Trust is a prerequisite for delegation and a necessity for different cultures to coexist in an organisation. Different cultures are necessary in, for example R&D and Operations. Understanding ‘Trust’ is therefore imperative for every leader. Trust is a complex concept, difficult to analyse and equally difficult to create. This abstract looks at what trust is, how to build it and how easily it may be destroyed.
Trust as a Cognitive Concept
Much has been written about trust and the transaction costs within and between commercial companies and other organisations without it. Less on interpersonal trust. It is also true that almost everyone who writes on trust makes their own definition of it. For our purposes, McAllister’s definition of trust: ‘the extent to which a person is confident in and willing to act on the basis of, the words, actions, and decisions of another.’ Will suffice.
Trust has both cognitive and affective foundations, i.e. it is an amalgam of rational thought and feelings about the person or organisation to be trusted. The more you know about a person or organisation and, therefore, judge about how they will behave the more you will trust them. That trust is based both in their competence (in the matter at hand) and in their intention gathered through experience and observation. This includes observation of how they treat others including their own people.
One way of thinking about trust is as a device for coping with the freedom of others to disappoint through betrayal, defection and exit. It follows that shared values on both sides are important. Trust will build as long as values and beliefs are shared, and motives remain benevolent.
The Affective Domain of Trust
Most people allow for the importance of feelings in trust and note its multifaceted nature. The problem comes as to how your emotions about someone (or an organisation) are gained. Most fall back on the fact that the more you get to know someone (rational), the more you feel comfortable to trust them. Effectively this is an extension of the cognitive domain rather than the emotional domain of trust. Some writers note that this complete reliance on knowledge and thought, even for the basis for feelings for trust, is inadequate in the analysis of it.
Two things are clear, the emotional bond of trust so far described takes a long time to build. Secondly, there is something in the emotional side of trust that exists before this. There is a person’s propensity to trust, which is a part of their emotional make up, and there is a feeling about someone made immediately on meeting them. A first impression. The work on Emotional Intelligence helps to understand this.
Trust, it seems, exists on lots of levels. People trust others (including organisations) with some things but not others. In some areas, trust will be extended swiftly, in others not so much. Certainly, as trust is given and vindicated, trust grows. Trust begets trust.
Those who form so called virtual organisations, must wade in on trust. They may never meet those with whom they work. They have to trust from the beginning of a relationship or work just does not get done. Clearly, first impressions, even over electronic media, and success are important in building that trust.
The Complexity of Trust
The concept of trust is obviously a complex thing. It is hugely difficult to analyse without losing some, if not most of the common concept. Over simplification to achieve an academic concept to test variables and fit models to aid understanding can end in being unhelpful. As Christopher Marlowe said in Dr Faustus: ‘Sweet Analytics, ’tis thou hast ravished me.’ Nevertheless, an understanding of the concept is necessary.
At one level, trust is about one way of dealing with risk. That is, you are at risk from the behaviours and actions of another. You can trust that they will not harm you (a risk in itself!) or you can legally bind them to behave and act in a way you consider will not harm you. There are 2 consequences (at least) to the latter course of action. First, the more complex the matter between you, the more difficult it is to make a contract that covers everything (and the more expensive it is to form and implement it). Second, people have proved that they are ever more ingenious at finding ways round the rules, requiring ever more complex contracts. This is an iterative and ever more expensive process and is the transaction costs referred to at the beginning.
Building Trust
Analysing this thinking on trust, it is possible to break down the factors that influence the building of trust (Hurley 2006). Of the 10 factors, the first 3 cannot be influenced by the person wishing to be trusted.
Risk Tolerance
Level of Adjustment
Relative Power
The following 7 can be affected by the conscious behaviour of that person:
Security
Number of Similarities
Alignment of Interests
Benevolent Concern
Capability
Predictability and Integrity
Level of Communication
Most of these things work at the rational level of trust although feelings of emotional security, rather than physical security, similarities and alignment work on the emotion level. A person’s propensity to trust is bound up with the first 3 factors. The last 7 factors can be worked on by the person wanting to be trusted. Note though, an inept approach to these factors will come across very badly and do harm to the relationship.
Very few people write about what it is that people actually need to do to improve trust. You work on the seven factors, but how? It is the mundane, everyday actions of people that work here. How you behave, how you say things, body language, speaks loudly to those you wish to trust you.
Systematic Destruction of Trust
The relative homogeneity of the officer corps of the British Army in the 1st World War as a factor that should lead to trust flourishing. Here trust could easily be presumed because of the relative similarity and like-mindedness of the British Army officer corps at that time, which came from a similar social class, upbringing and education. In reality it did not exist because of the actions of the command chain, actions brought about by systemic rather than personal issues.
General Headquarters under General Haig arrogated to itself the right to promote or sack all officers serving in the Field Army in France. The only way that the technical superiority that defence had acquired over attack, because of off-field artillery, machine guns and other military technological advances, could be overcome was with the fighting spirit of the soldier (a conclusion common to the three major European powers in the First World War.
Any officer who dared to tell General Headquarters that its attack plans would not work, for whatever reason, clearly was not the right calibre officer and was removed. So too were those who failed in attempting to carry out the plans as they too could not be of the right character. Removal was so prevalent that the Army, in its own inimitable way, invented a verb for the action – being ‘degummed’, from the French ‘dégommé’. As a result, open and honest communication between the front line and Headquarters in that war all but ceased with dire consequences for all concerned. General Headquarters believed that those on the front line were incapable of military operations while being ignorant of the true conditions that the front line had to fight in; the front line believed that General Headquarters were incompetent and would remove them whatever they did.
In essence, systemic issues can destroy trust just as easily as personal ones, no matter how culturally homogeneous the people involved. Things like pay and bonus policies in modern organisations can be equally destructive. The organisational context within which people are working is, therefore, important in the generation and preservation of trust. It is important not just for the reputational issues of the organisation and its effect on the affective domain but also because of systemic issues that may prevent the open communication that is required for trust to be built.
Summary
In summary, trust depends on both logical and emotional factors. Looking at the work on emotional intelligence it would seem that not only one’s propensity to trust but also one’s first impression of others is important in a decision to trust another.
Trust then will build by working on both the affective and cognitive domains of trust by the mundane everyday actions of people. Hurley (2006) puts forward a research based model of how to increase interpersonal trust based on ten factors, seven of which are malleable by the person wishing to be trusted:
Alignment of interests,
Benevolent concern,
Capability,
Predictability and integrity,
Level of communication,
Security,
and Number of similarities.
Genuineness in the approach to these factors will have to be displayed not to destroy trust in the affective domain.
Homogeneity is important in developing trust as the factor of similarity in Hurley’s model demonstrates, it is also demonstrated to be so in Social Identity Theory. However, even in organisations where there is considerable homogeneity, systemic factors can destroy trust more effectively than homogeneity can promote it as Cox showed with his explanation of events in the 1st World War.
Abstract Sources
HURLEY, R. F. 2006. The Decision to Trust. Harvard Business Review, 55-62.
COX, S. 2007. Trust in the British Army of the First World War. Royal Air Force Historical Branch.
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