Why Is Trust So Hard to Achieve in Management — HBS Working Knowledge

7/26/12 Why Is Trust So Hard to Achieve in Management? — HBS Working Knowledge

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Why Is Trust So Hard to Achieve in Management?

Published: July 5, 2012

Author: James Heskett

Summing Up

Do Managers Take Trust for Granted?

Trust is a big issue these days judging from the volume of responses to this month's column. Its importance inmanagement is agreed on. There is a long list of behaviors that can damage it. The list of things that can be

done to restore it is equally long. Yet many managers are experiencing a trust deficit. What's up?

Reasons for the trust deficit, in the view of respondents, included the following: (1) "(management) actions …

inconsistent with the mission and vision of the company" (Linda Murphy); (2) an emphasis on "productivity,

effectiveness and of achievement at all costs" (Liam); (3) "excessive turnover and continuous change" (Marlis

Krichewsky); (4) leaders who "use ambiguity and weasel words in their promises" (Jim Conlow); (5)managers who make "unwritten promises" that are not fulfilled (Kamal Hossain); (6) behaviors of managers

who "compete with each other to climb to the next higher level" and make unfulfilled promises to do so

(Subrata Chakraborty); (7) a "modern fashion of us all being 'economical with the truth' in our

communications with other people" (Hugh Quick); and (8) management that does "not observe sanctions

when trust is violated" (Tony Smale).

Charles Green added that "We don't have it because we haven't taught it, learned it, practiced it." In fairness,

Rolf Van Dulst points out that the cause for broken promises that lead to damaged trust may well be "plans

and intentions … (that are) overtaken by circumstances beyond … control."

There were even more suggestions about what to do about the trust deficit, other than just making sure that all

expectations and promises are fulfilled on a regular basis. For starters, Karen Caswelch suggested that we

take steps to ensure that in our hiring, we consistently select people who share and value behaviors thatproduce trust as a shield against management turnover that leads to broken commitments.

Mike Flanagan stressed the importance of ensuring that "transparency, honesty, communication, consistency

and predictability are present" in everything we do as managers. Jill Machol noted the importance of keeping

employees "informed as information (regarding change) becomes available." Ann Brown commented that

"The best an organization's management team can do is be transparent (and) … persistently continue open

conversation and not expect to be perfect." Karl Hunrick suggested that we need to employ more managers

willing to take risk, because "Without risk there can be no trust." Bruno Borghi pointed out that "Trust

requires reciprocity." Mike Beer suggested that managers succeed by "inviting honest, collective and public

conversations," in the process "making themselves vulnerable." Bob Lee added that "Trust is a factor of

relationships, not the least of which, with one's self."

Questions that we might ask ourselves include several posed by Maree Stewart: Are women more or less



trusting than men? Are young people more or less trusting than older? What part do unions play? Myconcern, of course, is whether there is anything here that can be or remains to be taught? As Dan Wallace, a

graduate of Harvard Business School, points out "… none of this was addressed when I was a student there

… trust would be more prevalent if our best schools of leadership taught it."

Finally, Richant raised a point in advancing a hypothesis for the trust deficit to which I had given little thought.

He said: "the problem starts with … management having a belief that they (already) are trusted." Carrying that

thought to its ultimate conclusion, therefore there is no need to pursue the question. Do managers take trust

for granted? What do you think?

Original Article

Revered management thought-leaders such as Chris Argyris and the late W. Edwards Deming argued years

ago that trust is an essential condition for good performance. Trust is an issue on the minds of many peoplethese days. A good portion of the daily news centers around the lack of trust with which leaders are viewed

by their followers. It's important to understand why this is the case, given the economic benefits that trust mayimpart to an organization. These include` higher morale, increased loyalty to the organization, more delegation

of authority, and greater assurance in transacting business faster and cheaper. I say may, because there issurprisingly little hard evidence to support these assumptions.

Trust may facilitate the implementation of strategy. Doesn't it stand to reason that if levels of trust between

employees and their managers, or the organization in general, are low, it will be more difficult to implementanything-policies, practices, and eventually strategies of which they are a part? This appeared to be confirmedby data that I collected for my most recent book. For example, only 30 percent to 69 percent of employees

agreed with the statement, "In my office, management is trusted," in the organizations I studied. That strikesme as a pretty wide and low range of levels of agreement. The numbers coincided with the financial

performance of each organization, by the way. But my data base was not sufficiently large to be definitive.

The issue seems to be important enough to warrant effort on the part of managers. But what kind of effort?On what should they concentrate? Several things come to mind.

It would seem that trust is engendered by the process of setting and meeting expectations. That is, don't set

an expectation that can't be met. Knowledge sharing would seem to foster trust as well. Other researchsuggests that trust may be associated with managers who hire, recognize, and fire the right people. At an

organizational level, an aversion to letting people go in bad times may be associated with higher levels of trust.In sum, perhaps we're talking about a "no surprises" approach to management. But again, this is all very

conditional because there is not much good data on which to base a conclusion.

If these hypotheses regarding trust in organizations are anywhere near the mark, it suggests that building trustis not rocket science. It should be pretty simple, in fact. Don't create expectations that can't be met; shareknowledge; hire, recognize, and fire the right people; be consistent and predictable; and avoid large-scale

layoffs as much as possible.

If that's the case, why do I find such a wide range of trust when I go into the field? Am I looking at the wrongorganizations? Is this something you've experienced or observed as well? Why is trust so hard to achieve in

management? What do you think?

To Read More:

Chris Argyris, Integrating the Individual and the Organization (New York: Wiley & Sons, 1964)



Ron McCoy, Ed., The Best of Deming (SPC Press, 1994).

Helen Rosethorn, The Employer Brand: Keeping Faith with the Deal (Farnham, UK: Gower, 2009)

Leonard A. Schlesinger and Jeffrey Zornitsky, "Job Satisfaction, Service Capability, and CustomerSatisfaction," Human Resource Planning, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 141-149.

Reader Comments:

1. As Native Americans, particularly Manitonquat, say, it starts with respect. From respect grows

rapport, then communication, then trust, then cooperation. Cooperation is how humans survive.Management has no respect for employees, as a rule, in fact they exhibit flagrant disrespect, and

contempt, very often. Employees know they might as well be targets on the firing range. Steven Coveyhas a book on trust, so it's an issue. Smart employees keep their heads down, do only what they are

told, and take as few risks as possible. And they trust no-one at work, especially not management. Abetter question for you to ask is how Dilbert-compliant the workplace is. People on my bus have neversaid their workplace was under 90% DC.

Anonymous

2. Thank you James for this interesting and important topic. My comment might be very culturally biasedbut where I grew up and got educated the saying was: You have to earn my trust. Working ineducation I have come to realize that this the fundamental wrong approach. Actually it is quite the

opposite: Give trust first and then see whether people will live up to it! For me this is ground rule ineducation but I also see this behavior with a lot of successful executives that I am working with.

Looking forward to an interesting dialog, Martin

Martin KuppProfessor

ESCP Europe, Paris

3. I am not sure trust is difficult to achieve as an individual manager, however, "management" is a group of

individuals who all act and react in different ways. And perhaps this is the issue that you are strugglingwith. Management is not a single entity or organism but rather it is made up of different personalities

who often have different agendas and approaches. If one of them acts in a manner that is inconsistent

with the message that they try to project as a group, then trust is quickly lost. For example, Companyvalues and behaviours are fine in print with slogans like "we live by our values" etc but if they are not

lived by the management as a whole, then they are just words. How many times have you seen a

manager act in a way that is not consistent with this?

Anonymous

4. This is why the study of human behaviour is so interesting. Mankind has always relied upon

communication, trust and respect as critical to survival. The principle is so simple yet the application sodifficult. Everybody from all levels of any relationship, personal or professional nod and smile in

agreement to the topic of management/labour trust then go back to work and poison their lives in

myriad ways. Maybe we should be having this frank a discussion on the barriers rather than the goal.

TGale

5. Trust may facilitate the implementation of strategy but also trust does not replace other styles of



leaderships. Trust works alongside existing leadership styles to intensify credibility, leverage and

impact. The effort should be to minimize job lost to mergers, acquisitions and outsourcing.

Management should guard against firing the right workers because this will take toll on workers loyaltyand trust which may eventually result in fear, anxiety, bad judgement and insecurity. If the management

concentrate on having a dependable feedback, high performance team, and a motivated workforce

where every worker is respected and uniquely valued then the facilitation and implementation ofstrategies are easily achievable.

Jimmy Fasusi

PresidentKensington Office Machines

6. The management style of post world war two is one of productivity, effectiveness and of achievement

at all costs. This desire by business owners and managers lead to employees being viewed as numbersand not people and this, I believe, caused workers to be viewed as highly expendable;hard to feel

trusting when you might feel as though you could be out of a job in a blink.

Fast forward through the decades since the war, the business world has created generations of amanagement style that is broken (I have heard it referred to as Management 1.0) and has created a

type of social conditioning when it comes to the relationships between managers and employees. In the

end a manager, even before the relationship begins, is damned because of this preexisting condition.

Management 2.0 needs to be one where it fosters strong relationships through mutually beneficialcollaborations (everyone's skin is is the game), one where clear expectations are established and, more

importantly, authorities are given and understood.

Liam

Sr. Manger

Community Natural Foods

7. Trust can be nurtured over many years, and lost in one bumbling management event. For instance, a

Board of Directors conducts an updated salary study but directs that the President keep the results

confidential from the management team, including the manager who is responsible for issuing payroll

checks. Such information has purposefully been shared before in a small business practicingparticipative management style, where average tenure is 23 years among all staff. Add to that a core

value that says "guided by openness and honesty in all we do." The Board members, mostly middle

managers at large corporations, think they are deciding appropriately, as apparently much more

information is confidential in their organizations, thus their experience. However, as you point out, andas the experience has been in this small business, "Knowledge sharing would seem to foster trust as

well."

Anonymous

8. I think institutional trust is just something very hard to create and keep. It is much easier to have a boss

that you trust, but what happens when s/he moves on? Unless the institution values trust and integrityand makes that the critical value when hiring, I think the standard is extremely variable. When I hire,

Character and Values is number 1, before capability, but it's hard to evaluate. Many institutions

evaluate capability as their priority when hiring which drives inconsistency in their leadership team when

it comes to trust and integrity.

Jim, if you're looking for organizations to analyze, I would look to find ones that embue values in their



hiring process as a start.

Karen Caswelch

CEO

Akoya, Inc.

9. Many managers rise to their positions by "back-stabbing", taking credit for others ideas and work or

just by being connected to the right people at the right time. Assuming employees and other managers

recognize this, why would trust be expected? In the broader view, citizens do not trust theirgovernments, husbands/wives do not trust their wives/husbands, parents do not trust their children and

no one thinking clearly would trust an investment banker. Should someone who happens to have an

MBA or law degree be considered more trustworthy? Really?

