Best-selling author Stephen M.R. Covey’s latest book, Smart Trust, was published in January. He spoke with editor emeritus Paul Crookall. 

 

Why does the concept of trust resonate so well in both the public and private sectors?

Both are increasingly being asked to do more with less, they need to team, partner and collaborate. Trust isn’t a fuzzy soft social virtue, but a hard-edged economic driver. If leaders can increase trust, the speed increases and the cost decreases. Trust accelerates performance.

How do you get there?

It’s not enough to say, “go build trust.” At one level, people get it. We all know people we can trust and those we can’t. But we don’t all know the actions to get there. Trustworthiness is credibility, a combination of character and competence. It requires self-reflection. How credible am I? Do I trust myself? Do I give others a person they can trust? First, focus on our values. Second, focus on our behaviours. Assess – do I behave in ways that build trust? What behaviours in others cause me to trust them? Do I show those behaviours? Ask your team: “What more can I do to build trust?” Tell your team: “Here’s what more you can do to build trust with me.”

We identified 13 high leverage behaviours that build trust. They make common sense and if they become common practice, the organization builds a high trust culture. We’re just trying to make common sense common practice. Your responsibility is to control yourself and create a trustable person, while creating the conditions in your workplace for others to trust you, and each other.

So can we stop the tension of doing more with less, and build trust that focuses on productivity?

We need to constantly get better. Good leaders provide a vision of that goal. They build a team that can model trust behaviour, which can be productive and innovative. They clarify expectations and achieve the organization’s goals while creating energy and joy.

In the end, if someone is a trust destroyer, and not able to change their behaviour, they may be in the wrong seat on the bus, or even need to get off the bus. If you get it right, the culture becomes the enforcer, rather than the rules, and people hold each other accountable. When you try to make changes like this, you get lots of push back. “What if we get it wrong?” “You don’t understand our world.” “How do you build trust in a rules-based organization?”

How can leaders contribute to building trust?

Five steps: it begins with recognition that if we build trust we can better serve the public, and have more joy in the public service workplace, so we choose trust; 2) start with yourself; 3) declare your intent to build trust; 4) do what you said you were going to do; and 5) have the courage to go first and extend trust. Don’t extend it naively, nor as an absolute. But don’t let trust abusers, poor performers or unethical behaviour define the culture. Behave your way into trust – doing what you say you will do is the simplest, most important technique. The biggest trust-killer is declaring you will do something, and not following through.

Shared services are increasing: how can we build a win-win strategy for collaboration and performance across departments and between the public and private sectors?

This is hugely important. With shared services there is less direct control, more partnering and teamwork. You can coordinate these functions without trust, but for collaboration you need trust as a foundation. Trust is like clean air; if the “air” in your organization is polluted, essentially everything else doesn’t work as well. The command and control paradigm and its tools are not suited to this – it’s like using a golf club to play tennis. The tool is not suited to the reality. The reality is shared services require trust and collaboration.

Some organizations are high fear, and this drives out innovation and lowers productivity. 

The data is compelling that many factors drive innovation and productivity, but at the core is trust. In poor performing organizations people are afraid to make a mistake, quick to blame others, suspicious, afraid to be open, quick to take credit, and have risk avoidance. In high performance organizations, making mistakes is accepted and even prized – if you’re smart about it, learning and getting better. 

I’m not advocating a Pollyanna view here, with no expectations of performance and no consequences for not doing your job. The opposite of trust is suspicion, which is manifest in fear, which is the enemy of innovation. We are beginning to see this culture change in several public service organizations. In British Columbia, for example, they have articulated that “our goal is not to minimize the risk but to maximize all that can go right.” Their approach is to hire winners, be flexible, and trust them. Georgia also has a good example (see SIDEBAR). You can create this change in your organization. Play to win, rather than play to not lose.

 

Trust-Building Behaviours

1.Talk straight

2.Demonstrate respect

3.Create transparency

4.Right wrongs

5.Show loyalty

6.Deliver results

7.Get better

8.Confront reality

9.Clarify expectations

10.Practice accountability

11.Listen first

12.Keep commitments

13.Extend trust

 

SIDEBAR

Isabel Blanco took over the State of Georgia’s Child Protective Services in 2004. The state had a backlog of 3,711 investigations over 90 days old. Caseworkers were disengaged. Policies had been developed to cover every possible mistake. A 32-step process ensured that human judgement could not be blamed if things went wrong. To play it safe, everything was by the book.

The intent was positive – to protect children. But it was also to protect management. The result was more children at risk because caseworkers did investigations – 60 percent of which found no need for intervention – rather than doing interventions.

Blanco began by visiting each of the 159 counties, extending trust to caseworkers to use their judgment and to reduce fear. She built trust with her boss. “We didn’t blindly trust our staff, we installed processes that supported our goals in a responsible way and monitored every decision, evaluating our percentage in getting the decision right.” With no additional staff, the backlog is gone, investigations are down 70 percent, child safety is up 45 percent, staff are engag