The Elements of Trust

• Congruence - being straightforward, honest and ethical

• Openness - being willing to listen to others ideas and feedback and to disclose your own thoughts, feelings and opinions.

• Acceptance - being nonjudgmental of people; treating them with respect and dignity.

• Reliability - keeping commitments, meeting deadlines and doing your best in everything you do.

Like many senior executives, Larry and his team were focused primarily on Congruence and Reliability... running an honest, ethical organization and achieving results. What they did not realize is that while employees want the senior team to be honest and ethical, and run a financially sound organization, Congruence and Reliability are not as important to them as are Acceptance and Openness.

First and foremost in the employee's minds is Acceptance.... how the senior team treats them and their coworkers. They need to feel valued and respected, and know that their work is important; that their ideas will be listened to. Most organizations say "Our people are our most important asset .", but how many treat their employees, individually, as if they are? To many employees, that statement demonstrates a lack of congruence.

Confront the Brutal Facts

One of the factors that contributed to the leap to greatness of the eleven companies Jim Collins wrote about in his best selling book Good to Great was their willingness to confront the brutal facts. Are there any policies, procedures or practices in your organization that send a clear message to employees that they are not trusted?

Behaviors that Diminish Trust

Many in the workplace, don't intentionally set out to diminish trust with other team members, and yet many successfully do that every day. Here are some of the more common behaviors that diminish trust:

• Being solely focused on meeting ones own needs; usually at the expense of other team member's needs.

• Using information as a source of power, withholding information from team members to ensure they know they are not important or trustworthy.

• Not communicating openly with employees about their performance.

• Treating mistakes as a crime rather than as a learning experience.

• Assigning blame without first checking the facts, rather than focusing on solving the problem and learning from it.

• Avoiding responsibility for their own actions or decisions... it's never "my" fault when something goes wrong.

• Treating employees as insignificant by not asking for their input, and not listening when it is offered.

• The highest levels of customer satisfaction

•  Lowest levels of staff turnover

•  Highest profitability