Anonymous

10. I think the problem starts with the management having a belief that they are trusted. Trust is a dynamic

concept and it has to be nurtured and taken to higher level.

Many management people think that it is the duty and a precondition for the people in the organisation

to trust them.

The managers need to realise that the startegy to " increase the trust " is the only strategy. The bias is

because they feel that there people already trust them. They never feel the need to increase trust which

ultimately leads to increasing mistrust. .

Rishant

student

IIT Kanpur

11. I think the problem starts with the management having a belief that they are trusted. Trust is a dynamic

concept and it has to be nurtured and taken to higher level.

Many management people think that it is the duty and a precondition for the people in the organisation

to trust them.

The managers need to realise that the startegy to " increase the trust " is the only strategy. The bias isbecause they feel that there people already trust them. They never feel the need to increase trust which

ultimately leads to increasing mistrust. .

Rishantstudent

IIT Kanpur

12. Trust of management (the entity, not the individual) is low because any semblance of a social contractthat once existed between management and workers is gone. This does not always manifest in lower

wages; it does in the areas of job security, benefits, and workload. Management expectations are that

employees will continuously become more productive by working harder and longer hours with no

increase in compensation. With at-will employment dominating the workplace, fear often becomes theprimary motivator and it is hard to trust what you fear.

Anonymous



13. It is almost imporssible to maintain true transparency in any organization. The timing of informing

employees of changes in the organization regardless of the nature of the change is the critical issue.

Secrets are not secrets if known by more than one person. Inavertant leaks or hints of leaks are killersto the transparency trust. This lack of trust by employees only mirrors the "sign of the times" distrust

with our govenrment and our givernmen t officials were rumors of rumors are boundless. This mistrust

spills over to the individual organizations where we as employees work. Mmanagement must constantly

take time out to keep the employees informated through various means of communication; personnelmeetings, written communiques, and ongoing updating of what is happening in the company as viewed

by the employees and the outside community. Opening up lines of communication to air rumors is also

ciritcal to the tr ansparency issue. I am fortunate to work for an orgainization that embraces all of these

concepts of comminication and transparency. In healthcare attaining a high percentage of employee

satisfaction with administration for their efforts at tranparency is not easy but is a requirement for

employee retention and satisfaction that leads to true teamwork.

Anonymous

14. I believe trust is engendered first by similarity in morality, and then enhanced by actions and words.

Trust is either earned or given when the interaction of people prove similar between them on a moral

level. Knowing that a person is good and honest, (like oneself) trust is extended to them.

Trust is a very delicate attribute between people. Trust is present in many of our daily experiences.

Marriage, employment, parenting, and relationships. Once broken by either then to repair it to the

original state is nearly impossible

Perhaps the reason for not finding much trust in a variety of companies is due to the lack of similar

morality between workers, and the management. With less transparency and communication, there is

less foundation for trust.

When transparency, honesty, communication, consistency and predictability are present and in sync,

trust will follow and grow.

Mike Flanagan

Corp Purch Mgr

15. Sometimes we, as professional managers, make things far more difficult than they need to be.

To generate and maintain trust a leader must not only "talk the talk" but also "walk the walk".

The concept is simple, the execution far more difficult when we as managers overemphasize the former

and, with good reason, are found wanting in the latter.

Jack Flanagan

Founder

Center for Effective Nonprofit Governance and Management

16. My agreement is wholeheartedly with Karen Caswelch. I would also add that once hired, the

evaluation process must include a requirement to manifest things like trust and integrity. My belief is

that trust is the output of integrity and respect for the employee.

A sample in the evaluation process may be something like this: "Over the last quarter, provide an

example of something you've done that showed integrity/fostered trust/showed appreciation to your



employees". Some of the open-ended interview questions ought to continue through the work life of

employees.

Allowing the manager to present actions showing trust/integrity/appreciation would allow for building

upon those actions. That is, if actions fall short, suggestions for improvements will come from what was

already done from the perspective of the manager -rather than some arbitrary requirement.

As to reality: Alas, I also agree with #12Anonymous -my workplace is mostly guided by fear, allowingfor rude, ruthless and insecure personalities rising to levels of management. This environment fosters the

gambit from outright dishonesty for fear of repercussions by both managers and employees, to

mechanical adherence to processes with no hope of improvements.

JoannaL

Business Systems Analyst

17. Trust is dynamic, both interpersonally and organizationally. Organizations tend to reflect what theinhabitants (people) think, feel, and do. It can only begin person-to-person. Building trust between two

people is an intimate process that is based mostly on the participating parties' willingness and ability to

engage in honest dialogue: ? Focusing the conversation on what you can and should do is a much more

constructive approach than complaining about what the other person is or isn't doing. ? The hardest

part of the dialogue, but perhaps the most productive, will be identifying what each of you is willing to

risk in order to further the relationship.

Within teams or organizations, people should come to explicit agreements about how they want to

work together and how they expect to be treated on the team, as earlier comments suggest setting

explicit expectations. This should include designing processes for holding each other accountable for

individual and collective responsibilities.

Above all - recall that trust is an essential component is all relationships, and the most important

component is our willingness to risk: it is what we measure our investment against. Without risk there

can be no trust.

Karl Hunrick

Strategic Business Partner

Bonneville Power Administration

18. Even more basic is that executives in particular need to tell the truth to their employees. They should

not spout cliches such as "our staff is our most important asset" and then turn around and lay off 20%of their people or close two plants or outsource the call center. Change management consultants have

been telling executives for years to tell staff what you know about the change, what you don't know,

and that you will keep them informed as information becomes available. But very few organizations do

any of that. You can't treat employees like cogs in a machine if you want the human beings who work

for you to trust you and the organization.

Jill Machol

Consultantself-employed

19. My agreement is wholeheartedly with Karen Caswelch. I would also add that once hired, the

evaluation process must include a requirement to manifest things like trust and integrity. My belief is

that trust is the output of integrity and respect for the employee.



A sample in the evaluation process may be something like this: "Over the last quarter, provide an

example of something you've done that showed integrity/fostered trust/showed appreciation to youremployees". Some of the open-ended interview questions ought to continue through the work life of

employees.

Allowing the manager to present actions showing trust/integrity/appreciation would allow for building

upon those actions. That is, if actions fall short, suggestions for improvements will come from what was

already done from the perspective of the manager -rather than some arbitrary requirement.

As to reality: Alas, I also agree with #12Anonymous -my workplace is guided by fear, allowing for

rude, ruthless and insecure personalities rising to levels of management. This environment fosters the

gambit from outright dishonesty for fear of repercussions by both managers and employees, to

mechanical adherence to processes with no hope of improvements.

JoannaL

Bus Sys Analyst

20. have you read the old book - was it called 'Ragged Trousered Philanthropist'? basically stating

employers and employees must come from different perspectives - so sustained trust is difficult. I

believe the basis for company Trust is an employee perception that the management tries to work on a

foundation of 'Fairness'. However what about managment trust in employees 'fairness' Are women

more or less trusting than men? Are young people more or less trusting than older. What part od

unions play? This is a fascinating area.

Maree Stewart

Chief Executive Officer

Waikato Kindergarten Association

21. I don't think this is as difficult as people make it.

The largest causative issue with respect to followers trusting leaders is that a sufficient percentage of

leaders make promises and then later they renege so that a majority of followers simply mistrustleaders from the start. Leaders often do not put their promises in writing. Or, leaders use ambiguity and

weasel words in their promises (even in writing) - so much that is said by leaders can be interpreted in

ways that leave the followers not believing. Too many times followers who do the hard work and

achieve success for the leader do not get the reward they expect because, after the success, the leader

interprets the ambiguous language in favor of themselves. There are dozens of stories addressing this

theme that circulate through the culture. We cut our teethe on these stories. They become part of our

unconscious way of making judgments. We become very good at detecting when a leader is not

trustworthy. Followers start with suspicion.

The simplest way to get this whole trust issue on track is to create win-win agreements that are clear,

with no ambiguity, that define the rewards the follower will receive when clear goals are achieved. If

the follower detects any way for the leader to wiggle out, then this will destroy trust. Once a good win-

win agreement is in place, the follower(s) can trust the leaders in ways that go far beyond the language

of the agreement. Hard work, ideas, and creativity will flow because the enthusiastic follower knows

he/she will be rewarded.

Leaders also need to understand that their followers are often very smart about these things. Many

followers have seen it before. Once burned, twice shy.



Also, for this to work, win-win must really create a win for the follower as defined by the follower. All

too often, a leader defines the win for the follower but it is not really a win for the follower - the

follower agrees because they need the job. As time goes on the leader cannot understand why he/she

doesn't have an enthusiastic team.

Clear win-win agreements = trust, motivation, cooperation, and enthusiasm.

Anything else = mistrust (and all sorts of other problems)

Why is this? Win-win is self-defining. It creates wins for the followers. What's great is that the leader

can only win if the follower wins and the follower can only win if the leader wins.

By definition, every other form of agreement between leader and follow creates a loss, or at best - no

win. This results in lack of trust (and often creates losses for the leader).

Jim Conlow

22. Like other contributors I endorse Karens view No 8.

Colleagues may be interested in ongoing work into Trust by the Institute for Leadership andManagement in the UK - http://www.i-l-m.com/research-and-comment/10012.aspx

Trust fascinates me. I have the priviledge of working in lots of different organisations and hearing from

people at a whole variety of levels how they feel about things - and trust is essentially a "feeling" that

then prompts certain behaviours. I believe there is a relationship between trust readiness if you like and

the preception of personal security of an individual - people who feel "OK" about things have less to

lose proportionally by trusting and running a risk that things might go wrong compared to people whodefinitely do not feel OK.

There will be antecedents for trust like how many times have I been let down before/misjudged people

or situations before that will affect how trusting I as a person feel I can be. This brings us to the point at

which the person who is "manager" can do something about enabling trust. As other commentators

have said it is about clear, complete, coherent communication in the first instance and then regular up

dates as things inevitably change. I am a big believer in being totally open about what I don't know and

what I can't control with a view to enabling others to form a pragmatic expectation of my performance.My candour is motivated by personal values around authenticity, congruence and sharing/listening - I

am not, by contrast, motivated by values of achievement, status or image - which might propel me into

"spinning" information or trying to paint a brighter picture than I could see.

So Karen has it nailed - recruit and select on values - but I don't believe that there is a "right" set of

values. If you know your manager is a prestige hungry bounty hunter who never pretends to be

anything else and consistently deliver outcomes that align with that persona plus you chose to work in atarget driven culture then there follows whole host of things that you will trust them on even though

someone else might not.

Trust is a choice at the end of the day.

