Is it ‘normal’ to trust, or to distrust?

Summer Edition #1

Is it ‘normal’ to trust, or to distrust?

Nearly all of my clients are now talking about how to get people back to work, to ‘normalcy’: back in offices, back in front of clients and customers, taking public transport to and from work. The problem is, they’re up against what I call the Trust Dilemma.

Many of us have now had a taste of relative freedom, where we’ve slept until 15 minutes before our first Zoom meeting, we’ve walked the dog between meetings, we’ve taken our kids on a bike ride in that late afternoon gap in our schedule.?And, yes, we’ve worked on reports and presentations and business cases at 6.30am, or 10.30pm, to get the job done.

But, now, we’re asking whether all these people, whom society trusts to pay off mortgages and credit cards, look after children and elderly parents, are to be trusted to work independently when back at work.

My clients, government, non-profit and for-profit, are faced with basic ethical questions that boil down to: “Do we trust our people?” In the past, we’ve asked them to sign in on timesheets, be physically present at specified locations at specified times, and to be accountable for work done, on an hourly (or sometimes a 6-minute) basis. What do we do from here?

The Brazilian industrialist,?Ricardo Semler, in the 1980s transformed his organisation on the basis that he wouldn’t control and regulate the 2% of ‘unethical’ staff at the expense of the 98% who did the right thing. Now, heading into 2022, can we do the same?

Question:?How far can you trust your people to self-manage, and reform your work practices as you return from lockdown?

Courage and character

During our sporadic emergence from COVID, many executives have had to test their comfort levels with face-to-face meetings.

One of my CEO clients decided to go ahead with a strategy retreat in-between lockdowns, commenting, “If we don’t meet, we’re in danger of making really important choices, but based on assumed decisions”.

Over three days we made a lot of what was implicit explicit and some of the most important breakthroughs occurred as a result of the group achieving moments of ‘radical honesty’. Meeting face to face gave them the ability to be ruthlessly transparent about their views, sharing them productively, and working through to a desired resolution.

We did this repeatedly over three days, which reminded one of our participants to comment on her time at Shell, where the following mantra was common: “Courage to challenge; character to accept”. In other words, it’s not sufficient to be radically honest, we must also be able to accept the honesty of others.?

Question: “At this time, what do you need to be honest about? Whose honesty do you need to be prepared to accept?”

Focus

A consulting colleague, Nicole, told me a shocking story recently. She helps companies dramatically improve their sales success, and one of her clients, in a panic about COVID-disrupted cashflow, decided to dismiss several staff.

Because of a ‘last in, first out’ policy they removed the one person whom Nicole believes could single-handedly rescue them: a hugely talented salesperson, capable of great agility and perseverance. Instead, they’re left with a denuded sales team who are sitting at home base complaining about lack of prospects to make calls to.

Instead, what we should all be doing is asking the question, “What capabilities are MOST going to predict our success, both right now, and in building ourselves up once the crisis clears?” Focus on identifying those, retaining those, and transferring them to those who don’t yet have them.?

Question: “What capabilities are of most value to you right now? Are they the same or different to your BAU capabilities?”

I’m on holidays until January 26th, so the above are a ‘summer edition’ of past 5 Minute Strategic Mindset segments that have been popular with readers. I look forward to being back with you shortly, however, if you’ve enjoyed reading please click the 'thumbs up' so it keeps the 5MSM pulse beating.

See you next Friday morning.

Andrew