Trust is an essential part of social relationships, affecting individuals in their interactions with others and in the workplace based on both observed behaviours and internal reasoning. As humans, we learn to trust people implicitly (based on trust that is given despite the absence of rational reasons to do so) or explicitly (based on deeper moral decisions and reasoning), or in conjunction. Whilst many organisations refer to trust as a key organisational value, the ability to authentically build and demonstrate it is a complex interplay between two or more people based on conscious experience. In short, if you fail to practice what you preach, people's ability to trust you can be damaged, resulting in employee dissatisfaction, poor working relationships, and challenges in bringing teams together towards a common goal.
Get ready for the science bit....
Oxytocin is a hormone produced in the brain's hypothalamus, which is responsible for keeping the body in a healthy and balanced internal state. It plays a critical role in social cohesion, including the formation of trust between two or more people. Research has shown that when participants felt trusted, oxytocin was released into the bloodstream, increasing feelings of trust and cooperation in social interactions (Zak, 2017).
The same research indicates that people at high-trust companies report 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, 50% higher productivity, 76% more engagement, and 40% less burnout compared to people at low-trust companies (Zak, 2017).
So how does this science-based approach help companies to build organisational trust?
According to Zak, there are eight key management behaviours that stimulate oxytocin production and support the generation of trust. Let's take a deeper dive into the top four:
1. Recognise excellence - not just for a job well done, but for demonstrating qualities prized by the organisation, such as going the extra mile to help colleagues and customers. According to Aristotle, excellence is not an act but a habit, and ensuring employees are recognised beyond major milestone wins or projects for repeated demonstrations of excellence is key to building and maintaining trust. A client recently shared that they had moved away from employee of the month initiatives voted by management in favour of a tiered recognition system. This included rewards for exemplifying values, a team lunch, saying thank you regularly, promoting peer-to-peer recognition, and sharing weekly wins including small achievements or personal victories. Asking your team what they feel would be most helpful is a small way of making a big impact.
2. Induce “challenge stress” - challenge stress refers to stressful activities that are also energising and aid individual feelings of accomplishment. Think "good stress" from activities that promote learning and development versus "threat stress" activities that push the brain into fight or flight mode and overwhelm us. Our brains are natural problem solvers, and when faced with a potential stressor, subtly changing it from"there's no way I can do this in time" to "how can I best approach this" actually helps the brain to reclassify the stressor from a threat to a challenge. This goes for short-notice bid submissions, presentations, or extra workload. Leaders can build trust by thinking about how they classify the opportunity when making the request, and giving the employee a chance to discuss how to turn a threat into a positive challenge. Struggling employees who feel unheard or unsupported are more likely to experience feelings of overwhelm and anxiety, losing trust in their management to both support them and understand their feelings.
3. Give people discretion in how they do their work - when employees feel empowered to make decisions about their work, it fosters a sense of ownership and freedom, making them more invested in their work. By trusting and respecting employees to leverage their own autonomy in working styles, levels of trust can be increased, resulting in more positive outcomes for both individuals and leaders. We might assume that hybrid working is the only way post-COVID, but I'm still seeing organisations struggle to maintain the balance between at-home flexibility and in-office collaboration. Rather than issuing mandates, listening to your team and incorporating their personal preferences alongside organisational requirements can imbue people with a feeling of empowerment, helping to build trust on both sides.
4. Enable job crafting - job crafting relates to the proactive involvement of employees in shaping their roles and responsibilities to align with their own strengths and values, thus aiming to create a more fulfilling work experience. A company I worked with recently were struggling to get a new function off the ground, and were frustrated at the perceived lack of progress being made by the team lead. By spending time with the individual and the teams she was supporting, it quickly became apparent that the vision set out for the role was not realistic. Not only was it playing down her strengths, it wasn't well-supported by cross-functional teams due to a lack of process alignment internally. With her active involvement in amending the spec, my client was able to relaunch the function successfully and demonstrate trust in their teams to craft their roles to suit the business realities, not just the vision.
If you want to learn more about the other management behaviours and the research that underpins them, check out The Neuroscience of Trust (hbr.org).
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