In Steven Covey’s book, The Speed of Trust, he put forward the thought that TRUST was a hard economic measurement.
The proposition was that when TRUST went up, then SPEED went up and COST went down.
Conversely, when TRUST went down then SPEED went DOWN and COST went up.
From this he was able to conclude that trust is a hard economic indicator. What had previously been thought of as ‘soft and fluffy’ was in fact a hard economic indicator and could be used to assist businesses get better performance.
So do you think that trust has anything to do with business behaviour?
Do you think that the way you behave in your business has anything to do with the performance of your business?
Business behaviour can make all the difference between a business performing reasonably or doing extremely well because the effectiveness of people is often based on how others behave around them.
Let’s take an example:
You’re in a meeting doing some brainstorming with your employees. Everyone seems to be contributing well except for one person who is quiet and seems to be detached from the conversation.
So you ask them:
‘Do you have anything to contribute?’
They reply, ‘Nothing at the moment.’
This frustrates you because you are a very creative and spontaneous person who loves nothing better than to get in a room, push around all the ideas and come to a decision on what to do next. This really energises you so you can’t understand why this person would have nothing to add.
You think, ‘Are they stupid? Or do they not care about what we’re talking about?
You think, ’Maybe they have something better to do.’
This frustrates you even more because there’s nothing more important right now than finding a creative answer to this issue.’
So you ask them again:
‘Do you have anything to contribute?’
Again they reply, ‘Nothing to contribute.’
Now this is too much for you so you say,
‘We’ve been here for half an hour discussing this and after that much time surely you have at least something!’
So what do you think is happening in this situation?
We have two people who process things completely differently and as the boss you need to realise that it is a struggle for the other person to come up with ideas as quickly as you.
It’s easy to think that everyone in the world is basically the same or when they grow up they will be!
It’s easy to think subconsciously that you know how everyone else thinks. But in reality you often think through the lens of your own make up and not the other persons.
The problem you have as a business owner is that not everyone is like you. There are lots of different ways of getting to an answer and depending on a person’s make up they will likely get there differently to you.
The situation I described above happens in various forms in businesses all the time. And when it does, people’s confidence is destroyed. When this happens the energy in the business decreases and the performance goes down along with the level of enjoyment for the business owner.
Do you have any examples you would like to share?
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