A New Perspective on Trust

I know a little bit about the concept of trust. I studied the topic in detail when I was doing my thesis work. As it turns out, any social capital you may possess is inherently tied to how much other people trust you. I have recently been witness to situations that have caused me to do more research on trust. I have learned some things in the process that, while not being surprising, have given me a new perspective on the subject.

I have lately observed some organization executives floundering in their efforts to enact policy initiatives. My union colleagues and I did play some part in blocking these initiatives; however, I would say the failures I witnessed were in the design of those initiatives. So confident was I that these executives were misguided I started doing some research to make my point. As I noted above, one of the topics I did research in was trust. I realized, much to my chagrin, that these executives were doing many things right; at least, they were doing the things that the academic literature claimed would help to build trust.

I had to question, then, if they were doing things right then why were these things landing so poorly? That is, morale is low and the typical reaction to an email from executive staff is an eye roll. As a union steward, I know that people are more willing to express to me negative opinions about the workplace and its leadership, but the scope of the negative reactions I have been observing was surprising me.

Then I came across a probable answer. I discovered a definition of trust that was new to me:

Trust is a willingness to be vulnerable to the actions of others because we believe they have good intentions and will behave well towards us. When we trust other people, we give them the power to take actions that will impact us, because we believe that these actions will be good.

Social Pinpoint

I finally saw the probable disconnect. I previously mentioned that these managers were doing things that were meant to build trust. However, these efforts were made within clearly defined parameters that never threatened the desired outcomes. Meetings between management and line staff typically felt scripted and tightly controlled. Though management made efforts to appear approachable, these amounted to too little, too late for most staff.

I am an academic, so I will be doing further research into this matter. However, a blog post is not a journal article so I am free to speculate. The executives in question do not, in my observations, meet regularly with any line staff in an unscheduled or unscripted manner. Lacking the ability to gauge the trustworthiness of the executives, other than their limited and self-serving attempts at policymaking, why would the line staff have reason to trust them?

You can do all the right things, but if you do not trust the people those right things are meant to affect, then none of your efforts matter.