Establishing Trust

I just finished reading teacher, leadership coach, and Rockhurst Executive MBA graduate Cory Scheer’s outstanding book, Closing the Trust Gap. The premise is that many if not most organizations suffer from a trust gap that leads to sub optimum outcomes. In his book, Scheer develops the structure of trust, which posits that trust is established through competency, problem solving and care for others. The book provides useful suggestions for closing the trust gap along with some great anchoring stories that illustrate the concepts. It is worth reading.??

What interests me about Scheer’s topic of trust is how it relates to performance and success. I start with football (my wife is sighing) and what is common among the best quarterbacks in the NFL right now. Ranking quarterbacks is a subjective exercise in part because it is hard to tease out the individual performance from the team context, or what is called the halo effect. Consider the list in the table below, which was one analyst’s ranking of the top 9 quarterbacks and their teams and coaches at this moment in time.?

By most standards, that list of coaches would rank among the top 10-12 coaches in the league. While talent plays a big part in these quarterback rankings, so does trust. I think it is easy to imagine that the trust gap is relatively small between coach and player compared to that of the lower ranked quarterbacks. These coach-quarterback relationships exhibit the characteristics of trust Scheer writes about. Trust allows the player to fully commit to game plans and be fully engaged in working that plan – both in preparing and playing the games. The player knows that they will be treated fairly. And the coach reciprocates by placing trust in the quarterback to execute even after he makes inevitable mistakes over the course of a game or season.??

The case of Sam Darnold (who I have talked about before) and his coach Kevin McConnell is instructive. After leading his team to a big win over the rival Green Bay Packers, Darnold was greeted by his teammates with nothing short of a hero’s welcome. Quite interesting for a player who before this year was by all accounts a failed quarterback. The scene reveals a high level of trust. How much credit goes to the coach?

All these top quarterbacks are on the best teams. The players trust the coach to do whatever is possible to improve the system of the offense that can lead to success. The coaches trust their quarterbacks to perform to the best results for the team even if they sacrifice individual stats. Coaches also trust their offensive system to maximally support the quarterback to be effective. The culture and offensive infrastructure the coach has created helps the quarterback to be effective (note the subhead for the video embedded in the linked article “KO [Kevin O’Connell] watching the culture he’s built”).?

Does trust lead to success, or vice versa? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Whichever may be true, it is hard to imagine a high-performing workplace that lacks trust. Managers who can develop systems and processes that enable employee growth and help them perform effectively will do a lot to close the trust gap. Turns out that the highest performing quarterbacks work with excellent coaches. Is it any different that the most effective employees work for excellent managers??