Jackie Le Fevre

Director

Magma Effect



23. Dear Professor,

Interesting topic indeed and a hard question to answer in a business world.

However, this article lacks a key point which is defining trust for a managerial position, i.e. trust in

competence and trust in personality. Whichever definition it takes and no matter what circumstances

are, one, be it a manager or managed, should never let an occupational role to define his trustworthiness as long as he/she carries out best efforts to yield the right decisions.

Regards

Murat

Consultant

KPMG

24. The author is very right that when some employees keeps expectations high and could not met then

they get frustrated and not happy with the organization

Anonymous

25. Excellent question Professor Heskett. I find similar conclusions about trust in organisations. Many

employees i know working in reputed MNCs have low trust on their management. The number one

reason for that is broken promises. Management boasts about their company and makes unwrittenpromises. Most of the times it happens through a conversation between the employee and a senior

manager. A near future company growth is discussed and it directly or indirectly creates a promise in

the mind of the employee. However, a benefit to the employee may not even be spoken, let alone

written. But it is taken as an implication for growth of the employee like a promotion. When that does

not materialise, the employee looses trust. My thoughts.

Kamal HossainLecturer of Business

London School of Commerce

26. Trust in any work organization is an outcome of numerous human interactions that take place everyday

between and within various layers in an organizational hierarchy. Those interactions can not be

assessed only by examining the spoken or written words/sentences. There is something much more

than that, which may be called 'vibrations'. In any human intraction,verbal or non verbal, vibrations are

produced; and all members in an organization act as transmitters and receivers of these vibrations.Thus, at the end of the day, it is the quality of such vibrations that determines the level of trust in an

organization. Measuring and/or controlling the quality of these vibrations is never easy. Statistics has

taught us the concepts of 'within' and 'between' variation and has also told us that between variation

can be measured meaningfully only when within variations are small. I believe these ideas are useful in

the context of this discussion of ours. Management, in various organizations, often creates high within

variations among groups they manage. One reason could be that level of trust among managers

themselves are low, which eventually gets transmitted through various vibrations as the managerscompete with each other to climb to the next higher level.This tends to align people in different layers in

a certain way. A new employee often begins with a reasonable amount of trust and believes that her/his

fellow collegues as well those in upper layers of management are all reasonable and trustworthy

people. After a while, changes her/his initial views as (s)he receives various vibrations, making her/his

own judgement which creates the base. In most organizations the top tells the middle what to do with



the bottom and if the middle simply parrots those, without transmitting the necessary beliefs and

convictions, trust levels begin to go down. Once the trust level goes down it becomes much moredifficult to bring it up as the downward pressure often remains stronger than the upward one.

Prof. Subrata Chakraborty

Retired Professor

IIM, Lucknow, India

27. In my experience, trust is NOT hard to achieve. Personnaly, I don't agree with the premise of thearticle, that trust is seldom because trust is hard to achieve. The question is: Why is trust so low in so

many organizations ? Or, putting it the other way: Why is distrust so frequent in so many organizations

?

1- Trust is not hard to achieve. Many comments of this article give good advice to how to build trust.

Trust is first about feeling secure. The art of management is creating the conditions of employees feeling

secure, while being motivated and dedicated. Feeling secure is not mainly about keeping their job, it is

more about not impairing their dignity ever. The other conditions for achieving trust are corollary: as amanager, commiting and meeting their commitment, maintaining their own integrity without any

exception, respect, true listening, aiming at win-win agreements, expressing gratitude. Trust requires

reciprocity, and it is the secret receipe: you deeply trust your employees, they trust you as a manager.

2- Why is distrust so frequent in so many organizations ? Because many high-level managers distrust

their peers and their employees, and propagate distrust as a culture from the very top of theorganization. Because narrowing the purpose of a company to maximizing the shareholder value is the

first mark of disrespect towards employees: it is not a win-win agreement. Because many managersactually believe that trust is paramount.

It strikes me that upper managements express so little gratitude towards employees. My hypothesis isthat upper managers don't even feel grateful, that they have no idea why they should be grateful.Contempt is the seed of generalized distrust.

Trust is more common in software companies using agile methodologies. It may be worth the look.

Bruno Borghi

CEOAkeirou

28. In my opinion lack of trust between people is now more widespread than it used to be. I think that this

is mostly due to the modern fashion of us all being 'economical with the truth' in our communicationswith other people.

Hugh Quickhome UK

none

29. To me, "Trust is INVESTMENT OF TIME" .

1. Everything around Trust involves the quantum of quality time an individual spends with another

both personally or professionally.2. This time spent would have components of meaningful conversation, openness and involve the

person with whom we seek to build trust.



3. The most important component would focus on " What's in it for you?' rather than "What's in it

for me" of a person seeking to establish/ build trust.

Having worked with many teams in various organizations and on reflection, rarely do we meet people

who display the above three basic requirements for building, establishing and retaining trust. If we sobattle for time on operational/ task issues, then people and trust aligned to people will continue to

remain elusive.

Meenalochani KumarSenior Consultant

MindTree

30. Top mgmt probably realise that trust is essential to sustainable success but as trust is messy as far as

managing it directly is concerned they prefer to focus on more actionable short term targets.

Work culture & trust, being essential to integrating the individual and the organisation & henceperformance & success should be managed as KPIs.

Suitable measures I'm sure has been developed but why has top mgmt ignored them so far - CEOs &Boards should be asked this question.

Peter LeeMg ConsultantRDS

31. Certainly a most fundamental issue. The reason I think trust doesn't happen so easily is thatManagement is more focused on delivering results (themselves) rather than nurturing or supporting

teams to deliver them. Moreover, there is a lack of "human-ness" and people go to/ come to workbasically to transact the 'business' and just wish to get out at the earliest. There is little personal

interaction at the workplace and trust cannot exist without this.

Uday KagalProprietor

Innovation Social Consultants

32. If we lived in an economic and business environment that was stable and predictable developing trust

between management and staff would indeed be as easy as the author suggests. Unfortunately that isnot the case and leaders need to deal with a dynamic environment where their plans and intentions for

the future may be overtaken by circumstances beyond their control. This is when the skill and value ofleaders is tested and often found wanting, resulting in a destruction of trust between the managers andthe managed. It's how you deal with these situations that matters, not trying to avoid them because

Leaders will always face these situations, or else they aren't leaders.

Rolf Van Dulst

Executive Manager

33. I think that the comments, and my personal experience, suggest that the basic issue is less complicatedthan:

"Don't create expectations that can't be met; share knowledge; hire, recognize, and fire the rightpeople; be consistent and predictable; and avoid large-scale layoffs as much as possible."



It's "stop lying".

The factors you mention are also important. But setting realistic expectations when no one believeswhat you say is impossible. Being transparent is impossible when people think you are a liar.

And it will take years of change to alter the fact that large-scale layoffs are one of the first thing newmanagement and new ownership is expected to do, while at the same time saying that they won't do it.

How many euphemisms for "firing" have been created over the past few decades? This is a form oflying.

This trick is hard because a single company's management can do very little to affect the fact that in

American business as a whole, this has been done for decades. In fact, your company may become atarget ripe for a take-over by someone who will put into effect large-scale layoffs to increase

profitability if you don't do it yourself.

So the difficulty is not found in what to do, the difficulty is making it happen.

We live in a culture where you are expected to do whatever it takes to do whatever you need to do as

quickly as possible. The ends justify the means, and you hope you will be already gone, or have aready scapegoat to blame, if you are caught playing dirty. If you don't, someone else will. And then

they will arrogantly proclaim their superiority over those who foolishly behaved ethically.

Management are the people who performed in this capitalistic free-for-all more successfully than other

people. They sacrificed many other things- family, friends, free time- to get where they are. Uppermanagement did this even more successfully, and they are the ones who sacrificed the most to obtaintheir position of power.

Since management has sacrificed so much to achieve their power, they will do much to keep it.

This is why creating trust is hard. Lack of trustworthiness is a critical component of how managers get

their positions and what they will do to keep them.

Anonymous

34. When I mediated conflicts between managers and employees, a common complaint was, "yes, we

have this agreement, but can I really trust that s/he will abide by it?" I used the Affect-Behavior-Cognition model to explain that consistent, changed behavior over time that abided by the terms of

agreement would slowly begin to impact how the parties think and feel about each other(yes, Iunderstand....not exactly how the theory was posed), and over time, trust between the two would

develop. When I checked in with the parties at the 6-month and 12-month mark, this was always thecase -- consistent, changed behavior that adhered to the terms of the agreement resulted in a report ofincreased trust between the parties. Now that I advise management in employee/labor relations

situations, I use the same model to explain how trust can be slowly developed/restored over time.Never expect a quick change, and one inconsistent behavio r will likely reset the clock. From my

experience, employees trust particular managers for particular reasons, but if you ask them to indicatelevels of trust in management generally, the measure is always lower. Seems to be in keeping with the

saying, "Organizations are structures, not people, and therefore should not be anthropomorphized --organizations cannot demonstrate loyalty, only individuals can demonstrate loyalty." Substitute"management" for "organizations" and "trust" for "loyalty." Management is a structural concept, and not

an individual.



Anonymous

35. To gain trust, a company must extend trust toward its employees, just like with respect....it has to be

given in order to receive it. Unfortunately, the American employee has been taken advantage of andshortchanged and betrayed all too often by their employer, and for far too many decades. That is notforgotten, even though the employee usually moves on to other companies to work for. They enter

their new job with a level of mistrust that lingers from the previous employer. Then, if/when somethinghappens at the new company that betrays the employee, then there is a new layer of mistrust piled on

top of the previous layer. As time goes on, these layers of mistrust have built up so high that nothingcan penitrate. The loyalty has been obliterated. American workers have become so jaded and cynical

because of what has been done to them by corporate America.... like shipping jobs overseas, likecheating them out of their earned pensions, promising them something and not delivering on it, and soon and so on. American workers realized a very long time ago that Corporate America only thinks of

its employees as "human capital" or "human commodities" and the Companies/Corporations they workfor will always, always put profits above the interests of taking care of the employee. That is what

happened at Enron. That is what happened at Tyco. That is what happened at Lehman Bros. That iswhat happened at Bain Capital. That is what happened at AIG. That is what happened with the Auto

Industry, before it was saved by President Obama. That is what has happened with the Oil & Gascompanies regarding the environment....they could care less how the environment is destroyed as longas they can rape the Earth of every last shred of oil or coal or natural gas to be had and make every

last dollar that can be made from it, regardless the environmental or human cost. I could go on and onlisting corporations and what they have done to their employees and to their customer base. It has

eroded to a seriously low level of trust & respect. Will temporary gestures help build it back up? No.It will take far more than bandaides. It will take a serious overhaul by Corporations, of their overall

attitudes towards their employees. Afterall, where would these Corporations be without theiremployees?

