People and Management October 2018 | Page 57

www.peopleandmanagement.com There is no human relationship that works without trust, whether it is a marriage or a friendship or a social interaction; in the long run, the same thing is true about business, especially businesses that deal with the people and public at large. unlikely to get anything meaningful done in your organisation. “High trust is the new critical career skill in the new digital economy where business is being transacted in the virtual space.” Building Trust Trust is a common factor to every individual, relationship, team, and organisation through-out the world. Absence of trust can destroy the most successful business, infl uential leadership, and strongest of character. If one understands the importance and essence of trust, it has the potential to create tremendous success and prosperity in every dimension of business life. Yet, it is least understood, followed, and most underestimated possibility of our time. We need to understand that trust is the core of any professional relationship and therefore, it is essential for building a network of people who will be relevant to you through-out your career. Some of the suggested strategies for building trust in your team members are: praise them when it is due, avoid offi ce chit-chat, share information with your members, and deliver what you promise. Trust impacts us in all walks of life. It affects every relationship, communication, work project, business venture and effort in which we engage. It changes the quality of the present moment, altering the trajectory and outcome of every future moment of our lives — both personally and professionally. Can you even begin to imagine the difference it would make if you were able to increase the amount of trust in important personal and professional relationships? In fact, there is no human relationship that works without trust, whether it is a marriage or a friendship or a social interaction; in the long run, the same thing is true about business, especially businesses that deal with the people and public at large. Whether you are on a sports team, in an offi ce or a member of family, if you can’t trust one another there is going to be trouble. At the organisational level, trust within companies has also sharply declined. “lack of trust doubles the cost of transacting business” Impact of Trust Building trust takes a lot of time and creating distrust takes second, a couple of incidences would suffi ce. Stephen Covey’s book, The Speed of Trust reveals that trust always affects two outcomes — speed and cost. When trust goes down, speed will also go down and costs will go up and when trust goes up, speed will also go up and costs will go down. Various surveys have established that high trust organisations will have accelerated growth, enhanced innovation and better execution, a sense of belongingness, mutual respect, and heightened collaboration. Organisation with low trust levels will have continuous politicking, turnover, fraud, churn, disengagement and high level of bureaucracy and redundancy. There are various ways through which trust levels within the organisation, among employees, with suppliers, customers and other statutory authorities could be enhanced for the organisation to reap massive benefi ts. The pillars of building credibility and trusts are integrity, right intent, capabilities (TASKS: talents, attitude, skills, knowledge, styles) and results i.e. deliverables. Whereas in the past, trust was created by proximity, today businesses and individuals must cultivate it through providing quality products and excellent support service to customers, payment of bills on time to demonstrate responsible behaviour, exhibiting positive stories on media — online reputation also fosters trust. In other words, trust is generated through all acts of individuals and companies in online and offl ine situations. P & M Vol. 9 Issue 6 • Sep-Oct 2018, Noida / Pre-Event Edition | 57