A software company needed to dramatically cut its product time-to-market. The company had been releasing new products an average of once every two years. In today’s dynamic marketplace, once every two years is not nearly fast enough to keep pace with market demands and the competition. I worked with this company for a number of months and together we identified and implemented specific things we would do to cut their new product release cycle in half.
This reduction is significant considering that there were 700 people working on the product. The one thing we did that made the biggest difference was to change the culture from a command-and-control/micromanagement culture to one based on high trust.
There are significant costs to a low-trust culture. There is a lot of turnover and uncertainty that slows effort. People are afraid to act without permission — even when their actions are the right things to do. Decisions are made too far back from the front lines. People shy away from innovation (because innovation is risky). Ideas are not shared for how to make things better.
So, if a culture of trust is worth having, how do you go about getting one? Culture change is hard. It takes effort and commitment. While people may see the benefits of changing the culture, resistance arrives and is not always rational. Based on this company’s change effort and others, here are five things you should know about creating a culture of trust.
1. Engage Everyone in the Culture Change
The people in your organization are the culture and they are the ones who know how to change it. When this company began the journey to move away from a micromanaged culture, senior leadership realized that they had no idea how to make the change happen. They carefully explained the “what” and the “why” of the change that was needed. Leaders and managers alike were asked to help their delivery teams figure out the “how” and stay out of answering those questions. For example, when leaders were asked how they wanted a problem solved, their reply was, “How do you want to solve it?”
This was a big change and started to speed up decision making (no one had to wait on a leader to make the daily decisions). People in the organization began to realize they could change the processes that kept them from delivering in effective ways. Slowly people realized they could change the way they worked. The organization was in the “how” business. It understood what was broken and how to fix it. It began to change its culture because it owned it.
But don’t make the mistake of thinking that a change culture process will do the trick. Simply by adding a process, you are telling the organization that you don’t trust that it can find the methods it needs to change its own culture. You are now back in the “how” business.
How do you stay out of the “how” business? By asking questions instead of giving solutions. One good question to ask is, “How would you like me to do x?” Other questions might be, “What direction do you think our company should take?” “What are we hearing from our customers?” “Why not ask the customers?” Never problem solve in the “how” area. Before you do or say anything, ask yourself, “Will what I am about to do or say help improve trust?”
2. Decide If Fixing Broken Trust Is Worth It
In this organization, broken trust was rampant; it existed among leaders, managers, and teams. The company took a close look and identified where there was truly broken trust as opposed to trust not built. This takes time because it is not always obvious; there is no magic wand or method to do this kind of sorting. However, if you listen, the organization will tell you where the broken trust exists.
Broken trust is like a cut rope. A rope consists of many strands wound together that give the rope its strength. Once cut, repairing the rope requires matching and stitching together each piece, strand for strand. Not only does this take time, but the rope will never be the same and will not have the same strength as the original rope. Leaders must make the decision on whether or not to keep a person in the organization who has broken trust with the organization or with other people in the organization because keeping that person requires matching and stitching together each piece of broken trust. Is the time you need to rebuild and repair broken trust worth it? This is never an easy call and oftentimes leaders wait too long to deal with this issue.
3. Some People Like Being Micromanaged
Because a culture of micromanagement breeds micromanagers, this group was rampant with leaders telling everyone what to do and how to do it. Leaders wondered why their people didn’t deliver fast enough, didn’t work overtime, and why their work was of such poor quality when it was the leaders’ behavior that slowed down, discouraged, and demoralized the teams. Simply put, the people working for the micromanagers didn’t care about their work. They did what they were told to do and went home even if they felt that what they were doing was of little or no value. In such a culture people are afraid to say anything or do anything except what they are told to do for fear of losing their jobs.
As the leaders started to trust people to find their own solutions, most, while hesitant at first, began enjoying work again. But there were a few outliers who questioned the culture shift. “Why do we have to change?” “We are working just fine together.” “It’s working fine as is.” At first, it may appear that some people are resisting change. However, upon closer look it seems that some people really do like being micromanaged.
Some people just don’t want to be held accountable. In a low-trust culture, there is low accountability. If you tell people what to do and how to do it, if they fail, it’s your fault. You told them how to do it. They didn’t fail, you did, and as long as it is not their failure, they will stay out of trouble.
Leaders up and down this organization began publically posting the commitments people made and when they achieved them — including commitments made by leaders and managers. This transparency revealed the leaders who spent their time in the “how” business. Senior leaders addressed the question, “Can micromanagers change?” It is possible, but they have to want to. It takes a different approach and mindset to lead rather than manage. Leaders are enablers and no longer detailed doers. Sometimes, we do leaders a disservice when we bring them up through the ranks. They get promotions because they get things done and because of their subject matter expertise. In becoming leaders, they need to shift to helping others to get things done and not do things themselves. They need to asks questions to stay out of the “how” business and develop an enabling mindset that translates into actions that enable others.
4. It Is Never Done
After a year of this culture shift, the positive impact was obvious. In the past, each release took about two years to get to market. This major release took just one year. Customers were delighted and wanted more. With this success, it would have been easy to say that we were done with our culture change. Unfortunately, micromanagement can return faster than it left. It is always tempting to slip and tell people “how” to do something — especially if you think you know the solution. Avoid this at all costs, because doing so indicates that the new, high-trust culture was a temporary program. When you are under stress and think you must step up and solve the problem, pause and ask yourself if your action will increase or decrease trust, then step back. Trust your teams to find the solution. Remember, trust takes a long time to build and a short time to break.
5. Trust First
One thing the senior leader in this company did was to trust her leadership first. With that example, the managers trusted their reports. As Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman write in First, Break All the Rules, “Suspicion is a permanent condition.” When it comes to building a culture of trust, you have two choices. You can be suspicious and require that everyone prove that they are trustworthy before you give them ownership. Or you can assume that everyone is trustworthy and let them perform at their highest level immediately. Ask yourself, what does a person have to do in order to earn your trust? Think of the time, effort, and trouble you will save if you operate from a perspective of trust rather than suspicion.
When you don’t trust someone, they know it and feel it and this makes communication and collaboration difficult. Should you always trust first? You might make a mistake, but communication and collaboration are much easier when you trust first.
Summary
Due to market needs and customer demands, this organization knew it had to change. At first there was chaos and confusion. But it suddenly smoothed out. Today, customers are getting value they love, faster and with higher quality. And the people are thriving in this organization. As one person said, “I have gotten more done in the last three months than I have in all the time I have been here.” When I asked him how long that was, he replied, “Three and a half years.”
A culture of trust works at a large scale and a small scale. Empower your organization to make the change happen and stay out of their way while they do it. Become an enabler for the changes they want to make. As Peter Senge says, “People don’t resist change, they resist being changed.”
