At 02:27 PM 10/24/97 -0400, Tom Clifford wrote:
>I'd like to add a new topic called: LO and Quality without TRUST?"
COMMENTS ON TRUST
It is clear that trust has two elements, competence and integrity, as
Covey states. That applies is trust between individuals. It also applies
to an organizational trust but it is more difficult to see the causes. It
may be more difficult to see because we look at the individual as the
culprit rather than system.
Mistrust can be caused by lack of individual competence or honesty. But in
an organization it is more often caused processes that do not work right
-- competence of the system in which people work. When a worker comes to
work each day and uses processes that does not work and there is no choice
but to use the systems then a general mistrust of management is one
result. The worker may conclude that management does not care, or is
incompetent or he does not count. In most cases it is a cause for
mistrust. In these cases we may have a company full of honest basically
competent people who mistrust each other.
An other possible outcome is to believe the managers are competent and
chose to require me to work with this system that does not work.
Another major cause of mistrust in organizations is poor transactions.
Fort example A worker yells at the boss as she passes by about a problem.
She doesn't hear or is busy or forgets. No agreement was reached yet the
worker believes he or she has told management. This becomes an implied
promise to the worker that is broken. Yet the manger never acknowledged
receipt of the message. There are more ways for management to innocently
imply a promise. A supervisor can speak to his department say he will
arrange something such as training. He may in good faith try to do it an d
for legitimate reasons fail. Because the environment did not include fed
back as a priority neglect to ell the workers. Bang mistrust.
That happens between mangers as well.
Trust can be improved by
Focus on making all processes work right
Improving the methods of making a acknowledging transactions between people
Encouraging people to negotiate to clarify what was asked and what was
promised.
Reducing the time and space between the problem and the people who can
take action to correct it
>Dr. Stephen R. Covey discusses some basic ideas in his books and tapes:
[...big snip by your host...]
--Eugene Taurman <ilx@execpc.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>