Empower with Trust: Part 5 of 5
The Four other ingredients required to empower people will not have any meaningful impact without trust.
My cofounder Quyen at Relate said it well. "People focus too much on what they are working on, it is more important to focus on who they are working with."
If you don't trust the people you are working with, either you need to go or they need to go. Period. Those are strong words, yes, I know. Accomplishing personal or organizational goals is difficult enough with strong trust let alone without.
Everyone needs to be rowing in the same direction without worrying if the other rowers are currently rowing, want to row, know how to row, or are able to row.
The signs of high trust are clear and easy to see. If you observed how I work with my cofounders (Quyen and Genevieve) at Relate or (Allison and Genevieve) at Nice Healthcare or my wife Hannah at Mill City Laser you will see an incredibly high degree of trust. This is what you will see:
- Assuming the best no matter how something said or done sounds or appears.
- Open and direct debate and disagreements devoid of emotion or feelings.
- Rarely need to see each other in person (except for Hannah of course!).
- No concerns or fears when someone does not reply to something immediately.
- Constant deferral to other's expertise.
- When mistakes are made no criticism or reacting or trying to educate.
- When correction is given no reacting, excuses, or anger.
- Always asking for others to check our work.
- Never feeling the urge to check other's work if it was not requested.
- Sharing our fears.
- Zero doubts that other's work will be done quickly, accurately, and consistently.
- Large sums of money passing back and forth between us without a thought.
These are just a few. If you do not have these within your team there is a lack of trust. You should trust your team with your children, your darkest fears, your checking account and social security number. If you do not, you will not be able to empower them to operate at peak performance and to achieve their highest level of self.
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