The Word Trust in an Organisation

I wonder if all employees are working to deliver and perform in an organisation, do we really need to distinguish between those who can be trusted and those not.

Trust means believing in the next person in something that we expect him to do. It could be a team as well. Lot of CEO's keep telling their employees that they TRUST them though actually they do not. It may be very hard to digest but most of the performing bosses, expect more and Trust Less. TRUST allows freedom of action which no Boss actually accepts. A boss is a boss and a leader is a leader. when you get bossy you loose Trust of your teams and when you Trust them you sometimes put results at Risk. Trust demands perfect understanding of your Teams and Those you are expecting to Trust.

One of the terms associated to trust is Blind Trust. It may be or can be true for a closely associated worker but you cannot do it right away within an organisation. For Instance One of the waiter who used to work in an organisation for almost three decades was considered dead honest and extremely loyal to the Organisation. He was blindly trusted and he surely kept his respect till he stayed in the organisation and even today is respected for his loyalty and hard work. This means Trust has to do something with Loyalty and honesty. so if you are a loyal and honest worker you should be Trusted. This is a regular claim of every employee in an organisation.

Interestingly the same employee may not be trusting his under commands or subordinates. We the Humans are by instinct a bit of selfish and self centrist. We expect others to trust and are not ready to trust others. Though Trust is never a one way do. If we are trusted we must also Trust. Blind Trust is extreme and may not work in an organisation. We may be part of a perfect society, perfect organisation and a perfect team but still there are many imperfections among each one of us. I may be good at supervising in the field and yet Mr. Hassan Sajjad may be good with Reports and Office Work, Mr. Amir Hayat may be good with Analytics, Computing or SAP.

On Habits, Attitude and Conduct in an organisation we build our Rapport which ultimately helps us in achieving a certain level of Trust within an organisation up to certain level depending upon spectrum of our interactions and/or circle of our influences. The level of trust would vary with each individual. And it takes months and years to build this Rapport or Trust. However despite achieving certain level of rapport or trust with an organisation one may still feel uneasy or disturbed.

What we really need to understand is the fact that organisations do not Trust you for the way you conduct yourself. Almost all Organisations work for results. They look at you as an instrument for progress, change, diversity, improvement and of course results. You are Trusted for the skill sets you have. Apart from Good Conduct, Discipline, Attitude and Habits an Organisation looks at each employee as a manager within his core function or responsibility. He would be only Trusted if he knows his work. And even knowing is not enough, if he does not employ all his knowledge for the Good of the organisation , he would still not be Trusted. Honesty and Loyalty remains fundamental to Trust.

In Nut Shell Trust with in an organisation can only be achieved by combination of two things - Individual Character and Traits plus the Functional Skill Set and its successful application.

A team can only be trusted when collective behavior continuously sparks expected results and conduct. I know some organisations where Teams or very careful and choosy in picking up newcomers. they have built Trust over the years of their bosses in doing well and behaving nice and they do not want it to be spoiled so they expect only high performing and highly motivated people to be part of their teams. But this is not easy. It take Years to win trust and probably one wrong move to impact or dislodge trust.

People Trust Toyota Today but it took them a magnum effort to reach it to this stage. But that is a product which is created through tested designs and fixed fundamentals. Maintaining a Trust in the product of an Organisation is somewhat easier than maintaining the Trust in the conduct and performance of individuals, employees or Teams. Each human is different and thinks differently.

The best way is to define certain fundamentals to Trust in an organisation. There is no harm in telling employees that they have to bind by certain rules and shall be obligated to deliver well with in their functional job roles before they can be trusted to enjoy greater freedom of action. Trust does not really mean that we leave the camel untied. There cannot be a Blind Trust in an Organization. It may be in army where patriotism remains key to success. Though skill sets are important even there. However, in commercial organizations absolute trust is a rear phenomenon.

I have begun to see some of the top notch companies across world who do not bother about micro management controls. For instance if you come late they have no issues till you complete your work for the day or a week. They believe in pragmatism and enough freedom. To them a suffocated worker would remain uneasy and would never be able to deliver his best. Resultantly you cannot Trust an Uneasy worker.

Yet another set of an organization considers discipline as key to performance. They believe if you don’t start in time you would never finish in time. For them a late worker can never be trusted. Especially the organizations that try to work with lean management philosophy and multi-tasking. They want employees to be available for maximum length of time with them so they can assign them more and more tasks. This can never be healthy for organization as well as employees in long run.

If you ask me how will I gauge if the Trust level within an organization is high or less. I would simply take attrition rate as the start point. I keep interacting with various set of employees working in various organizations and in most interactions I have felt that many of them like their bosses for some distinguished skill set that he may have but in most cases they considered the bosses un-composed and/or too demanding. When I asked them how their teams were. They felt were slow.

Unfortunately, even when we have achieved a certain level of recognition and rapport within an organization we are still unable to make it up to requisite trust levels. Organizational Politics plays its part. The bossy attitudes play their part of the superiors, Competitive jealousies play their part and above all monotony in the way we take our functional roles play yet another part.

The best way is to ignore organizational politics because if we get involved in defending against organizational politics we shall also indulge in some sort of organizational politics. So the best way is to stay calm and stay away from the organizational politics but there is no harm in remaining alert.

Secondly, we should never get dejected or down trodden with the bossy attitudes of our seniors and or managers. At the end of the day he happens to be a boss. Building Trust with him is much more important than building trust with your own self or your colleagues. Lot of employees ignore the first part. They feel if they become public figure and win trust of majority they will have no issues in dealing with their boss. It’s wrong. I mean winning Trust of peers as well as your team is equally important but the first person has to be the line manager. If he is himself weak you are lucky and if he is very strong you should be even luckier. It all depends upon you how you reap best out of his powers, efficacy, capability and capacities.

Competitive Jealousies in my opinion are positive but should not be a source of stress or rivalries’. Why should you be concerned how much someone else is trusted by the management and you are not? You should only focus on what good the concern employee is delivering to be amongst top Trusted Team Member. If you feel he is playing gimmicks let him play because managements are rarely blind. They may be trusting him because of some unknown strategic plan. Your focus should be in doing what is right and what you must do. I am sure you would grab greater Trust in the end.

As we have discussed earlier Trust in an organization can be achieved through two elements an exemplary conduct and continuous contribution to organizational performance. If you really wish to be trusted in an organization keep a track of these two. Loyalty, honesty and faith in leadership is Fundamental to all in the game of Trust.

Written by Zahid Faqir, MS in Pakistan Studies, MS in International Relations Ph. D in International Relations is in Progress. Three Decades of Work Experience in Multiple Organizations from Government to Semi Government, Private Sector, Academia and Industry. Presently working as Deputy General Manager HSEQ at a Power Plant in Karachi in K-Electric

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