees to make the changes?

This is where the coaching, mentoring, and teaching comes into place. When we are out looking at the processes and problems during our Gemba walks and asking the open-ended questions we are also getting people to think of ideas and experiment. This is teaching and coaching people to think critically about their jobs and solving problems instead of finding others to solve their problems. We use these times, and many times inadvertently, to coach our frontline employees on how to solve problems. Because let’s be honest 90% (may not be accurate but is hillbilly math of close to this) of our work is solving problems. And our ultimate goal is to build the future leaders and ambassadors of their organization to create long-term thinking and stability.

This is how you gain the trust of your employees, children, and followers by being their servant leader and representative. Allowing them to learn and persuading them to think about things in a new way and maybe they will come to thinking about things in a way that you do. Do not be their enemy, rather be their coach, cheerleader, representative, and teacher showing and guiding them to find the right answer through experimentation and mistakes so we can gain their trust.

Helping grow your business through process improvement!!