Hacking HR to Build an Adaptability Advantage

claire-mccartney's picture

A lack of trust inside organisations

We are currently experiencing a crisis of trust in society at large where people have lost trust in many institutions following scandal after scandal. Trust is also an issue within our organisations with low levels of trust recorded in senior leaders in particular. If employees can’t or don’t trust their leaders then it is unlikely that they will be able to move forward and adapt together.

You need to register in order to submit a comment.

paula-aamli's picture

Is there a Super Like button for this?

I think I'm probably a bit over-oriented to the position that 'the issue isn't the problem; the relationship is the problem', as a counter-balance to working in an environment that is more comfortable with 'data', 'facts', and 'targets' (all of which I think are very helpful tools, so long as you remember that the people setting them and working with them are complex, emotional, multi-dimensional human beings).

BUT having declared my hand, of course, I'm now going to re-iterate that in my view, if we can get the relationships right, then business flows and we greatly increase the likelihood of achieving our longer-terms strategic goals (though probably NOT hit all of our immediate term QonQ targets - because we can't problem solve effectively without finding some flex in the system somewhere....).

And to build on Claire's point - I think leaders gain trust in part by extending trust - where employees are not trusted (empowered? enabled?) they will respond distrustfully in their own turn?