The "Trust Hormone"

I read an interesting book by Daniel Coyle on corporate culture called The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups a few years ago. Coyle studied a number of great teams, including Pixar, the San Antonio Spurs (specifically, the teams that won the NBA Finals in 1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2014), and the U.S. Navy SEALs and found that great organizations are not created by talent alone.  Rather, great organizations build cultures of excellence through specific behaviors that foster trust, cooperation, and commitment.  Coyle wrote that "culture is one of the most powerful forces on the planet. We sense its presence inside successful businesses, championship teams, and thriving families, and we sense when it’s absent or toxic."  However, he also emphasized that culture is "not something you are. It’s something you do."  The great organizations that he studied created strong cultures by fostering trust through psychological safety, cooperation through shared vulnerability, and commitment through purpose and meaning.

I hear a lot about culture these days.  Laszlo Bock, previously the Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google and author of Work Rules! said, "Culture underpins everything we do at Google."  It's no wonder that culture was Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year in 2014!  Culture is what truly separates the great organizations from merely good ones. 

Unfortunately, many organizations struggle with creating the kind of culture that both Coyle and Bock talk about in their books.  For example, a survey of 200,000 employees at over 500 companies reported that 71% of companies have mediocre to poor cultures (see Bourree Lam's article in The Atlantic "Why do workers feel so unhappy?").  Paul Zak, who wrote The Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies believes that lack of trust is one of the major reasons why organizations do not succeed.  Trust is the foundation of corporate culture.  Without trust, there is no psychological safety.  Without trust, there is no shared vulnerability.  Without trust, there is no commitment.

Trust drives not only corporate culture, but also workforce engagement.  Zak cited statistics from the 2015 Society for Human Resource Management Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement Survey that suggested that trust between employees and senior management was the second most important contributor to job satisfaction (only "respectful treatment of all employees" was chosen more than trust).  Google's Project Aristotle studied 180 high-performing teams and found that the best predictor of high performance was a culture of trust.  Finally, the Canadian economist John Helliwell found that a 10% increase in employee trust in a company's leaders has the same impact on life satisfaction as a 36% increase in salary!

A culture of trust isn't built with mission statements.  It must be cultivated through daily actions by leaders.  Zak identified eight leadership practices that help to build a culture of trust. Together they form the acronym OXYTOCIN (recall from my post "Trust, Loyalty, and a Story About a Dog..." that the neurohormone oxytocin mediates trust between humans.  Zak (and others) have called oxytocin the "trust hormone".  

Ovation: Leaders need to recognize and celebrate achievements in meaningful ways.  Recognizing individuals who contribute to the organization's success goes a very long way to building trust.

eXpectation: Leaders should set clear, challenging goals and provide feedback.  I've mentioned so-called SMART goals in the past (see my posts "Clear the mechanism" and "Engaged and burned out?").  Leaders can build trust by clearly communicating expectations about roles and responsibilities, who has decision-making authority (see more on this below), and what measures will be used to determine success.  When leaders set so-called "stretch goals" (see my posts, "Pygmalion" and "Think big, act small"), they show that they are confident in their teams and believe that they can be perform at a high level.

Yield: Leaders need to give people autonomy over how they accomplish their work.  Empowerment builds trust!  The New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc.(NUMMI) was a historic automobile manufacturing plant in Fremont, California that was operated as a joint venture between General Motors and Toyota from 1984 to 2010.  Prior to the joint venture with Toyota, the employees at the GM plant were considered "the worst workforce in the automobile industry in the United States."  The plant was known for poor quality, constant strikes, and high absenteeism.  Instead of replacing the staff, Toyota kept 85% of the original GM workers and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. By empowering employees with the famous Andon cord (Toyota Production System) to stop the assembly line when issues arose, and focusing on teamwork and mutual trust, absenteeism and defect rates.  Similarly, Best Buy once implemented what was called a "Results Only Work Environment (ROWE)" whose main focus was on workforce autonomy.  Unfortunately, despite impressive results, ROWE was later abandoned after a change in executive leadership.

Transfer: Leaders should delegate authority rather than merely assigning tasks.  I've mentioned the book Turn The Ship Around! by David Marquet several times in the past (see "Fix the environment, not the people...", "Turning around the ship...", "Classic Rookie Manager Mistakes", "The definition of power is the transfer of energy...", and "The power of empowerment").  Marquet assumed command of the USS Santa Fe, a nuclear-powered submarine which was perhaps one of the worst commands in the fleet.  Using what you will recognize essentially as High Reliability Organizations leadership principles (particularly "Deference to Expertise"), Captain Marquet turned the USS Santa Fe into one of the best commands in the fleet.  Zak also mentioned the Dutch home nursing company Buurtzorg Nederland, which implemented a self-governing model for its home health nurses (essentially "deference to expertise").  By placing nurses in charge, Buurtzorg has earned high patient and employee ratings and consistently provides high-quality home care at lower cost than other organizations.

Openness: Leaders should share information transparently and solicit input and feedback from their teams.  One of the simplest ways that leaders can demonstrate vulnerability and build trust is by admitting their mistakes.  As Jim Whitehurst writes in the Harvard Business Review ("Be a Leader Who Can Admit Mistakes"), "Being accessible, answering questions, admitting mistakes, and saying you’re sorry aren’t liabilities. They are exactly the tools you can use to build your credibility and authority to lead."

Caring: Leaders should focus on building genuine relationships and demonstrate empathy.  I am reminded of the late Paul H. O'Neill, who served as Chairman and CEO at Alcoa and later Chairman at the RAND Corporation, before serving as the 72nd U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under President George W. Bush.  I had the pleasure of meeting Secretary O'Neill during my tenure at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.  Secretary O'Neill was famous for engineering a remarkable turnaround at Alcoa by focusing on making Alcoa one of the safest places to work.  During his inaugural speech as CEO at Alcoa, he said, "I want to talk to you about worker safety.  Every year, numerous Alcoa workers are injured so badly that they miss a day of work. Our safety record is better than the general American workforce, especially considering that our employees work with metals that are 1500 degrees and machines that can rip a man’s arm off. But it’s not good enough. I intend to make Alcoa the safest company in America. I intend to go for zero injuries."  And he did.  

Invest: Leaders should help people grow both professionally and personally.  Leaders should be advocates, coaches, mentors, and sponsors.  Professional development through coaching and mentorship is a long-term strategy, but it's a vital one.  As Doug Flaig writes in Forbes magazine, "Organizations that invest in mentorship are not only preparing individuals for success but are also strengthening their own future. As mentees grow into leaders, they often become mentors themselves, creating a culture of learning and development that perpetuates success."

Natural: Leaders should lead authentically, admitting their mistakes and showing vulnerability.  Zak wrote, "A Natural leader is a servant leader.  A servant leader's primary focus is helping members of the organization be successful and fulfilled human beings."

Zak mentioned the Scandinavian concept of Arbejdsglaed, which literally means "happiness at work" or "joy at work".  He stated that Arbejdsglaed depends upon trust and purpose.  I've posted about purpose and meaning in the past (see most recently, "It's a wonderful life").  And while purpose and meaning are critically important, trust is equally so.  Without trust, there is no psychological safety, no shared vulnerability, and no commitment.  And without those things, there is no joy.  And without joy, there is no culture.  And without culture, the organization will not succeed.  And it all starts with the "Trust Hormone" (OXYTOCIN).