Trust - Either You Do or You Don't

Did you ever stop to think why American Express, Master Card or Visa are willing to give you a credit card? If you do take a moment to think about it, and get deeper into the underlying reasoning, you will come eventually to the thought that you are issued a card because the issuer TRUSTS you. That’s right, it’s a matter of TRUST. They know that you can be trusted to pay your obligations.

You might say it’s a matter of keeping your commitments. Your commitment to pay the card issuer for the amounts you have charged.

That’s one form of trust.

Another is the trust between people in organizations, whether it’s a business, non-profit, school, family, club or whatever. Just like the credit card, trust between peoples depends largely on keeping commitments.

Have you ever waited and waited and waited for a service person to arrive at your house or your office? And after waiting for hours, you get a call that says they won’t be there for another day? After one or two experiences like that, do you still trust them? Probably not. It’s very hard to trust people who don’t keep their commitments to you. Years ago a youngster asked what he could do in the summer between school sessions. I suggested getting a lawn mower, and cutting grass. Then came my advice to him: “Be reliable. If you say you’re going to do something -- do it. And do it well.”

It must have been good advice. By summer’s end he had 100 customers and nine employees, and a successful new business was born.

Back to the issue of trust.

Can you trust someone who frequently tells lies? Or half truths? Of course not. Think of such a person as a snake -- and when you deal with them think of yourself as a snake handler. But you don’t trust them. They won't keep a commitment to telling the truth.

The same applies to someone who is inconsistent. One time they react one way and another time another way. It’s hard to know what they’re going to do. So be careful -- don’t give them your trust.

In business it’s the same. We trust people who keep commitments, who tell the truth, who are consistent. And we also watch out for hidden agendas. Perhaps that’s a subset of honesty. They're not being honest about their agenda.

Other things that build a culture of trust include:

• Sticking to the established policies. Regularly bending rules leads to inconsistency and eventually to a lack of trust.
• Communication. Telling people what is going on.
• Minimizing surprises.
• Having a vision and sticking to the path toward it. It’s hard to trust someone who bounces from wall to wall, an opportunist who stands for nothing. Where will they be next?
• Integrity. If a person cheats others, might not you be on the list?
• Honesty. One client lied to me on a regular basis. It didn’t take long before I had no trust for them, and ended the engagement.
• Making but not keeping promises. It’s the old commitment thing again.
• Not keeping to yourself those things told you in confidence.
• Building trust is not magic. Avoid doing the things that cause you not to trust others. You’ll find that people begin to trust you. With trust, anything can be done. Without it, nothing can be done.

If being trusted is important to you, practice the above. Trust builds superior organizations. You can trust me on this.

Charles R. Schaul, Partner of SixPillars Research Group, focuses on increasing business profits by resolving the problem of customer attrition. Aligning companies with their customers; generating and implementing strategic initiatives; and promoting employees’ customer focus through commitment, responsibility and accountability combine to achieve the result.

Copyright 2008 by Charles R. Schaul, Boulder, Colorado. All rights reserved.

Create Consistency for Greater Profit

Lack of consistency is the bane of many businesses. It is obvious in a restaurant with inconsistent quality or service. How many times will you go back if the food tastes great one week and bland the next? Or gives great service one week but is terribly slow the next? Lack of consistency is seen in many other places as well: a distributor with inconsistent inventory coverage; an on-line retailer with poor customer service; a manufacturer with inconsistent product quality or delivery performance; a law firm with inconsistent response time to client calls…. All these forms of inconsistency damage a business and drive customers away.

It is safe to say then, that firms that consistently provide customers with satisfactory products or services create more wealth for their owners than do firms that don’t do so. With profit in mind, following are four concepts that lead to consistent performance in business.

Policies, Rules and Work Instructions provide a framework for operations. Policies are corporate and usually strategic in nature. For example, one company does not want to incur the administrative cost of contracting with the government. It decided upon a Policy that it will not contract with the government. There is no question about it. It is a policy.

Rules are less strategic in nature, such as the myriad of rules that a Human Resources department imposes on a workforce.

Work Instructions tell the staff how to do the work. A work instruction might be that all inquiries are entered into the Inquiry Register that shows the inquiry details, and eventually shows if it becomes an order or why not if it doesn’t. Without policies, rules and work instruction, formal or informal, performance of tasks is hit or miss, and inconsistency reigns.

Caution! Policies, Rules and Work Instructions do not imply rigidity. They give workers a framework for doing their work in a consistent way, but do not mean to stifle creativity and empowerment.

Building consistency without training is like building a new road without a set of plans. No one seems to know what, when or where to do anything. Good training is a must when implementing work instructions. Without it the new instructions are wasted. Having people understand what is expected of them, and why, leads to consistent, repeatable application of the way the work is done. Having a team understand their instructions, and execute them well as a team, builds morale and performance.

“I’ll try.” “I’ll do my best.” “If I remember.” Theses are the words that mean NO COMMITMENT to getting a job done. If you are implementing a new set of work instruction for a particular task, and entering data in a log or register is the final step of the instruction, you must be committed to the final step, and train your staff to be equally committed. To develop consistency, and to maintain it, people must be committed to the rules, instructions and training that guide their work. Without commitment and discipline there is no consistency. In this context “discipline” does not mean punishment. It means a steady application of the instructions through persuasion and learning from mistakes, not punishing for them.

Accountability is the last step for insuring consistency. Accountability means giving clear instructions, making sure people understand them, and holding people responsible for following them. This does not mean rigidity, or punishment. It means having certain expectations for performance and holding to it through encouragement, training, gaining greater commitment.

Charles R. Schaul, Partner of SixPillars Research Group, focuses on increasing business profits by resolving the problem of customer attrition. Aligning companies with their customers; generating and implementing strategic initiatives; and promoting employees’ customer focus through commitment, responsibility and accountability combine to achieve the result.

Copyright 2008 by Charles R. Schaul, Boulder, Colorado. All rights reserved.