A Culture of Collaboration and Trust

Does the culture of your organisations foster trust?

Do you all collaborate well?

Have you all got each others back or do you need to watch your back?

Or is there a political nature to the organisation?  

Is there ‘silo thinking’ where certain divisions are mistrusted?  

We are currently running a piece of research on Culture and Trust and would love to know your thoughts.

Recently I was facilitating a Masterclass with our collegue Karen Foundling, exploring the link between agility, collaboration and trust.  With all high performing teams, Trust is the most important quality in order to improve relationships and deliver outstanding results.  In the Masterclass we refer to the work of David Maister in ‘The Trusted Advisor'.  Maister suggests that there are four primary components of trustworthiness – Credibility, Reliability, Intimacy and Self-Orientation, but what does he mean with these terms.

  • Credibility – Expertise, Presence, Professionalism – How we Look, Act, React and Talk about our expertise.
  • Reliability – Dependability and Consistently – Keeping Commitments or renegotiating commitments respectfully.
  • Intimacy – Emotional Honesty, Mutual Respect - Greater intimacy means fewer subjects are barred from discussion – Openness, Transparency
  • Self-Orientation – Anything that keep us focused on ‘Me’ and not the team.  Selfishness, Self-centeredness, Vanity, Arrogance, Political playing, The need to appear on top of things / To look intelligent / To win at all costs / To be right etc. You get the idea

These are then put into the Trustworthiness Equation

Now comes the research:  Think of one person with whom collaboration is important, and where trust could be improved.  Give each part of the trust equation a mark out of 10 - Which part of the trust equation would you like them to address & improve (Remember the higher the score for Credibility, Reliability & Intimacy - the better, the lower the score for Self-Orientation the better. Think about which quality do you would like the other person to address.

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Written by:
Matt Burdock

Executive Coaching, Culture Measurement, Leadership Development.

Published:
October 11, 2023