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Trust
- In
the new Emotional / Experience Economy, where relationships, human
capital and
talent retention and customer relationship management are the prevalent buzzwords,
there is an invisible underlying attractor field that enables
business to move forwards and upwards. This risky behaviour is
called trust.
This workplace attractor field, or energy field, is created, and
powered through trusting and walking-your-talk. This willingness to become vulnerable, and
belief that others will act in good faith, creates confidence
about the brand, the products, the company, the leadership and
within the staff.
Trust is the lubricator of our business and social system. It’s
a facilitator and enabler in the ongoing coordination and
interactions of life. Trust reduces fear, conflict, self
protection needs, anxiety uncertainty and in many instances,
stress levels. It's just such a pity that business has lost it's
integrity. In the old days we had real honour and integrity,
where a handshake was good enough for men to keep their word.
Today it's hard to find anyone who will keep their word and do
as promised..
This foundation of trust and integrity is critically important for your internal customers as well
as external customers, as it creates a sense of certainty,
belonging and pride, and reflects well on
the people decisions and choices that they've made in their place
to work..
This pride then becomes the fuel for Passion and engagement. Passion is the
catalyst for higher “engagement” levels. Research though over 10
Million interviews reveals the fundamental predictor of business
profitability and workplace success is directly linked to staff
and customer engagement levels.
A
little known fact, that also can affect workplace trust is
projection. If a staff member or customer has personal integrity/trust
issues, they will often tend to “see/project this "behaviour" in,
or onto, others” as
a representation of their own shadow.
I
know of a very highly qualified business woman, who projects her
lack of integrity and lack of trust issues onto all of those around her. She
believes that everyone is the "issue", when she is really the
issue.
Another prominent local businessman in the motor
industry treats his staff like criminals. Everything is
subversively monitored and checked. The real issue is the
leaders' own integrity is the real point in question. But the
staff are made to feel like they are the criminals. He is
just projecting his issues onto his staff and treating them the
way he does because of his intimate "knowledge about himself".
He doesn't trust himself!
Unfortunately word eventually gets around and so leaders
like this can only abuse people for so long before it catches up
with them. And consequently their business will always be under
pressure and their work-life will always be unsatisfactory and
their staff engagement levels will always be abysmal.
Trust and truth, play a significant role in team and personal performance.
Higher levels of trust are linked to higher levels of
satisfactions, open information sharing, more efficient task
performance, better internal and external relationships, stronger
engagement and commitment levels.
Lower levels of trust leads to higher levels of absenteeism,
greater team dysfunction, leadership avoidance, workplace
instability, diversity conflicts, ongoing discomfort, anxiety,
and increased anger, frustration and confusion, which all
directly affect, and infect, performance and productivity.
In
the end the credibility of the leadership, management and
products are destroyed by lack of trust and positive experience.
In many cases this trust foundation cannot be rebuilt without
extensive deep authentic reparative work. In
some instances, based upon people's propensity to reconsider
and become vulnerable again, this trust may in some cases be slowly rebuilt.
There are however some people who will never reconsider, based up
their experiences. The continuum extends from people who will
begin to trust quite quickly, based upon a whole range of
renegotiated criteria, all the way across to those who will never
renegotiate and risk trust again no matter what.
The
message is clear in today's ever vigilant and connected society
- a break in trust can cost companies tons of money. It can
destroy the organisational reputation, and clients or staff are
sure to let others know about the breaks in trust that they
experience.
So
the message is clear Trust is a Must in today's
high-performance, highly demanding and competitive workplace if
we want to have high levels of engagement and profitability.
Choose REAL team building for your next teambuilding event
Tony Dovale -
Life Masters Teambuilding johannesburg Gauteng
For more information or reprint rights please
contact Tony Dovale
of Lifemasters International
www.lifemasters.co.za Cell 083-447-6300
email: reprints@coachfree.com |
“Team-spirit is up, Sales are up, Client relationships
are clear, Profits are up!” Bruce Williams- MD Hardware
Distributors
