I remember vividly the stories my father would tell of his travels to the former USSR during the Cold War years in the '70’s. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, the USSR was suffering through one of the most severe droughts on record and was purchasing as much grain as they could on the global market before anyone realized what was happening. My dad was there to sell them corn, wheat, and soybeans.
As a kid, these details were beyond my understanding, but what did stand out to me was how scary the place sounded. My father was advised before he went on what he could and couldn’t say – and the potential consequences if he made a mistake. He was also warned that his hotel room was likely bugged, and that he needed to assume someone was listening to every conversation.
The Russian people were cordial but looked at my father with deep suspicion – and seemed to view each other with suspicion. Likewise, my father had his guard up and naturally viewed everyone he met with similar suspicion. It sounded like a miserable place to live.
There’s no question the USSR was a low trust society during this era. And few would disagree that the US was a high trust society by comparison. But why was that so? What makes a high versus low trust culture? And how is it you can take someone from a high trust culture and drop them in a low trust culture, and they immediately become mistrustful?
This brings me to my main point – creating the right conditions for high trust is every bit as important as having trustworthy people. This may sound self-evident, but it is overlooked by nine out of ten leaders.
If trust is confidence, then low trust is suspicion. The evidence of a high trust culture is people feel safe – a sense of security exists where people feel the freedom to experiment, take healthy risks and engage fully in high trust relationships. By comparison, a low trust culture is one in which people feel insecure and are ruled by fear – their primary goal is self-protection. Fear and self-protection are obstacles to high trust relationships.
To create a high trust culture, you must have the right conditions for a high trust culture. The conditions (environment) make possible high trust relationships. These conditions are defined by constraints that protect us from ourselves, but also protect us from the worst in others. Constraints include systems, rule of law, explicit boundaries, processes, etc.
For a leader, this might include clear expectations, boundaries in the form of team norms, and systems and processes to serve as guardrails. The right conditions also include expectations for learning through failure and a clear coaching process that is understood by all so that team members feel safe to take healthy risks.
When these constraints are clear, understood by all, and consistently applied, the result is increased emotional safety (security). These conditions bring structure and order to how we do life together. They bring a degree of predictability and stability, from which people gain confidence.
From this security people experience the freedom to be fully engaged – engaged in their work but also engaged in building high trust relationships.
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