Today we kick-off a 3-part series called “Building Trust at Work” with Chris Brogan. Chris is president of Human Business Works, providing business, communications and emerging technology strategy for mid- to large-sized businesses. He blogs regularly at chrisbrogan.com.

To better understand the dynamics of trust at work, I reached out to people who I believe have improved trust between leaders and employees. One such person was my friend Daniel Pink, bestselling author of many books, including the motivation-minded Drive and the powerful Free Agent Nation. In our conversation, Dan and I agreed that leadership isn’t about control.

Leaders of any size organization must come to realize that the age of “measuring butts in chairs” is over for most companies. The new method is to measure via output and responsiveness. In both cases, the emphasis is no longer on controlling potential productivity pitfalls for employees (such as blocking access to the Internet) but, instead, on equipping and educating employees to encourage a high level of autonomous output.

It’s a difficult shift. I’ve now run 3 distributed companies in a row, where my employees are scattered all over the place and working on their own timetables. There are days where even I have that nagging feeling of “Is anyone besides me even WORKING today?” But when I measure based on output, I don’t have to worry about whether the person took a 3-hour coffee break. Deadlines are deadlines, and the employee is either able to successfully deliver work or not.

The shift, instead of causing anxiety, affords a certain level of excitement when you realize that leaders who learn how to measure production and output rather than hours clocked will succeed in this new business environment of constant flux. The opportunities are incredible, because this affords a great deal of flexibility in hiring (you can hire based on skill, not locale) plus a very viable perk (working from home or remotely is a highly sought-after benefit, which helps with retention).

But how do you earn trust? First, it’s a two-way street. Employees have certain needs with regard to trusting their leadership.

• If I’m going to work from home, you can’t forget me. (This is a big fear of remote employees.)
• If I’m working remotely, you have to realize that it might take a little while to respond. This doesn’t always equal “slacking off.” Sometimes it means “head down in the work.”
• If you’re allowing me to go mobile, then help me by making any meetings or collaboration easy (with the right tools).

On the other side of the coin, if you’re looking to build trust with your leadership, consider the following:

• Be explicit about how and when you’ll respond and when you’ll be “heads down” in your work. When you work in person, visual cues speak loud enough. When you work remotely, silence feels like inactivity, but senseless chatter will waste everyone’s time.
• Never miss a deadline. If you’re working remotely, you are being measured on delivery. Let no excuses get in between you and success.
• Make it exceptionally easy for people to share and contribute to your work. If people are waiting on you, it gums up the works.

Learning how to trust your employees with their work is a big and powerful opportunity to change (improve!) your business. Though not every role works well remotely, more positions succeed at workshifting than you’d imagine.

Check back next week for the 2nd part of our “Building Trust at Work” series.

The post Leadership Isn’t About Control – Building Trust at Work appeared first on Workshifting.

This post is the second in our 3-part series called “Building Trust at Work”, with Chris Brogan. Chris is president of Human Business Works, providing business, communications and emerging technology strategy for mid- to large-sized businesses. He blogs regularly at chrisbrogan.com.

Bestselling author Charles H. Green wrote the book on trust. His seminal work with David Maister, The Trusted Advisor, taught countless business professionals how to go beyond simply booking billable hours with clients to instead provide them much, much more. He, along with Andrea Howe, recently released The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook, which further explores the concept of how leaders in organizations work with trust. So who better to talk with about how to build trust at work than Charles? After all, trust is one of the core elements behind successful efforts to launch remote and distributed employee programs.

According to Green, there are 4 pillars of trust. Through his work in surveying many leaders and stakeholders from companies of varying sizes and industries, he’s discovered that workshifting success takes credibility, reliability, intimacy and low self-orientation.

Credibility

Credibility makes sense without much explanation. If you aren’t very credible (people won’t take your word for things), then there’s not enough trust to allow you to work on a project-centric basis. To repair credibility, simply make small commitments and keep them. If you miss a commitment, own up immediately, and then take extra steps to do even better.

Reliability

Reliability is also clearly important. If you’re being counted on to do the work, do it. But the way we express reliability is another matter altogether. Sometimes, we feel that being responsive – answering email within a few minutes – is the same. It’s not. That just means you’re easily distracted from your important work.

Other times, leaders feel that “butts in chairs” is the only measure of reliability. That’s equally as wrong. The goal here is to build up trust by delivering within certain parameters and by keeping that level of quality going. If credibility is about doing what you say you’ll do, then reliability is about doing it in a way that people can count on.

Intimacy

Intimacy is a strange word when thinking about work relationships. In this case, it’s a mix of being attentive to details (an intimate relationship with the work at hand) and to the needs of the people related to the project.

If your boss needs morning email briefs to feel comfortable, then intimacy would suggest that you know to help by sending these along without being asked. If you’re working remotely, you miss some of the “hallway chatter,” so your role is to know what’s being said anyway through inquiries to team members. Though you need all 4 pillars according to Green, intimacy strikes me as being one of the most crucial.

Low Self-Orientation

Having low self-orientation is one of the areas where people could use more improvement. The idea is that one must be a team- and goal-oriented individual. If you’re to be working remotely and with less supervision, doing your best work from afar with the needs of the company in mind will garner you the trust of your employer and teammates. By focusing on the success of the team and the project, you’re demonstrating a strong level of trustworthiness that isn’t easily faked – and that becomes gold to the leadership at hand.

The 4 pillars of trust, as Green laid them out, make a great deal of sense for people seeking to build a strong relationship between leadership, team members and remote workers. It’s a powerful mix of metrics to consider. If you’re worthy of high marks in all 4, you’ll likely do well.

Check back next week for the 3rd part of our “Building Trust at Work” series.

The post The 4 Pillars of Trust – Building Trust at Work appeared first on Workshifting.