Anonymous

36. Big question Jim. A couple of the challenges with trust are in the nature of the emotion itself. "I trustyou" implies that I'm willing to make myself vulnerable to you. Hard to do that with a complex

organization where consistency is difficult. As one person already said of the leadership/managementteam " If one of them acts in a manner that is inconsistent with the message that they try to project as a

group, then trust is quickly lost". It only takes the perception (as in "the story I am making up aboutwhat I saw") that one representative of the group does not to walk the talk and behavioural dissonancewill quickly kill any thoughts of trust in the collective.

People trust individuals based on factors such as congruence of thought and action, perceptions ofcompetency. Personal experience with individual and organizational trust has a major influence. When

trust is broken (and that's so easy to do) and we are asked to trust again, in effect we are being askedto make the same decision to trust that proved wrong the first time. And - that experience could have

been elsewhere or with a different person - "I know you said no lay offs but when I worked for XYZthey said that and I still lost my job".

Each person has a different innate propensity to trust. They will also understand your information and

actions through their own unique frame of reference. Hard to create belief in managementtrustworthiness when there are as manypossible possible interpretation of your message as there are

people in your organization.

The best an organization's management team can do is be transparent, share data, information and their



thinking and decision making consistently, plus persistently continue open conversation and not expectto be perfect. (When things go wrong a sincere and immediate apology plus action goes a long way to

build or deepen my trust whether it's with an individual or an organization.)

Consistent and values aligned management practices are also critical. For example, hiring and firing

based on clear expectations is one piece of creating that experience for everyone that the managementis serious about the kind of behaviours valued in the organization.

That demonstrates respect. As your first commentor said "From respect grows rapport, then

communication, then trust, then cooperation".

This is not a journey for the faint of heart or for those wanting a "quick win". The pay off though, in

terms of engagement, performance, and sustainability can make it all worthwhile.

Ann BrownDirector

Providence Health Care

37. "Knowledge sharing would seem to foster trust as well." In my experience, transparency can breed

trust. However, knowledge sharing only works when it's consistent and not just convenient (i.e., goodnews AND bad) and when it's shared with respect for every member of the employee team in mind.

There is much lip service paid to "teamwork" in today's corporate culture; but in the "bad" corporatecultures I've encountered in my 25 years in management, "Teams" often break down into a series ofmanagement insider cliques, promoting an envious Us vs. Them environment that is truly difficult to

overcome once engendered. Executive management has to set a tone of common purpose with cardsfully on the table.

Bill S.Director, Business Development

Perseus Books, LLC

38. The matter of trust between Management and employees lies only on one aspect ---- GREED. Theemployees always thinks that share offered to him is meager, while the management is taking the cake.

Remember the employee includes all upto minimum mid mamangement.

Narendar Singh

ProfessorVidya Business School

39. "It should be pretty simple...why do I find such a wide range" of accomplishment (in this case "trust")

...?

What to do and how to do it often is very simple. Investing the whole person and the other needed

resources (particularly time) for the accomplishment is the more difficult. Building a business, buildingtrust, building any team or any other entity for business, sports, leisure or social engagement involvesbuilding the necessary culture. In every case it takes many of the attributes defined already: individual

and collective commitment: training: total genuine and transparent communicaton; shared time together;learning and forgiveness from failures, and time, time, and more time. How to build a culture and the

barriers to that accomplishment are contained in many of the other comments. Examples of successfulcultures abound. The reason for the range of accomplished individuals, teams or other businesses and

entities is the varying commitment of resources, primarily of the lead individual. The owner of an entity



wanting trust as its main driver has to define the know, be and do of that trust culture. Every decision

and other resource expenditure then has to be driven by the attributes of the trust culture desired.Every individual has to be fully trained in the know, be and do of the desired culture. The rewardssystem and every other system and process needs to be based on the desired culture... and so on and

so on. It is simple. It is not hard. The range of accomplishment is not hard to understand. "I'd give mylife to be an expert at that, like you are," one person said to another person. "I did," said the other

person. When we individually and collectively are willing to give our lives to building a culture of trustwithin any entity, we are on the road to success. Short of that commitment, Jim will find us somewhere

on the lower end of his range.

Dennis NelsonQuality Lead

SFS

40. Putting my trust in someone else (boss, company) means that I am setting aside trust in myself. In this

day and age, why should employees put their faith in the idea that relying on the company is better thanrelying on one's self? Governments have let them down (look at Europe), organized religion has letthem down, and the list goes on. When someone says "Trust me," the response is "No way."

If trust is unattainable, then what is the next best option? How about mutual self interest? If we cancome up with a system whereby actions the company wants are also the actions which most reward

employees...that may be the best we can do.

Gerald NanningaPrincipal Consultant

Planninga from Nanninga

41. In my opinion, trust is hard to achieve because there is lack of integrity shown by the management

and/or corporation. Many top management thinks talk is free, and frequently ignore the consequenceof what implication the talk may have to the employee(s). We must thinks that talk is not free. Talk is

like buying something with credit card. You do not pay right away, but you definitely must pay whenit's due. If you don't pay, you have to pay the fine. The longer you delay your payment, the bigger thefine. If you don't pay, you may be sued. So, we may have to teach the management and corporation

that the talk is not free at all. Just like using credit card, we have to consistently and discipline in paying,at least the minimum due. Talk as the basis of trust, must be "paid" on time to build trust. And it's not

difficult actually, as long as we have solid integrity and discipline in fulfilling our promise to pay.

Taat Subekti

ChairmanDharma Shanti Foundation

42. When everything is discounted back to money as it now seems to be, it is hard for mutual human trust

to flourish. We have all been too trusting of our leaders' promises, the organisations and institutionsthey manage. We now need to be far less tolerant of breach of promised trust. We need to complain

more assertively and be more honest with ourselves about how we choose to do business with. If wedon't follow through our disquiet with A or B or C and actually take away our business, we have

allowed the situation to remain. In this sense, trust requires courage; it will create inconveniences for us;it demands personal investment of time and money when these faculties are in short supply . ProfessorHeskett's seminal work about the service-profit chain was entirely about trust. Throughout the chain's

linkages, no one set out to gouge another. The justified feeding frenzy in the UK about banks is entirely



due to the leaders in those organisations breaching the fundamental value of trust.

David PhysickConsultantGlowinkowski International

43. Interesting topic once more. The basic principles to build and maintain trust between management andemployee are all well known by any management worth its sort. The greatest hindrance in my view is

the unwillingness to adhere to the principles and best practices due to the Ego( any management team,by in large, is influenced by the Ego of the strong member/s) necessitated by various factors such as

greed,resistance to change, resistance to admit failures and weaknesses, resistance to work indiversity, fear of being exposed , not being frank with oneself.

shadreck saili

UCT

44. Think of "trust" as a logical reaction to observed behavior.

For the most part, people understand that management puts what is best for the company ahead ofwhat is best for me.

When employees observe management sacrificing the good of the company AND the good of their

employees to meet their own ends...well, how should an employee react?

Gregory Leiby

45. Apart from Individual differences,numerous factors such as organisational structure,cultural aspect andtype of business environment play key role in trust between individual and organisation. More the employee feel

attached with organisations(homeliness) more the trust build along with conformity between individualand organisational goals.

Anonymous

46. In my experience, building trust in an organization is simple, but that doesn't mean it's easy. The modelI use and teach my clients is that there are three prerequisites for trust. For you to trust me, you must:

1) Believe that I genuinely have the right interests at heart. In sales situations, "right interests" means"your best interests," i.e., if your interests and mine conflict, you are confident that I will place yours

ahead of mine. In internal, leadership-related situations, the test is that you must believe that I have thelong-term greater good of the organization at heart.

2) You must believe that you can rely on me, for which the simple test is that you believe I WILL dowhat I say will do.

3) You must believe in my competence, for which the test is that you are confident that I CAN do

what I say I will do.

With those prerequisites satisfied, trust can, and likely will, exist. Without them, it's impossible.

That said, think about all the things a leader needs to do in order to create those conditions. (Andplease note my use of the word "leader" rather than "manager." Building trust is a leadership function.)



Create absolute clarity about why the organization exists and where it's going, so that people

can form good judgments about what the greater good of the organization actually is;

Create an environment of openness, honesty and transparency, so that what needs to be said

gets said in meetings rather than at the water cooler;

Treat people with respect and dignity at all times, so that the focus is always on the health of thebusiness rather than personal issues or squabbles;

Make realistic commitments and hold him/herself accountable for delivering on them;

Obtain reasonable commitments from others, and hold them accountable for achieving those

commitments. (NOTE: the leader MUST demonstrate his/her willingness to be accountablebefore asking it of others):

Be open and vulnerable with his/her people. This includes admitting when he/she has made

mistakes or doesn't know the answer, being willing and able to ask for help, and demonstratingthe humility involved in acknowledging that others often know more and make better judgments

that the leader does. The leader's job is to harness those talents for the greater good of theorganization, not restrict them.

Always approach his/her direct reports with the prevailing attitude that, "I trust that you know

how to do your job. That's why you're here. My job is to make sure you have the resources youneed and to help you stay coordinated with the rest of team. So get going, and let me know if

you need my help."

Set the foregoing behaviors as expectations for the team, and hold people accountable for

adhering to them.

That's a lot of work. A full-time job. Again, it is a leadership job, not a management job.

Two final comments: My thoughts on this are a reflection of the work I do every day helping leadership

teams create the kind of environment described above. While there isn't much data on the direct linkbetween trust and performance, it seems self-evident, and my experience has been that as trust

increases, the conversations that need to be had occur sooner, take less time, and produce betterresults because no one wastes time on the distraction of politics and hidden agendas. They just solvetheir issues and problems and move on.

Second, I am an enormously (!!!) proud graduate of HBS, but in the spirit of openness and honesty, Ihave to say that none of this was addressed when I was a student there. I hope that has changed. It

seems to me that trust would be more prevalent if our best schools of leadership taught it.

Dan Wallace

PartnerTailwind Discovery Group

47. I have always defined "trust" as: "A logical reaction to to the consistent actions of another."

Framed this way, the question becomes "What are the consistent actions of management?"

The reason "Management" gets tapped on this subject is they are in the leadership role. Those in a



leadership position willing put themselves in a position where others look up to them.

Gregory Leiby

48. Dr. Heskett,

I am writing in reference to your article "Why is trust so hard to achieve in management?"

You mentioned that there is surprisingly little hard evidence to support some of the assumptions abouttrust as an essential condition for good performance. As I read the article, I realized that I may have

some relatively new information on the topic.

I'm in the process of completing my doctoral dissertation which focuses on predictors of tacit

knowledge sharing. The research and compilation of data from my dissertation has been completed.

