5 barriers to break in order to build trust between coworkers

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BY JUSTIN PATTON

 

High-trust organizations refuse to leave people second-guessing.

 

Most executive teams engage in annual strategic planning sessions focused on improving their business the following year, but trust is rarely on the agenda. It’s a shame, because in many cases, the key to success lies not in creating an entirely new strategy, but in dismantling barriers to trust within a given organization.

When organizations improve internal trust, they have a better chance of retaining their top talent, improving collaboration, and creating a better employee and customer experience. The goal for every organization should be to shift employees from emotionally exhausted to emotionally engaged. But this only happens by increasing trust.

As an executive leadership coach, I’ve spent over a decade coaching leaders on how to build trust in themselves, with others, and throughout their organization.

So what are the barriers to trust, and how can we dismantle them? Here are five of the most common trust issues I see in companies and what high-trust organizations do differently.

BARRIER #1: THE EXECUTIVE TEAM LACKS TRANSPARENCY

When leaders don’t explain the decisions they make, they leave room for employees to fill in the gaps themselves. Unfortunately, it is human nature to fill those gaps with fear. This can lead to a lack of trust.

A lack of transparency recently cost a client of mine some of its top talent. The executive team announced changes to the bonus structure for their general managers without explaining the reason and timeline. Managers left the call wondering what drove the decision, whether it was permanent, and how it would affect their overall pay. A week later, I was speaking to one of their biggest competitors when an executive told me three of that organization’s top restaurant managers applied with them just that week.

High-trust organizations understand that trust is valuable and are therefore restlessly committed to communicating the “why” behind decisions. High-trust organizations know that’s how they create clarity and gain buy-in. High-trust organizations refuse to leave people second-guessing.

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5 Habits That Will Instantly Point to Someone With Good Leadership Skills

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BY MARCEL SCHWANTES

 

These are the habits that make legacies, advance careers, and build profitable companies.

 

 

The higher road to being a good leader is a courageous journey; it’s walking the talk of character and integrity, and there are no shortcuts.

Good leaders who choose this journey know they can’t succeed without learning from others, especially what it means to serve for the good of others. Leaders learn to become leaders by modeling servant leadership, and they continue to learn in their roles as long as they call themselves a leader.

Along this journey, legacies are made, careers advance, and companies ultimately flourish. Here are five things these leaders practically do to inspire, motivate, and engage, day in and day out.

1. They listen more and talk less

A leader unfit for the role is one whose bragging about “knowing it all” is really a mask for their insecurity. Good leaders, in their quiet confidence, are unassuming and know what they think; they want to know what you think by listening intently. Practically speaking, this forgotten skill of listening well allows followers the freedom to be part of the conversation. Good leaders will ask curious questions, lots of questions: how something is done, what you like about it, what you learned from it, and what you need in order to be better. Good leaders realize they know a lot and seek to know even more by listening intently.

2. They increase behaviors that build trust

Trust is a pillar of good leadership, and trusting behaviors can be defined, measured, and improved. In companies with high employee engagement, leadership teams and employees interact day-to-day by displaying and increasing trusted behaviors like:

  • Creating transparency
  • Confronting reality
  • Clarifying expectations
  • Listening first

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Why you should focus on habits instead of resolutions this New Year

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BY STEPHANIE VOZZA

 

It’s time to retire the classic New Year’s resolution.

 

 

If you’re considering making a New Year’s resolution for 2023, you should know that your brain is working against you. That’s because we have reptilian brains that want to protect us, which includes a “fight or flight” reaction to change, says Jeremy Campbell CEO of Black Isle Group, performance improvement consultants.

“We’re still very prehistoric in terms of how we’re wired,” he says. “We’re programmed to be more negative and to find reasons not to do things. We often rely upon motivation, and motivation runs out usually after two or three weeks. That’s why New Year’s resolutions often don’t work.”

