The roots of trust

By Kim Jong-nam

Many organizations today complain about a lack of trust in their community. Often, CEOs will identify this as an issue to solve. However, a lack of trust is not itself an issue to solve: rather, it is the result of many issues that exist in an organization.

One of my primary areas of expertise lies in diagnosing and changing organizational cultures, many of whom want to know where their trust issues come from. We diagnose them and provide some potential solutions, but few organizations really succeed at resolving them. Why? I don't think it is because trust issues themselves are really complex. The answer is the lack of effort: if authentic efforts are not made, the problem will worsen. Usually, organizations have discovered this lack of trust when examining malfunctioning relationships or processes. By the end of this examination, there is a general feeling of fatigue, which results in the lack of authentic efforts. This, of course, worsens the trust issues, because we don't trust people who don't keep their promises. Trust is fragile: once people feel that they have been deceived, even an effort twice as large will not necessarily reverse the situation.

This aspect is very important, because an organization may have to pay a steep price for this lack of trust. No matter how busy they are, CEOs and executives need to think about whether there are trust issues in their organizations before they talk about productivity or revenue growth because the lack of trust will end up hurting both.

One cause of trust issues is the fact that organizational phenomena are often viewed differently by different groups. This is not in itself a big deal, but problems often arise from ignoring this fact. Executives, managers, and employees can't help but have different views. But not making an effort to integrate them and create a level of mutual understanding is a bigger problem. This results in feelings of injustice and inequality, which leads to a lack of trust.

Recently, I asked three groups in an organization how justice and fairness could be increased. Of course, the answers of three groups varied. The shortest and simplest answers were given by the executives group, who recommended the creation of more opportunities to communicate (in order to avoid misunderstandings) and better treatment and salaries for employees. More complex answers were given by the managers group. They said that the decision-making process should be opened up, that executives should begin to abide by their own rules, that there should be more interdepartmental communication, that each person and group should get fair benefits, that work directives should be clearer, and that the current status of projects should be regularly shared. The most serious answers were given by the employees. They wanted better salaries, allowances, and treatment, a fairer distribution of the workload, fair benefits for each group, transparent promotion opportunities, and, last but not least, a good-faith effort on the part of the organization to actually change the current status.

How very different these answers were from each other makes it clear how different their perspectives are. Unless these differences in perspective are addressed, it will be very difficult for these groups to truly collaborate. In fact, many organizations don't actually know that what different groups in their organization want is different. Many executives and CEOs simply think that increasing the salary level will help their organization become integrated and to solve its trust issues.

Of course, it is natural for each group to view the same situation differently because each group's roles and responsibilities are different. However, once again, what causes the real problem is not the difference itself, but the lack of effort on the part of the organization to address these differences. If left unaddressed, each group will believe that the other groups are problematic because they ignore what their group believes is very significant.

All in all, a lack of trust often has many different causes. Organizations are right to try to resolve this, as it can have a big business impact, but by the time that the lack of trust is spotted, it is often too late. That is why organizations must be proactive in soliciting views from different groups in their organization and take time to address the differences in perspectives. However, the most important thing is, once these perspectives are understood, to actually address the issues and complaints that have been brought up. Failing to do so will increase distrust on the part of members of the organization, who will continue to believe that the organization is all talk and no action.

Kim Jong-nam is the founding CEO of Culture Engine (www.cultureengine.co.kr), which specializes in organizational culture change via consulting, training and coaching.