Trust Me

Colonel Candid here asking about engagement, not the one with a ring but the type of engagement when you feel like you truly belong to a team. The connection between your co-workers and yourself allow you to speak freely and contribute to the work at hand. Building this type of team results in all sorts of positive impacts and Colonel Candid would like to uncover a couple of ideas on how people believe you when you say, “Trust me.”


First, the scientific evidence is clear. Workers in a trusting environment are, “more productive, have more energy at work, collaborate better with their colleagues, and stay with their employers longer than people working at low-trust companies,” per Paul J. Zak, author of Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies. It also makes common sense, the more you trust the people you work with the more satisfied you are with your jobs.


You can begin by rewarding employees who’ve recently overcome a hard challenge. You could order a team lunch once a month. Let your team pick a spot, have the manager work to have the meal paid for, and enjoy breaking bread together. You could also purchase a $5/$10 gift card for a local coffee shop or restaurant. As you know your people, you can hold events where camaraderie is the name of the game. When team bonding time is built into the lives of your employees they’ll actually get to know each other and less likely to disengage. Also, don’t forget that some people really like an extra telework day or even meeting free middays.  


In assigning tasks, work to ensure people are challenged. Chronically bored people exhibit a higher risk for depression, anxiety, drug addiction, alcoholism, hostility, anger, and low work performance. Look to see what new skills are needed in your workforce, the challenge of a new responsibility can work to get people out of a rut. Also, allowing people to swap some tasks with coworkers keeps things interesting and grows your back up bench. You can also allow people to bring more of their originality into the work space with respect to how they decorate their area or even how they’d set up the space where work occurs.


Create self-accounting employees. Giving people discretion on how they conduct their work provides autonomy and innovation. Trusted workers create greater products because they don’t feel like someone is looking over their shoulder. You can make this happen by providing employees the potential to job craft or work on products in different manners.


Share, share, and over share; demonstrable openness makes you clearly a more approachable person. Interaction with those you work with is key to building a trusting and close work relationship. The best part of all of this is that productivity often increases with these steps. While you’re sharing the mission and vision, your employees are watching. Your demonstration and development of their own skills is key to growing talented people. The growth mindset understands that abilities and intelligence is developable, now you’ve got to dig in and built people up.


Your hard work to build a trusting environment often pays off in dividends greater than profit margins. You’ll have a healthier workforce, happy employees take fewer sick days. You’ll have a more engaged group, you can see this when people offer to help others. Lastly, you’ll find that you have even greater reasons to mentor and train others because they’re excited to be a part of what you’re doing. Work to build and maintain trust, go and find your greatness.