Trust is one of the predictors of tacit knowledge sharing, along with perceived management

commitment, social interaction and individual rewards.

What was particularly interesting was that after I had completed my study, I was able to link my studyto the Gallup Employee Engagement study. The "best friend" at work question is part of the Gallup

survey as part of the Teamwork area. The linkage is not something I'd originally intended to examine.However three of the questions from my tacit KM survey (trust questions) support the validity of the

"friend" question for Gallup.

The three questions are directly below (the scoring is based on a seven point Likert Scale: seven islikely to share, one is not likely to share):

1.You and Pat both work at your company. Both of you started work at the same time and have beenfriends ever since. Would you share with Pat?

?"Friend" Mean Score 6.7 (out of 7) on KM Sharing Survey ?Note: This is the highest mean score ofall the survey questions.

2.You and Pat both work at your company in completely different divisions and have never met each

other. Would you share with Pat? ?"Don't Know each other" Mean Score 5.0 on KM Sharing Survey

3.You and Pat both work at your company. Pat has a reputation for never helping anyone. Would youshare with Pat?

?"Perhaps, Don't Like Them" Mean Score 4.5 ?Note: This is the lowest score on KM Sharing Survey

Clearly the results suggest that individuals are more likely to share information with their friends - MeanScore 6.7 (out of 7).

Gallup states that there is a link between employee engagement and higher productivity. However, I'vebeen unable to find any information from Gallup on "how" employee engagement results in higher

productivity.

The 2012 study by Connelly, Zweig, Webster and Trougakos found that slightly over 10% of"knowledge transfer events" involved hiding or hoarding knowledge. The impact of knowledge hiding

or hoarding is likely to be significant in terms of productivity and profitability. I think my study has established that the missing "how" has to do with tacit knowledge sharing (at least



in part). If knowledge sharing increases, then productivity and profitability are also likely to increase.

I also agree with your statement that knowledge sharing would seem to foster trust as well. I think youmay also make the case that trust fosters knowledge sharing.

We tend to trust our friends and trust is necessary for knowledge sharing (and employee engagement).Social interaction (building friendships) is necessary to build trust. The actions that increase knowledge

sharing are also likely to increase Employee Engagement.

Robert E. Downing

Robert Downing

? Doctor of Education CandidateNA

49. Great topic I have a few observations on this but as far as trust goes it has an affinity with ethics Ibelieve most managers overlook. Some of the examples of the lack of trust comes from the impact of

change. What I' trying to communicate is there seems to be a new mentality in management that I donot believe is very forward thinking. Instead of annual kick off meetings that have companyparticipation and input. We now set direction in the back room this has a negative impact on the doers.

When direction is not clear mistakes are made the inability to understand the task at hand becomesproblematic when communication breaks down. Since strategies are being made in a silo it is hard to

understand the "why we are doing this" and as clearly and simple as the why is to communicate, it iseither management perception of your "need to know" the problem results in a lack of trust whether

this lack of trust is real o r not becomes a underlying problem. If I don't understand why I'm doing atask I ask the question why and that is where the speculation begins and the trust barrier is created. Ithink American management has lost sight of TURE VALUE and replaced it with perceived value. This

leads to a lack of respect for certain management individuals and replaces it with distrust. I do believethis does create another issue which is flushed out by the lack of trust the belief that there is a

competency issue with management.

Laurence Rohde

Pricing / Cost AnalystCLI

50. there is no loyalty from corps to people. Trust? lol

william gloverowner

glovercpa

51. The definition of trust by managers and employees has different connotations. Managers are entrustedwith organizational assets and expected to act in the organization's best interests. Human capital is an

asset to a business. Acting in the organizations best interests with respect to human capital may requirea manager to follow a course of action that is not in a specific individual's best interest and not subject

to advance notice or discussion.

Examples would be terminating and individual, restructing jobs, eliminating training, or restricting

resources which may be in the best interests of the organization but not to an individual. Individualssubject to these activities might argue from a personal perspective that these actions showed a lack oftrust by management.



As such there may be an inherent conflict in the employer/employee relationship specific to themanagement of firm assets.

Janet L. WalshCEOBirchtree Global, LLC

52. You fail to address the most fundamental problem involving trust - the individual relationship that aperson has with those who have power over their economic security. If an employee feels that their

boss does not understand their job, jumps to conclusions, sides with parties outside the organization tothe detriment of the team, doesn't listen, or the like, that employee won't trust that manager. And if that

employee has no perceived recourse to appeal or correct perceived unjust behavior, the employeewon't trust the organization. Lack of trust begets more lack of trust - employees aren't likely tocomplain if they believe that HR or upper management will always side with whomever has the most

organizational power.

Anonymous

53. Trust - a pretty sloppy term. We all assume we will know it when we see it. Trouble is we do not havea shared definition or how it is exhibited in an organization. I advocate that organizations bring inexperts to teach managers on this topic starting with a basic class on ethics. I suggested this 30 years

ago in graduate school and my professor almost kicked me out of class.

J Thormohlen

HR ManagerLocal government agency

54. When employees are told they are getting very small or even no salary increases plus increasedbenefits costs, yet see senior leadership making millions of dollars in salary and stock options, how canthere be trust?

Anonymous

55. People trust those who exhibit trustworthy behavior. It is that simple. The people I trust share several

key characterisitics: 1) Unselfishness 2) Straightforward in speech and action. No prevarication, doeswhat he/she has committed to do. 3) Sets/has reasonable expectations 4) Invites open communicationand demonstrates excellent listening skills 5) For managers, demonstrates or actively pursues expertise

in area of responsibility. Unfortunately, people who exhibit these behaviors consistently are becomingmore rare. I think this is due to the 'win at any cost' mentality that is fostered in many organizations

today.

Anonymous

56. Trust is an important issue and I share the view that because the economic platform is uneven andunpredictable it becomes increasingly difficult for managers to be consistent in implementing strategic

plans and hence distrust within the work force.

Charles EwekaBusiness ManagerPHCN - Nigeria



57. Trust is built through accountability and consistency! Lots of companies loose sight of this in theirbusiness day to day activities. Their actions speak louder than their words especially when they areinconsistent with the mission and vision of the company!

Linda MurphyAdjunct ProfessorRochester Institute of Technology

58. I disagree with you that "trust is engendered by the process of setting and meeting expectations." Thereare no expectations when your organization is intrenched with managment which hires not based solely

upon qualifications but familiar relationships.

Anonymous

59. You can't be judge and party at the same time. Ultimatelly, management would do what they are goingto do. Period. The bottom line reign and ALL decisions will be driven by it. That has been the waysince the Phoenicians used to ride...business is business and will always be.

Anonymous

60. Trust is a factor of relationships, not the least of which, with one's self.

Human relationships with one another depend on the humans involved.

Trust takes a long time to make and is easy to break. Trust can take years to cultivate to a very highlevel.

If a person has a clue about relationships, where they stand within a relationship, what they are tryingto accomplish with that relationship, and a true awareness of themselves and how their actions andwords are perceived by others, they should see trust and success grow.

Relationships start with one person at a time and those that have better skills with relationships cancultivate trust with more people.

Kind regards,

Bob Lee Head Instructor 3rd Degree Black Belt www.bodymindsystems.com

Bob LeeHead InstructorBody Mind Systems Martial Arts Training Center

61. I am reminded of a piece of advice I frequently passed along to mangers at every level: "Don't expectemployees to care about your needs if its clear that you don't care about their needs".

The 'law of reciprocity' and the 'psychological contract' both reflect the importance of fairness in socialexchange. Research suggests that employees personify the organizations they work for, and judge thequality of their relationship with the organization (as well as their relationship with their supervisors)

primarily on how fairly they are treated.

I would argue that an organizational culture based on the underlying VALUE of fairness would testpositively on the measure of trust (and other performance measures).



Most contributors on this subject have identified behaviors associated with fairness, but it is importantto recognize that VALUES drive behaviors. Organizations working to improve trust might considerfocusing on an internal fairness audit, rather than trying to prescribe fairer behaviors among those whodo not VALUE them.

I would also strongly agree with Karen Casweich's emphasis on values in the hiring process. Nurturing

and maintaining a strong, healthy culture should be an executive's number one priority.

Gordon CarterPartnerthe Satori Group

62. Trust is a parameter that varies from culture to culture.

Americans, on average, tend to trust those individuals with whom they interact in the marketplace,although it bears noting that this trust is not necessarily extended to impersonal categories such as"management" or to professions or institutions.

By contrast, in India, the default belief about those outside one's close circle is that others are not to betrusted. An excellent discussion of the business and societal consequences of Indians' distrustfulness

can be found in Dr. Ragunathan's book, "Games Indians Play."

Trust is earned or reinforced in two ways. In America, performance -- particularly in response toerrors or defaults -- reinforces trust. Keeping one's word is especially important. In Asian cultures, thepath to trust more often involves establishing friendship, kinship, or incumbency in a business

relationship over a long period of time. Performance and keeping one's word are relatively lessimportant.

David WittenbergCEOThe Innovation Workgroup

63. Trust is a firm belief in the reliability or truth or strength of a person or thing. Trustworthy is one who isdeserving of trust and can be fully relied upon. Before we proceed to examine work situations, wehave to go into the reality of where we ourselves stand. If we self introspect objectively, we must beable to be confident of our own firm character and be convinced that we are trustworthy by standingby the truth, calling a spade a spade, being straightforward and always walking our talk. In short, we

have to be role model for others. It is a fact that we get what we deserve. Creating trust and beingtrusted by others is not hard - in essence, our positive thoughts and approach play a great role innurturing trust. Our whole tribe and family are bound to trust us if they experience acceptable traits inour expressed thoughts and actions. Coming to Management of our work situations, the leader iswatched closely by others and is welcomed or shunned depending on his behavioral patterns. There

are many examples of CEOs making/marring the same company by their helping/haughty managerialstyle. A good leader is alive to the importance of his image. He is conscious of what is happeningaround him and what people feel/talk about him inhouse/outside. Grapevine is also not ignored.Ifsincere, he will make amends as soon as something unusual is found out. Without trust, no entity can

survive in the long run; some can meet their doom earlier too.

Kapil Kumar SoporyCompany Secretary



SMEC(India) Private Limited

64. I am firm believer that Trust is most important factor for making a great organization.

Trust is earned thru a process which consist of a promise and the delivery. Full filling the promise asper expectation set and repeating this consistently brings trust for you.

Trust is both ways - leader to the team mate and team mate to to the leader. It doesn't differentiate.

AnilIndia

65. I have a small anology to share. Assume you walk on the same corridor everyday since yourchildhood. At age 30 or 40 you are so confident to walk on the same even blindfolded. The reason isthat you trust the acquaintance. Assume if the tiles of the floor change randomly and you had to walkon it blindfolded, you wouldn't trust the acquaintance anymore. The gist is that trusting the managementis not trusting the process but the personality. The moment there is a change in the management,

everything collapses.

