Trust As The Foundation of Truly Human Culture

“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 R. Covey

Christianah had her review and everything went well. No one asked her any questions nor was she given a query. However, a few days after she was told her appointment had been terminated. When she asked why. She was told that she was trying to take over everyone’s job. When she reached out to me and told me about what happened I really felt sad for the company.

This is a normal situation in Nigerian companies most especially the banks. People come to work afraid that it may be their last day at work. People have resumed in the bank and are unable to log in to their email. Without anyone giving them a warning, they have been fired. Trust is the last thing you will ever find in Nigerian workplaces.

What these companies don’t really understand is that by doing that, they are building a culture that fosters fear, distrust, suspicion, and trickery. When trust is lacking in a company, people begin to spy on each other. Insecurity depletes an organization of trust among its people. When there is no trust, organizations crawl.

Lack of trust increases entropy within an organization. In-fighting and competition among individuals and teams distract from the main goal and vision of the company. People get micromanaged. The time, resources, and energy that would have been used to pursue and achieve the vision of the company are now spent spying on employees. The company becomes a mini-CIA, KGB, and M16. Every leader has his or her spy team, spying on somebody and reporting back.

“An environment lacking in trust fosters defensive, suspicious, insular, and fearful behavior, which depletes organizational energy and destroys creativity. A lack of trust imposes a burden of higher monitoring and legal costs. It makes companies sluggish, unresponsive, and uncaring. It sows the seeds for the eventual destruction of the organization.” Bob Chapman

The leader trusts employees who are credible and deliver what they promise. At first, they extend the benefit of the doubt until employees prove they have what it takes to deliver on the promise they made before they were employed. This part of the trust is quite easy to attain. The most difficult is for employees to trust their leaders/managers and the company.

When I looked at my relationship with Bob Chapman, I will say that at a certain point I moved from trust to distrust. Once trust is broken, it's hard to build back and the relationship becomes transactional and manipulative. We trust people when they keep their word and are consistent with their actions. He may have had a lot going on for him, that he forgot to keep the words he wrote in his book.

In the Truly Human Culture Playbook, we use a model based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to build trust in organizations. Without trust, no organization can last long. Instead of being progressive and innovative, people will be defensive and protective.

1. Security: People trust a company where they feel they have a future and leaders who know how to ensure that the future of the company keeps getting bigger and better. The moment employees feel insecure about their future, they stop trusting the company and start looking for ways to leave. This is presently prevalent in Nigerian banks. The low trust in Nigerian banks is resulting in more talents not only leaving those companies but the country. People will leave places where they think their future is threatened for places where they think it is secured.

2. Belonging: People trust companies and leaders who involve them in the companies. Once people feel excluded, trust drops. They become suspicious of everyone. Companies should avoid exclusive clubs and ensure that everyone is given a chance to belong to teams if they want to foster trust. It's natural with humans, when we think we are not included, we don’t belong in a place or we are treated like we don’t belong, we feel unwanted and we begin to distrust. Not including people passes a message that you don’t trust them and they reciprocate that back to the company.

3. Safe: Christiana is a great worker and like many employees who have been thrown under the bus without prior notice, it will be hard for her to trust any busy. As such it will be hard for her to feel safe and settle in a company. The fear of being fired at the whim of a leader will continue to guide her actions. She was praised a few days before she was fired. Some of those employees who noticed how she was fired will feel unsafe and as such their productivity and engagement in the company will nosedive. No organization can build trust when people feel unsafe at work.

4. Support: People want to know that when they make mistakes or fail, they will be supported and helped to improve. When people trust the company, they will be vulnerable, take risks and try new things knowing that leadership has their back. However, when they know that they will be chewed raw if they make mistakes rather than supported, they won’t trust the company or leadership. People want to know that they will be rescued and celebrated when they make a mistake while trying to create something new for the company. When people know they will be supported, they trust.

Humans operate effectively when they feel trust. Company cultures that foster distrust end up destroying the company from within. It's important that companies intentionally build and nurture trust among their people. Trust is the foundation of all workplace relationships and impacts the productivity of the company.