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?

Bulls and Boardrooms

I stood on the sideline of the auction yards, hoping to buy a bull that (in my opinion) was the finest animal on the lot. It would be a great addition to the farm breeding stock. Two bids later, I stepped back and watched the price climb. Maybe I was right about it being the best bull. It sold for the top price. I eventually secured a lesser bull. I made the decision without supervision and using someone else's money. The farmer I worked for was a master of delegation. He had given me a signed blank cheque and sent me to the annual sale alone. His instructions were simple. “Buy the best bull you can. Don’t spend more than $1500.” When I got back I told him about the best bull, and together we admired the one I had purchased.

I’ve often thought of him when I lead others and work with leaders. One of the most significant roles of a leader, all the way to the boardroom, is delegation. Despite delegating all the time, there’s often unnecessary friction because we don’t always do it well.

What that farmer did very well was define the task or territory - Best bull possible at or below $1500. My task was epic for my age and experience, but the parameters were crystal clear. I knew precisely what was in and out of my authority that day. He also backed the decision I had made.

When we are delegating, we can reduce friction significantly by clearly discussing what is in and out of the territory. Sometimes there will be grey areas, in which case discuss the triggers to refer back for more information or support.

And get really good at accepting the outcomes of delegated territory. Questioning or criticising decisions and actions makes it much less likely that people will want to act for you next time round.

How and where could you improve your capacity for delegation?