How Best To Develop Trust And Enable High Performance

Last month the CIPD website featured a report whose key finding was that Trust was 'critical' for developing high performance, and which also provided a series of recommendations as to how to build Trust levels

Trust between staff and their employer is “critical” for driving high levels of performance and workforce motivation, research has revealed. A report from Working Families and consultant lead researcher Susanne Jacobs, in partnership with Unum, has found a clear link between the individual, the team they work in, how they are led and their level of trust, to sustainable gains in productivity. 

In the report, Trust: the key to building well-being and performance in the workplace, researchers identified eight key drivers for building trust throughout this chain. Employers need to consider all eight of these trust drivers to move towards optimal performance, researchers said.These include:

• Belong and connect - The feeling that the employee feels part of and connected to their team and organisation
• Voice and recognition - The individual’s ability to speak up in a way that allows them to influence decision making
• Significance and position - The employees sense that they have a clear and important role in their team
• Fairness - The understanding that individuals are evenly treated within their team and the organisation
• Learn and challenge - The opportunity to learn and master new skills and achieve tangible results
• Choice and autonomy - The sense of control over workplace delivery
• Security and certainty - The sense of predictability and confidence in the workplace environment
• Purpose - The understanding of how an individual’s role contributes and is aligned to the team and organisation’s success

This link between Trust and High Performance is one that FranklinCovey has recognised for the past 8 years, since writing and publishing the Speed of Trust, and its encouraging that this latest research (and much research like it) affirms the link. Looking at the 8 trust drivers identified, however, each element could imply significant organisational change, so its easy to see employers looking at the list and being unclear which elements to focus on, or how to go about achieving the outcome identified.

 

By contrast, FranklinCovey's approach distills 4 Cores of Credibility, which can apply at both an individual and an organisational level, as the foundation for building and sustaining Trust. These 4 Cores can be used as the basis for hiring and rewarding people, for developing team members and team leaders, for auditing organisational systems and processes and for measuring how customers and stakeholders view the organisation. Our experience has been that this approach, which emphasises mindsets and behaviours and which underlines the opportunity and responsibility every person has to add to Trust levels, can offer an achievable and scalable way to build Trust (and realise its benefits) in any organisation.