This is one perspective I feel is a major influencing factor.

Prasanth GowravajhalaProduct ManagerBOSCH

66. My Father ran a business and told me that "whether you think you can trust people or not ... you willnormally prove yourself correct". By that he meant that if you don't trust people you will check up on them and then tell them what to doand then they will do what you say and not what they believe is right ... which will undermine yourshared trust when things go wrong. But if they think you are relying on them then they will try hard and

if you back them on the assumption they tried to do the right thing with the information they had, thenthey will both trust you and start doing the right thing more and more often.

That worked really well in his company and the first couple of companies I worked with. But later inmy career I worked for larger companies found issues related to "attribution error" applied. We all

know what we are doing and that we are trying hard to do the right thing (including most managers Ihave worked with). But we don't see the struggles others go through - just the impact on us. So weassume we did the right thing and that "they" did the wrong thing, causing us problems. But actually"they" and "we" usually did the best we could with what we knew ... and optimised our part of theworld and not the whole world.

So after many years and many scars I think my father was right. If you want someone to trust you, thentry to understand what they see happening rather than what you are doing. You will often find that whatthey see is hard work on their end and seemingly random stupid things on your end. So if you canuncover and start to answer their questions or complaints they will start to trust you. But if you just dowhat you think is right without understanding their perspective, then people will not trust you because

the evidence they act on is different to what you are doing and you will end up seeming inconsistent,out of touch or uncaring.

JamesCTO



Kingsinsight.com

67. You're right- trust isn't rocket science. But organizations are a collection of individuals, each with his orher own ambition, worldview, neurosis, intelligence, suspicions, self- interest... the list goes on. It's awonder any organization or team ever accomplishes anything at all.

I'm never surprised at the diversity of trust levels in an organization. After working in the trust space for20 years, i've come to know that trust is contextual and ever-changing. Because you have trust todaysays nothing about whether you'll still have it next month. Everybody has a different measure of trustand a different criterion for a trust breach. It's a very individual construct, with some commonalities. thecomplexity is how we interpret the commonalities

Trust is never fixed and nobody can ever assume they have it for good. Trust may be high in one partof an organization and low in another because an organization is a collection of sub-cultures. Trust willvary depending on the players and the issues.

Deborah NixonPresident

Trust Learning Solutions

68. In my experience, relationships based on trust are very powerful in a business environment for thereasons enumerated in the article, and is not lost when people are kept informed and are evenunderstanding when tough decisions need to be made in difficult circumstances.

Unfortunately, many of the more "successful" people in business are quite self-centered and selfish and

their behaviour eventually reflects those traits. Once others recognize their colleague/boss is in it "forhimself" and, if needed, at their expense, trust disappears. Trust is developed slowly, lost quickly anddifficult to regain.

Peter Bowie

69. A rich and juicy topic, Jim, even more than usual. Trust has been my business for 14 years now; it's a

rich subject.

A few observations:

1. "Trust" is the result of an asymmetric relationship between one who trusts, and one who istrusted. The one doing the trusting is the one taking the risk; the one being trusted doesn't. Theasymmetry is around risk.

Saying "trust in banking is down" is worse than useless, because it doesn't distinguish between a declinein trustworthiness and a decline in the propensity to trust. Those two conditions require very differentpolicy answers. IMHO, we have a bit of both.

1. Risk is critical to understanding trust. When Ronald Reagan said "trust but verify" he was

blowing rhetorical smoke: if you have to verify, it's not trust. A trusting relationship is the resultof a series of reciprocal gives and takes between two parties, trading roles of trustor and trusteeback and forth.

2. Trustworthiness is usefully analyzed as a composite of factors. I use the Trust Equation:trustworthiness as a function of (credibility + reliability + intimacy) divided by (self-orientation).



My firm now has about 30,000 datapoints of people taking an online self-assessment using the Trust

Equation: results include: a) women are more trustworthy than men, and b) the most powerful factor ofthe four is Intimacy (basically, how safe and secure people feel discussing issues with you). For acheck on commonsense, all career surveys show the number one ranked profession for trustworthinessis nursing, the embodiment of "intimacy."

1. Both trustworthiness and the propensity to trust are only partly character traits; they are also

heavily influenced by cultural norms. They are "virtues," but social virtues, and ones which areobserved more by some groups than by others (see Fukuyama's seminal work on trust incultures), and under different conditions.

2. From all the above, note that "trust" is about personal relationships; that is the basis for theanswer to Jim's question, "why is trust so low?"

It is because for several decades now we have behaved in ways that are inimical to trust.

-We have taught competitive strategy, not collaborative strategy; -We have defined business as beingabout companies, not about people; -We have focused on incentives rather than on obligations as amodel for motivating human behavior; -We have posited economic models of human behavior ratherthan broadly social ones; -We have worshipped quantitative analysis rather than "common sense"

(witness your own hesitation, Jim, to conclude in your intro piece that trust is profitable absent data that"prove" it) -We have developed analytics that heavily focus on NPV, a concept that both reduces allgoods to monetary equivalents, and that forces the temporal dimension of all things to time-now.

In such a context, the reason for low trust is not hard to understand. We don't have trust because wedon't have relationships, because we have valued data over feelings, and because we have not taken

seriously the realms of human endeavor that can't be reduced to "cold" data. (Exhibit 1: the false-on-the-face-of-it truism that "if you can't measure it you can't manage it").

In a nutshell, we have developed an ethos of business that is stripped of human relationships. It showsin our language: we have "human capital," "return-on-relationship," and "loyalty metrics."

Trust? We don't have it because we haven't taught it, learned it, practiced it. It's not venal psychopaths

who've caused it - we have all caused it, in our b-school curricula and in our daily managementpractices.

Charles H. GreenCEO

Trusted Advisor Associates

70. We've just had a perfect example of the lack of trust and how it affects strategic planning at theUniversity of Virginia. A few Board members insisted on firing the President because they feel that shewasn't moving quickly enough tp institute online learning--but they didn't bother to "socialize" theirthinking, making sure that their concern was widely shared. Result, egg in the faces of the Board and

restitution of the fires president.

Strategic Planning, contrary to one of the non-members of that Board, Peter Kiernan, does NOTconsist of stating a " diktat" to employees, but to use the process to gain buy-in and swift execution--after agreement is reached.

I was Director-Strategic Planning in New York Telephone when the parent company announced that



we should break our ogranization in a peripheral and a network configuration. Given the history of "MaBell", management went to extraordinary lengths to run seminars, engage employees in discussion, andexplain why they took this step. By and large it went surprisingly smoothly, even if the strategy was

externally flawed and quickly changed yet again.

My point, and I believe Prof. Heskett as well as strategic planning executives agree, seniormanagement has no alternative but to seek consensus. Think of Bill Agee and his disastrous decision tomove Bendix from automotive to "sexier" and faster growing domains. His # 2 and # 3 quit, thestrategy was imposed, and subsequently led to a forced merger with Allied Corporation. Pehr

Gyllenhammer made the same mistake in the early 1980's in trying to diversify out of making cars andcausing his subordinates to quit, only to lead to a failed merger with Renault a decade later in which hewas forced to resign.

Isn't it strange how we seem to learn nothing from history!

WALTER BLASS

CEOSTRATEGIC PLANS UNLTD

71. I've worked in a number of different types of organizations - academic, government and corporate.Generally there is a lack of appreciation for the difficult job of 'managing' people. Even the term'manager' is a loaded one, with too many employees equating management to mean manipulation.

Transparency and open communication will help to build a certain level of trust, but there is thatinherent distrust that employees have of management - it is always simmering under the surface I'mafraid. To be a manager, it's takes a certain kind of person to continue plugging away at achievingobjectives and respecting your employees, while all the while knowing that a percentage of them will

be unhappy with you for something (but never express it.) In one environment that I worked in, therewas a decision (after bringing in consultants) to get rid of all supervisors and managers - everyonewould work together in overlapping teams and there wo uld be no bosses. That didn't last very long.Someone has to drive the bus!

Anonymous

72. I am a home office employee of a Fortune 10 company.

One day, there was an unannounced meeting, 275 people were being relocated to a site over 1000miles away, those not wanting to move had 30 days to find another job, else you were on the street.

I am on a project, that will likely continue for another 3 years, yet the senior vp, delcared the projecthad to be done 3 years ago, as a result the year after the original deadlline was not met, everyone on

the team got a below expectaions on their evaluation.

Currenty 60% of my evaluation is based on meeting corporate sales and profit goals, but the companywill not share with me what those numbers are. So I am held accountable for meeting mysterynumbers. Nice.

I could go on.

Why should I trust these knuckleheads?

Anonymous



73. A few years back, I published an article entitled, "Winning Back Their Hearts and Minds: Rebuilding

Workforce Commitment" (www.bestthinking.com). In the article I posited 10 conditions that inspireand sustain fierce commitment from employees in tough (and good) times, an unspoken contract ofwhat employees expect of their leaders.

1. Passionate, principled, and unified leadership.

2. Unrelenting honesty and candor: no excuses, no deception, no spin. An open environment

where innovation, constructive dissent, and the contrarian view are valued as essentialcontributions by an approachable senior management.

3. A collective sense of mission, manifested by a clear, consistent, and urgent direction. Theconviction that all things are possible.

4. The courage to make the tough decisions and provoke change when necessary. Ownership for

personal and team accomplishments and failures. Accountability assigned appropriately. Theabsence of blame.

5. A bias toward deliberate action and calculated risk taking. And a decisive fix or scrapping ofprograms that everyone knows aren't working.

6. Zero tolerance for internal politics. Insistence on teamwork and the big picture. Consistent andfair treatment of all employees under all circumstances.

7. A system of evaluation that ensures managerial judgment of performance is informed andreasonably objective. People held accountable for delivering results against explicit andmeasurable objectives.

8. Consistent, demanding standards for everyone. Relentless people development through a cultureof continuous improvement. Decisive action on marginal performers. The best people assignedto the most critical projects.

9. Organization structure and processes as simple and streamlined as possible. Minimal rules.Removal of organizational barriers. An emphasis on judgment and what's right for the business.

10. Unwavering protection of quality. The interests of the customer held sacred.

Trust is the fundamental outcome when these conditions are pursued.

Dennis HopwoodDirector Human ResourcesWhitman College

74. My own distrust of top management in the United States stems from compensation philosophy. Theshareholder value concept and greed have resulted in lavish and unwarranted compensation of topmanagements. Somehow companies believe that these pay schemes attract high performing bosses andproduce superior results despite actual results. Yet at the same time the philosophy for lower levelpeople has been that pay is not a strong motivator. Lower level people are told that accomplishing

goals and being part of a vibrant team are compensation enough. Many blame pay demands fromunions as a drag on competitiveness.



