Build trust, but do it quickly

By now, we all know how important trust is to build and grow a healthy business. Most studies have affirmed this over the years. But what world-changing events like the COVID-19 pandemic have made clearer is that speed is a factor – showing how impactful a team, business or entire sector can be when time is short and trust is an urgent necessity instead of something more nebulous.

Without it, not only would our medical and pharmaceutical entities not have developed a solution, but many struggling businesses wouldn’t have survived the economic downturn created in its wake.

In those heightened situations, when staffing needs to scale up and mobilize quickly, a lack of trust can be catastrophic. But even on a smaller scale, when a challenge needs a quick solution or new people join a team, we’ve all seen what happens when trust fails.

Maybe a team begins to lose faith in the dependability of feedback – rattled by conflicting or changing instructions from coworkers. Or employees clam up; unsure what to bring to the table, how it will be received and even if a leader’s praise is real or fleeting. It’s an erosion that starts small but an impact that is felt deeply, both within businesses and for the customers they serve.

Trust is usually earned over periods of shared challenges and experiences as people get to know each other. That’s a lot of ground to cover and can sometimes take years, and this is time that many businesses don’t have. According to an Accenture study, the rate of change in business has spiked sharply since 2019: up 183 percent over the past four years and 33 percent in the past year alone.

Matching that pace has become vital to companies that want to succeed. That’s why it’s important that companies understand and harness that speed in healthy ways, applying  transparency and vulnerability on the path to building trust that will benefit both employees and customers.

Trust in the fast lane

It’s not that companies should artificially create fast or stressful situations for the sole purpose of building trust. That’s obviously poisonous to business culture and not worth the risk. But as the pace naturally increases, there must be processes in place to preserve or even increase trust.

For example, on the heels of the pandemic, DoorDash wanted to share crucial information by way of a campaign called ‘Open for Delivery’ – a project they had only 72 hours to complete. Working on that type of project, with that kind of speed, created a special level of trust across teams based on the need to come together for a greater good.

But it also helped us recognize the need for a formal framework that could produce the same effect without breaking down trust. After all, speed – or the need for it – can be just as much a liability as it is an asset.

That situation underscored that, to be effective quickly, businesses need to specifically build trust in three areas: capabilities, motives and actions between the team members.

For ‘capabilities’, this simply means trusting that individual contributors, left on their own, are capable of meeting or exceeding the needs of a particular challenge. ‘Motives’ means learning to trust what’s truly driving their collaboration. And ‘actions’ simply means allowing team members the freedom to move unilaterally at times – making decisions, taking action and getting things done.

Everyone doesn’t always have to agree with every action. They just need to have trust that the actions taken at any given time were the right ones in that instance.

Obviously, building trust in these areas is easier said than done. But organizations can help things along with a few approaches designed to make trust more integral to everyday company interactions.

Faster trust, the healthy way

Even without a crisis as urgent as a pandemic, speed will continue to play a bigger part in business operations. And when stress is high, trust is even more essential. Here are some ways that businesses and organizations can formalize a process to foster that trust.

Start early

When time is a factor, it’s never too early to build trust. For example, when hiring a new employee, the process of building trust should start even before that new employee joins a team. That means sharing early in the interview process where your company has been, where it’s going and why you need their help.

It’s OK to explain that you don’t have all the answers – this shared uncertainty is the key to making a human connection. Similarly, when onboarding a new client or integrating a new group into the overall organization, ask your point of contact, "What are you worried about most?"

It’s a simple but strangely disarming question that can pierce the veil between the needs of the collective company and the human needs of each individual, building trust in the process.

Focus on transparency, faith and grace

Building trust often comes back to transparency – surveying candidly where things are failing, then discussing openly how to correct and share in that reinforcement. Everyone also needs to be encouraged to show faith and belief in the team to deliver.

But what’s often forgotten as a part of building trust is the importance of showing grace when something goes wrong or misses the mark. There is no trust without grace.

That’s not to say that poor execution should be rewarded. There’s a fine line between offering grace and support versus enabled mediocrity. But without enough grace, a culture of fear can fester causing the whole culture to fall off the rails.

Structure as needed

There are plenty of ways to build in concrete, recurring ways to maintain healthy levels of trust. For example, workshops, presentations and feedback rounds allow teams to solve problems together in real time. These can be built around real projects or exercises created with realistic parameters that can create similar bonding without fabricating unnecessary stressors.

Also, when real speed is a requirement, a daily top-of-the-day/end-of-the-day check-in can go a long way toward allowing team members to trust in the collaborative process. Even in remote-work situations, a reliable schedule is surprisingly effective at making people in different locations feel like they’re in an environment of support and trust and that they’re sharing their day together.

Ultimately, trust is a value that must be nurtured by everyone – from the CEO and leadership team to individual contributors. Especially, as the natural speed of business grows, it’ll take more than one-off retreats with trust falls and fire walking to build real connections. So let’s make trust a priority, and give everyone the support they need to do their best work.

Opinions expressed by The CEO Magazine contributors are their own.