Trust - Stopping Erosion

I love visiting gorges. The carvings made by water, etched into the landscape over millions of years, are breathtaking. Water doesn’t seem significant enough to work its way through hundreds of metres of solid rock, but over time it has its way. Observing a given moment, the erosion is imperceptible. Once you understand the mechanism, it’s obvious.

There’s a similar pattern with trust in workplaces. Like water, there are forces that erode trust. Viewed in a moment, they seem insignificant. Over time they wear trust down. They multiply and the erosion gets deeper and harder to fix.

Here are three and what to do about them:

1. Open loops. When people make suggestions, ask about progress or for a decision, they often don’t hear anything back. Even if they ask many times, there's still no reply. It doesn’t mean nothing is happening. I talk to many busy leaders who are working hard, with good intent to make stuff happen. But in the busyness, it’s easy to forget to update people. It erodes trust, because it seems like there's neither care nor action. Close those loops.

2. Talking behind people’s backs. Even if we don’t consciously notice it, someone bad-mouths someone else, we wonder what they are saying about us when we are not around. We become more guarded. Address issues early and often.

3. Agreement without agreement. In a meeting everyone agrees, but then agreement is undermined in practice. Have robust conversations to reach agreement, and then back the agreement. Sometimes this means living with something that is different from the choice I personally would have made. That's OK.

In places where there are already deep gorges worn into the landscape of trust, it takes time and intentional effort to rebuild. It is possible, and can be surprisingly rapid if there’s willingness to do the work.

What does the trust landscape look like where you work? Is it effective or ineffective?

Sound Bites Don't Like Nuance

That sounds like a sound bite with nuance to me. What do you think?

I was listening to a podcast interview between Katie Hair and Digby Scott. Great conversation BTW and well worth a listen. 

Katie offered up the sound bite that became this week's title. Initially, I totally agreed with what she said, but on further thought I reckon it’s nuanced.

Sound bites can be very blunt instruments, and can certainly be used to polarise camps and opinions. They are often deliberately weaponised, especially in social media. 

Right - Wrong, Black - White, Us - Them

But, the most effective leaders I work with have well thought out sound bites which they repeat often, and to great effect. They use them to focus intention, set direction, define standards, build culture and more. The sound bites themselves don’t have much nuance - they grab your attention. Then if accompanied by nuanced examples, they can guide very nuanced decision making and behaviour. More importantly, they can ensure some consistency in doing so. 

I reckon a sound bite is a bit like a sharp blade. What it does will depend on whose hands hold it. It could brutally slash, but also carve intricate patterns or execute precise surgery.

I wonder, have you seen sound bites used in nuanced ways?