Building Business Value | Corporate Management Strategies

Five Ways to Build Trust in the Workplace

In their August 10th blog "Trend to Watch: Trust in Business Is Running Out" on HBR Now, Eric Beinhocker & Elizabeth Stephenson discuss the strained relationship between us and the businesses we deal with every day.    They found that "the relationship between business and civil society was showing signs of strain even before the crisis. Since the recession began, there has been a precipitous decline in trust. The Edelman Trust Barometer found that 62% of adults in 20 countries trusted corporations less in December 2008 than they had a year earlier."

But how does that impact the leader of a small or midmarket company?  You are not the bank, broker or insurance company that fed this economic crisis but unfortunately, because you are in business, you're swept up in this potential death spiral of mistrust.

I could not agree more with Beinhocker and Stephenson when they ask "why should this concern strategists? Because a low-trust environment makes everything about doing business more difficult. For an individual company, loss of trust leads to higher transaction costs, lower brand value, and greater difficulty attracting, retaining, and managing talent. Ultimately, it can mean boycotts, negative publicity, and unwanted regulation".

So what can a midmarket leader do to build trust in the place that matters most, their workplace?

Take the word TRUST and create a mnemonic to remind you of just what to do to build a trusting workplace environment.

T stands for TEACH.  Teach everyone in your organization just how things work.  Make it as transparent as possible.  If you want front line leaders making decisions that will make a positive impact on the value of the company, teach them how the place works.

R stands for REWARD.  Make sure your rewards systems are aligned with your corporate values and corporate goals.  I see too many companies rewarding behavior that might have a temporary positive impact on the bottom line, but not create long term value for the company.

U stands for UNCONDITIONAL SUPPORT.  Consider your role as a leader as a position of vulnerability.  Too many midmarket execs feel they have to be perfect and this creates an environment where mistakes are hidden and new ideas are discouraged (they can't be any good if the leader didn't think of them.)  Mistakes should be like tuition.  Get them out in the open and learn from them.  Talk about them and you'll foster an environment of openness and creativity.

S stands for SHARING INFORMATION.  If it's not personal information or the secret to Coke or Pepsi, then get the information out there.  Creating a trusting environment where employees know what they have to do everyday to impact the bottom line means they need to have enough information to make good decisions.

T stands for being TRUSTWORTHY.  As a leader, you'll build trust by making and keeping commitments.  Chances are your emails are being saved and your speeches are being recorded and posted on YouTube so you might as well come clean.  Keep every commitment you've ever made and trust will become viral in your organization.

So there you have it.  Bob Blonchek and I penned these Five easy ways to build TRUST in your organization in our book "Act Like an Owner" and they are needed more now than ever.

The Internal Press Release

A number of years ago I interviewed Bill Shrader for a book my colleague Bob Blonchek and I were writing (“Act Like an Owner”, Wiley 1999). Bill was then the CEO of the high-flying internet service provider PSINet. One of the excellent tools Bill used to keep his team informed on how the company was performing was his weekly email. Bill had certain rules for the communique. He kept it brief ... less than a screen shot so you would never have to scroll down to see the full message. He always related inside events to the outside world with the idea that he would keep the staff focused on serving their customers versus being internally focused. It is an effective executive communications tool. More recently, Leo Fox, CEO of Tenacity Solutions suggested further compacting the message so those that read email on their phones won’t have to hit the option to download the remainder of the message. Good thought.

Another great communications tool leaders can use is the Internal Press Release. The press release has been used for decades to inform stakeholders about new products, senior appointments and earnings announcements.  A great deal has changed in the world of PR and press releases. Before you go too far, check out "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" by David Meerman Scott for great ideas on external press releases.

But let's get back to Internal Press Releases idea. It seems like every mid-sized company I visit struggles with how to keep the staff informed. Employees always want to know the latest company information. Everything from product launches to team lunches, from training to time-off policies, and virtually everything in between. Develop an approach to ‘press releasing’ newsworthy items for internal consumption. Segment the releases by some sort of logical breakdown (office of the president, marketing, sales, distribution, HR,etc) and then make sure everything ties back into a central repository like the corporate portal, FAQs or the company blog. This provides newcomers a chance to get a sense of the culture and at the same time find an answer to their questions.

Consider this Mantra

I’ve always lived by the mantra that leaders have to go home at night sick and tired of communicating. On your drive home, if you don’t say to yourself “I can’t talk to another person today” … well, you just haven’t done it enough! Use the Internal Press Release as one tool to help you keep your team informed.

Can Incentive Plans Really Motivate? Ask the Rice Farmer!

I had a conversation recently with Ray Schwemmer, CEO of CollabraSpace. Ray and his COO Shawn Davis have been working on a number of new corporate initiatives and as is often the case, the conversation drifted toward incentive plans and did they really motivate the kind of behavior leadership was looking for.

We talked about the new Malcolm Gladwell book, Outliers: The Story of Success.  One of the fascinating stories shared by Gladwell was the work habits of the typical Asian rice farmer.  Having grown up on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania, I was keenly interested in this idea of work ethic and the farmer.  In a nutshell, Gladwell suggests that work can be rewarding to the individual and beneficial to the organization (or society) if it is:

•    Meaningful – a clear connection between effort and reward,
•    Complex – the problem set was sufficiently challenging and
•    Autonomous - decisions are made on your own and coordinated.

So I suggest that any mid-market leader attempting to build incentive plans while ignoring these simple rules does so at his own peril.

Meaningful

Make sure your team understands that the extrordinary effort you are asking for will be fairly and perhaps handsomely rewarded.  Don’t scrimp on this.  Make the reward clear, straight forward and as close as possible to real-time.

Complex

Mundane work will numb the brain.  Innovation suffers in an enviroment where the rules can be overbearing.  Old market rules that once applied will be followed until either the market dries up or you are run out by the competition.  Always encourage your team to be creative in their approach to your business challenges.

Autonomous

Bob Blonchek and I wrote a book called Act Like an Owner with a central theme of creating an ownership culture.  Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People calls out six levels of initiative with the final being the ability to act on your own.  Teach your leaders the rules of your business and allow them to surprise you.

By the way, if you haven’t had a chance to read Outliers, it should probably be your next book purchase.  Right after you’ve updated your incentive plans !