Another reason resolutions are challenging is because we tend to think on the first of January, something will magically change. “What most people want is the outcome, but they don’t want to do the work,” says Campbell. “If you do want to make some changes, there are better ways to go about it.”

Campbell says habits are more powerful than resolutions. He shares these six principles that help you adopt habits:

 

GET CLEAR ON THE GOAL

First, be very clear on the change that you’re after. For example, if you want to become more fit, do you want to run a 5K, finish an ultra-marathon, or take a short walk without being out of breath?

“Make sure that you know exactly what that goal looks like, and you can visualize it and describe it,” says Campbell. “The clearer you are on the output you’re after, the better your chance of reaching it.”

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Managing in an Unimaginable World

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by José Santos, INSEAD

Business leaders can leverage serendipity to help their companies deal with far-reaching market shocks.

Every so often businesses face shocks that have unknown and unpredictable implications for the future performance of their existing strategy and business model.

In an increasingly global world, the repercussions of a significant shock – such as the Covid-19 pandemic – simply cannot be imagined. When the virus first started circulating, nobody could begin to fathom all the ways in which it would impact their businesses and personal lives.

In such instances, managers face a set of known unknowns (risks they are aware of) and unknown unknowns – a phrase popularised by former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to describe the things “we don’t know we don’t know”. When known unknowns arise, managers have a good idea what their alternative strategy options look like, but don’t know which one will afford them future competitive advantage. But when managers face unknown unknowns, future strategic options are unclear and unknowable.

In a recent research paper, my co-author Peter Williamson* and I propose a set of practical tools that managers can use to help their companies deal with unknown unknowns in the wake of external shocks.

Uncertainty in an emerging, global world

Many still consider globalisation to be a simple, linear and reversible connection of economies or aggregation of markets. According to conventional wisdom, as the world globalises, countries become more similar, borders disappear and the world becomes one market. But globalisation is no longer linear, nor predictable and it is certainly not reversible.

We are living in an emerging, global world. While the flow of goods has slowed with more pronounced patterns of deglobalisation, the flow of information, ideas and data across borders is increasing like never before. Living through this new phase of globalisation means also coping with extreme uncertainty.

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How to Break Free From Herd Mentality

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by Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

 

Nurturing independent thought can help us overcome dangerous sheeple behaviour and groupthink.

We have all been in situations where it is easier to follow the crowd than to go against it. We change our mind and succumb to group pressure just by being told that most people think about an issue in a certain way. By unconsciously internalising the opinions, feelings and moods of others, we can end up thinking these ideas are our own.

Even though we treasure our individuality and like to imagine that we are in control of our lives, we are hardwired to imitate others and follow the herd. And when stressful situations arise, we are even more likely to acquiesce to other people’s suggestions without taking much of a critical stand. Worryingly, our brains maintain the illusion that whatever we’re doing is based on our independent judgement.

Herd mentality or “sheeple” behaviour can be found everywhere from the financial sector to outbursts of mob violence, political movements, religious gatherings, sporting events, riots, strikes and even consumer preferences such as fashion trends. In each of these instances, individuals adopt opinions based on what other people say and do without considering the evidence for themselves.

Many threatening situations – real or imaginary – can provoke sheeple behaviour. These are not just circumstances of physical danger, but also the fear of being different, uncertain or the odd one out. For example, people will make irrational or non-optimal decisions and behave in a herd-like fashion when motivated by the desire to fit in, which can result in groupthink.

When following the crowd is dangerous

Without herd instinct, our ancestors would not have banded together to fight off animals or help each other collect food. While there are many benefits to be gained by living and working cooperatively in groups, sheeple behaviour also makes us easily susceptible to manipulation. This is particularly the case in the context of leadership, where neo-authoritarian leaders exploit herd mentality to rise to power.

The dark side of sheeple behaviour manifests when individual judgment and opinion-forming processes shut down. Essentially, a process of social contagion takes place, meaning a tendency to automatically mimic and synchronise expressions, words, postures and movements with other people, which contributes to behavioural convergence. Continue reading →