To earn respect US management must dedicate itself to higher ideals than venality.

Ed Championowner

Champion Sales Services

75. i think the mistrust between top managers and low level employee dependend on the behavior of theorganization because of if the top level people become flexibl;e once it easy to trust each other, by theway while people follow the organisation police i think there is no mis trust, and the work going onsmoothly

hasan mohamuudoperation managerGoob-joog media

76. Trust equates to 'knowing' - 'knowing' what a person is going to do. 'Knowing' is the outcome of'constancy'. 'Constancy' is the product of the 'values' that a leader is willing to continually 'pay the price

of ownership'; and never misses a payment through contradictory actions. Many of us have known'despicable' people who we also trusted - we knew exactly how they were going to behave and react.Conversely we have known 'great' leaders who we would follow in pursuit of seemingly overwhelmingchallenges - because, we knew exactly how they were going to behave and react. Trust is sustained by

never 'missing a payment' on a value. Miss a 'payment' and constancy is lost, people begin to questionbecause they no longer 'know', and trust is gone. Any organization has a 'forgiving' window for amissed payment of about 24 hours - IF the transgression is owned up to by the person during thattimeframe. If not, trust is lost. The transgressor will never be seen as a leader again - maybe at best, aserviceable manager.

Joe SchmidManaging PrincipalOak Leafconsulting, LLC

77. Professor Heskett has come up with an important question in management terms but the question oftrust is universal from the trust in the Supreme Being (God, Brahma) to the trust between a mother and

a child and everything in-between. Professor Heskett's data had shown that drivers of (achieving) trustin management are not in the information contained in the data set. Hence, Professor Heskett'squestion why trust is so hard to achieve (in management)?

One has to start the analysis of this question with a good understanding of the meaning of "trust" and

how "trust" is manifested. One could "trust" or "not trust" an individual, a group, the Supreme Being, anideology, an action (based upon strategy, plan, forecast, prediction, probability, budget, data,commitment, presentation, style, idealism, epiphany, culture, appeal, advertising, rhetoric, speculation,special interest, self interest, commonsense, heuristics, creativity, knowledge, skills, history, art orscience), an emotion (love, hate, anger, empathy, compassion, forgiveness, greed, benevolence,

power, powerlessness) a belief, a system, a process or an institution (political, social or legal). Anideology is postulated by an individual (pioneer) or a like minded group of individuals. The object of"trust" or "not trust" is an individual, a group, a supreme being or a human/divine construct with orwithout a basis. "Trust" or "not trust" is a human condition between individuals, groups, an individualand a group, an individual/group and the Supreme Being. Hence, "trust" or "not trust" is a complex

human construct which needs some simplifying assumptions in order to reveal the drivers of "trust" inthe human psyche.



First, assume that all humans belong to one of three social classes: ruling class, middle class and underclass (Republicans do not trust this classification!). Second, assume there is little variability within eachclass and little social mobility between the classes. Ethical responsibility (lack of ethical responsibility) isan independent variable that may explain the variability in trust (not trust). Professor Heskett should usesocial class as one of the independent variables, use a large data set and use advanced statistical

methods (simple/multiple logistic regression) to test his hypotheses.

Adam Smith in his treatise The Theory of Moral Sentiments postulated that trust (not trust) has a priceand breaking the trust (establishing trust) has a price to pay.

Ravindra EdirisooriyaAccountant 07/13/12

Midwestern Small Business

78. The research we have conducted in the topics seem to indicate that in LA, has to do with blantant liesand unfullfil promises add corruption in many of LA societies and you have the ideal combination fortotal mistrust. Is a real problem in emerging firms, the problem of not keeping offering and promise

made in search of support of one kind or another as firms evolve. Is a reak shame but is really notgetting better.

Juan Antonio AguirreChair for EntrepreneurshipUniversidad Latina Costa Rica

79. Many startups are energized by renewed trust, respect and a common purpose. The empowerment oftrust is often created by a recent experience of being treated very unfairly at at prior employer.Frequently these folks take the memory and knowhow with them to the startup, give it a sharedmission, and make it work. When the second and third stage occurs, sellout and greed happens,structure returns, and old memories emerge, trust evaporates, and the cycle repeats. I'd say that lack

of trust creates new opportunity for the folks who leave, can devastate the old company, and offers anobject lesson for managers. I have found that once an employee or employee group is betrayed bymanagement, they revert to their last bad experience, and that reaction can be an unexpectedly seriousone. Workplace violence often has its roots, however misplaced, in sociopathic indifference and thevictims are often innocent.

Tom DolemboFounderNew North Institute

80. Trust needs to be built and then purposefully sustained. It is not a one-time process, and even one

infraction can damage the trust that exists between individuals.

Across organizations, honest communication is getting scarcer. This is either because people seek toavoid a confrontation by not saying what is true (admittedly, there is a cultural flavor to this trait) or forreasons of political expediency or weak personal value systems. Frequently, communication is non-committal. This provides either (or both) sides with an easy and convenient exit route if one is required.

Not surprisingly, the absence of powerful signals of honest intent can dilute (or even preclude) trust.

For all practical purposes and for most employees, "management" typically means their immediatesupervisor; at best, it might mean the executive who occupies the next higher level above the



supervisor. Most interactions occur within this set of people. If all of them don't subscribe to the samevision, they will act in ways that do not foster alignment. Such actions too can spawn a vicious spiral of

trust deficit.

Building trust must necessarily start with acknowledging the right of another to view any situation froma perspective that is different from one's own. Leadership is about aligning these perspectives throughinspiration, personal passion for and commitment to the cause and most important, by walking the talk.It is this set of traits that most managers and leaders lack.

Anand KrishnaConsultant

81. The importance of trust goes far beyond corporate matters, it governs all human relationships. Perhapskeeping promises, being honest and forthright, helping and supporting friends; being trustworthy, mightbe a way to promote trust.

Hugh Quickhomenone

82. It seems to me there are 2 things in short supply in most organizations. Good communication and trust.I respect people who are doing research in this field because I'm sure there is much we can learn. Now

the BUT, I can't trust someone if I don't know they're telling me the truth. I also can't trust someonewho tells me something in private or confidence, unless it's personal and not pertinent to the job we aredoing together. I also can't trust an environment in which decisions are made by edict, without input bythe people who actually must carry out the orders. That worked in the old army, but even they have

discovered the whorl is changing and as their job changes, practice must change with it. The boss is nolonger the smartest person in the room. Probably he/she never was. Often, that person was just morecunning. A trait which does not promote trust. Teams need to work as an organism to be trustworthyand productive. Not because it's easy because it's not. It's messy. But so is poor performance and badteam work. We hire people for their brains and not their brawn anymore. We need to engage their

brains, let them make mistakes and learn from them. But not in a vacuum designed to punish failure.The is a process (and perhaps many more) that can facilitate this kind of situation, and it's not difficultto learn. But few are willing to try to implement it because it appears to threaten the power structure. Itactually strengthens it, but it doesn't look like it. No matter what we do about this, trying to think about

this as another management problem will not bring any powerful solutions. Rethinking the situation froma different perspective. Be unsure about what you think you know. Try something scary. Just don't betthe farm on it the first time. And continue to judge the results.

Bill FlynnCEO

Paeon Partners

83. Once again, you ask a probing question that forces us to contemplate the deep meanings behind thesuccess and failure of organizations.

You cannot earn and keep trust as a leader without integrity. I suggest that the problem with the levelsof trust in organizations is strongly correlated to the integrity that lie within the leaders. If leaders

demonstrate a lack of integrity, people will naturally become circumspect about everything the leaderdoes or says. I have to trust that you will do the "right thing" no matter what. That is a matter of



integrity. Integrity is not a prerequisite to be placed in a leadership position. You can motivate and rulewithout integrity; however, the people which you rule will not trust you.

RebeccaProject Manager

84. In the Babylonian Talmud tractate Avot, Chapter 4, the Sage Ben Zoma says: "Who is an honorableman? One who honors others." In today's terms, we might say: "Who is worthy of respect? One whorespects others." We trust people we respect. We respect people who respect others by treating themwith decency and civility. (Lying to people does not show respect for them.)

Edward Stern

Builder of Expert SystemsGov't and various NGO's

85. In my work with organizations I have found that when they invite honest, collective and publicconversations (We gave developed a method for doing this castled the Strategic Fitness Process, HBR2004) that provides them with feedback from lower levels about their organization's and their

leadership effectiveness and they respond to this feedback with appropriate action trust increasesdramatically. Why? By asking lower levels for feedback - by making themselves vulnerable - leaderswho have employed this process have shown they are are humble. In effect they have humanizedthemselves and the organization.

Mike Beer

Professor EmeritusHBS

86. Thank you for an interesting article on a timely and important topic. I have two thoughts sparked bythis article. 1. Poor behavior by so many leaders has created a general culture of mistrust. 2. Trust is a

function of credibility and communication divided by risk. The reality ois that very few leaders areeffective at communicating with their employees. As such it is difficult for their teams to trust them.

Stephen AchillesDirectorERS

87. Jones & George (1998) show that trust is also a question of culture(values, rituals, basic assumptionsaccording to E.H. Schein). Excessive turnover and continuous change make trust difficult. There is littleopportunity for longtime experience with the other stakeholders. So modern society tends to replacetrust by excessive control (to compensate the lack of trust). But control tends to provokecounterstrategies... Trust-based relations are far better than tight control. Trust engenders trust if

partners are interdependent.

Marlis Krichewskyresearcher in management educationCIRPP - Paris

88. I know that in my company the management lies to us and leads us on all the time. You get burned

once by that kind of treatment, you'll never trust them again.

Anonymous



89. Trust in a work place can only be achieved under a Leader who; has a good character, is fair,

competent and who provides a happy work environment.

Good character requires courage, moral values, self-confidence, good heart and love for peopleFairness creates respect for the Leader. Either the leadership is exercised by power or by love,fair Leaders are always respectedCompetency makes it difficult to challenge the legitimacy of the Leadership position

Happy work environment enables more positive oriented team atmosphere

Today's problem is mostly Leadership problem rather than trust. Insecure, unfair, incompetent peopleholding leadership positions who are afraid of loosing their seats, whose motivation is solely securingtheir personal income, who are not behind their words, who are favouring "yes men" all the time,cannot establish trust in the workplace.

Tolga Habali

Tolga HabaliDirectorConnecting to Canada

90. Trust is instinctual and thus easy to achieve; its roots lie with our hunter-gatherer origins. When we are

true to our nature trust and integrity - its behavioural corollary - follow as night follows day. Leadersdisplaying integrity and generating trust tend to place group interests as paramount - and so are oftendescribed as both 'humble' and 'authentic'. An unfortunate and inevitable consequence of this is thattrust is too rarely found outside the small teams or organizations where relationships are personal andemotion-based. Trust, integrity, authenticity, humility and concern for group are not styles, skills or

attributes, nor are they immutable - they are facets of personality and can be changed by recognizingwhat we are and what we must become in order to be complete as leaders,

Paul NicholasDirector

Soul-Chaplain Consultancy

91. Management are making decisions for the good of the whole organisation and should be consideringthe bigger picture. Decisions made like this are not always in the interests of all the individuals in thatorganisation.

People don't trust management because management do not have their interests at heart, management

have the interest of the organisation at heart and this is not the same thing. This is why people can trustan individual manager but distrust management as a whole.

The other factor is that lower down an organisation, the less people know about why decisions arebeing made - this just compounds the issue.

Mark Greasley

MDInom Limited

92. We could be considering this issue through a social capital lens. One of the key elements of socialcapital is trust. One of the key measures of trust is the sanctions that occur if the trust is violated. Itseems possible that staff viewing their management do not observe sanctions when trust is violated



while there are sanctions at their level of the organisation - ipso facto - trust cannot accumulatebetween management and staff. That last sentence is important to. Trust does not exist or not exist - itaccumulates - layer upon layer, experience upon experience. Paradoxically it can be eroded layer by

layer but more often lost because of one particular episode.

Tony SmalePrincipal ConsultantForte Management & Marketing Consultants

93. Trust has to do with confidence in leaders. And a context of confidence is very hard to achieve

especially with many middle managers and political agendas.

The high level perspective is offered by Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter in her book "Confidence".Three things are needed. Accountability, collaboration and initiative. If an employee takes initiative andcollaborates across the silos of a business enterprise and is accountable for the outcomes achieved (good or bad) and if the senior leadership team is willing to allow her/him to make mistakes/ make

profits and learn from them then this engenders trust.

The coal face ( low level )perspective is that in many organisations, your immediate boss almost alwayswill not be someone you can trust as you are competing for his position or he may perceive that youare.

However, if your boss's boss is someone who firstly knows what you have done and appreciates what

you have done and rewards you then you have made a deposit of trust ( like a 10 year incomepreferred security bond) with that organisation.If however, the opposite occurs, then it is time for youto make a withdrawal of your trust and go and find trust in another organisation.

I think people or organisations trust leaders at any level who are authentic(Gandhi, Kennedy) andmake decisions not based on ulterior motives such as nepotism or cronyism but on genuine

performance.

Yadeed Lobo

94. Building trust is indeed not a rocket science. It is rather a soft art of (a) having faith in the basicgoodness of others; (b) manifesting such faith through (i) one's saying and doing at interpersonal level

and (ii) evolving work ethic and culture at institutional level ; and, facilitating reciprocity in others(employees, subordinates and all other stakeholders of the given organisation) towards the organisationand its leadership. Easy to say, but difficult to translate into action. there is however no other go.

Building trust is thus human value; and like for any other human value, relationality and reciprocityconstitute the prereqiuesites for its adhernece. When veiwed from the perspective of human values,

trust building becomes an excercise essentially of self introspection, awareness and improvement.Shorn of predominance of 'strategic' management, which involves managing others, trust buildingrelates to managing self, more than anything else.

G.P.Rao

G.P.Rao.

Founder Chairman.Spandan (Foundation for Human Values in Management and Society), India.



95. Why Is Trust So Hard to Achieve in Management? There is a need for managers to develop the virtue

of fallibilistic flexibility, inasmuch as one of the deficiencies of the human condition is that we are fallible.A manager who does not demonstrate some sense of fallibilistic flexibility makes it difficult foremployees to trust management. More than few managers, impelled by endogenous lust and qualitativemodes of material nature, not only disrespect employees but also even emotionally abuse them, and

this makes it difficult to trust management. The three modes of material nature - goodness, passion, andignorance - are always vying for supremacy and impelling Homo sapiens to act in varying ways(Prabhupada, 2011; Widolf, 2007). The sensory modalities and the mind are the repository of lust,which forces living beings to act even against their better judgment. Managers' inability to demonstratepractical caring thinking skills in their relationships with employees makes it hard for employees to

repose trust in management. Two types of caring are discernible: selfless caring, and caring with theintent to lord over. Antithetically, managers who are skilled in caring thinking very easily gain supportand trust from employees. Trust is reciprocal. If a manager wants employees to trust management, thenthat manager should practice to trust employees. However, more than a few managers do not trusttheir employees, and this makes it difficult for employees to trust their management. Egocentric bias of

more than a few managers facilitates trust sag in management. Discernibly, no one is the repository ofall information culture; therefore, as soon as a manager begins to act as if he/she is the personificationof all knowledge, a sober employee would find it difficult to trust such management. Low self-controlof managers is a major stumbling block to trust in management. The general theory of crime

(Gottfredson & Hirchi, 1990) brings to bear that self-control is the main determining factor of allcrimes and antisocial behavior. Managers with high self-control would facilitate trust in management.Rupa Goswami (Prabhupada, 2011) asseverates that a manager with high self-control would not onlyinvoke support and trust from employees/followers, but also be able manage and lead the entire globalvillage. It is not hard to find managers/leaders that disappointed their organizations due to low self-

control. Trust and low self-control are mutually exclusive. The exploitative mindset of more than a few managers makes it very difficult for employees to trustmanagement. According to applied Vedic science (Prabhupada, 2011), exploitation of natural andhuman resources is inherently imbued in living beings. However, if exploitation is very pronounced or

glaring in a manager's dealing with employees, under the banner of high yields, achieving trust inmanagement becomes difficult.

References Gottfredson, M.R. & Hirschi, T. (1990). A general theory of crime. Palo Alto, CA:Stanford University Press. Prabhupada, ACBS (2011). Bhaktivedanta VedaBase. Los Angeles, CA:Book Trust International. Widolf, H.E. (2007). Australian Antarctic scientists: Consciousness and

behavior. A dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor ofphilosophy, University of Tasmania.

Vasudev Das, a researcher on leadership and organizational change, serves in ISKCON.

Vasudev DasResearcher

ISKCON

96. I agree with your observations. I think one key ingredient to Trust of management is as simple as do asI do, not do as I say. Leadership that can be seen and witnessed as doing what they say they are doinghas a huge impact on staff morale and achievement. I work independently in many differentorganizations and I think the greatest contributor to organizational harmony and trust is to have a leader

that is true to his/her word.

Jane D. Brown



ConsultantEducation

97. Wow Jim, what a great responses. And you know what? Everybody is right!! Because the word trust

has a different value for everybody.

However my research showed that you can develop a relationship based on trust by being aware offour different constructs. Which are: the level of transparency, the level of knowledge sharing, thepower balance and the risk profile. All four constructs most be valued on a long term scale. (Youknow what short term gains did with trust!)

I wrote my master thesis on the role of trust.

In Holland I give presentations to sales forces and management to understand the role of trust and howtrust can be developed and nurtured.

I also developed a tool to manage the expectations of your customers, suppliers and employees, whichis one of the most important issues in developing and sustaining a trusted relationship.

When you want to discuss further on this topic, feel free to contact me.

Kindest regards,

Arnoud Hoek MSc Arnoud Hoek Consultancy Corpus Optima Europe

Arnoud Hoek MSc in General ManagementConsultant

Arnoud Hoek Consultancy (Netherlands) & Corpus Optima Europe

98. My research found that most people believe they are trusted so it wouldn't occur to them to think thatthis is something they need to think about. How many people do you know that can look at themselvesand truly believe they are not trustworthy? It's always somebody else who has the trust problem- never

us. The same applies to trusting organizations, which are an extension of an executive's view of him orherself. If they don't trust the organization, then they have to wonder what they are doing there. Toothreatening to think about.

All of the trust work assumes a level of awareness that recognizes the problem in ourselves and awillingness to do something about it. So whether it's trust, honesty, being a good person, being kind

etc. It all starts with how vulnerable we are willing to make ourselves and whether we want to beaccountable for our own actions. It requires us to get out of the blame game and to own our mistakes,problems and bad behaviour. Work on that- the trust piece will follow.

Deborah NixonPresident

Trust Learning Solutions

99. There was a time - before hired MBAs were involved - that owners of companies or managers hadsome feelings for their workers. As a general rule, most workers know that management will throwthem to the wolves while raising their own compensation. Workers get fired for management's mistakesbut managers get golden parachutes. There is no reason to trust a boss: workers are mere commodities

to new management.



Phillip GelmanSales ManagerMoney In The Till

100. Trust is obtained mainly by nonverbal signals from the environment. The environment influence ourbehavior. Trust is based on feeling and influenced by perception. The answer of trust must be find in

the perception of the nonverbale signals. This process influence the interpretation process of verbalcommunication in our social environment. "Don't create expectations that can't be met" is an verbalissue but the feedback is based on the fact that the nonverbale context is so important. You have tochange your paradigm regarding to the communication system to see what actually happened during

this process.

Drs. B.H.C. VlakeDirector, Lecturer MBATWL training and advice

101. Trust is one of those words that attracts subjective views and comments, similar to Respect, and Belief

.This raises the Culture issue and a brief survey of differing cultures will reveal differing interpretationsof this word. In western organisations there does not really exist a culture of cold stark obedience-unless the organisation is authoritarian such as police/armed forces et al..which relies on trust in adynamic team environment - more a culture of questioning based not only on further or highereducation principles but on the culture of personality. I believe that research of western organisations

would reveal a greater level of "trust" in organisations where there is charismatic leadership and flatlevel hierarchies rather than top-heavy leviathans which have not or could not re-structure due to theirbusiness model . It would also be interesting to research trust in a multi-cultural environment as thevariou s strands of attitudes and beliefs might expose varying strengths of trust in management leading

to a breakdown in traditional team roles and values and subsequently to a new perspective on explicitor implicit trust in "management" generally .

David LindsayTutor/LecturerNapier Business School

102. The issue is mgmt is not practiced as a profession.It is not a professional skill.I guess that is thedirection one need to take if mgmt need to be trusted.(e.g) You trust a doctor becos he/she is aprofessional.

Anonymous

103. Also in today's global dynamics, "trust" is such a relative term especially in MNCs which typically

comprise of work force from different cultures and from different ethnic back grounds so much so thatit can be so differently perceived just by its definition alone by different people. What is open for oneperson might be a very restrictive conversation or sharing of information for another, and I think thisalso adds new dynamics to what and how much of "trust" really exists in the given scenario.....

SRILA RAMANUJAM

104. People assume they'll be sacrificed to the psychopathic corporation and its hand maidens.

Anonymous



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Why Is Trust So Hard to Achieve in Management — HBS Working Knowledge

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