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There’s an indisputable connection between trust and employee engagement. Research shows that 96% of people who consider themselves “engaged” trust

their leaders, while only 46% of “disengaged” people do. The bottom line is this: Engaged people trust their leaders; disengaged people don’t.

Use your own experience – think of a time when you knew that a leader trusted you. In the vast majority of cases, this brings out the best in people. And the opposite is true: People who don’t feel trusted are rarely motivated to be engaged in their work.

Thus, a big driver of disengagement is low trust. You may ask, “Which came first, the distrust or the disengagement?”

Actually, it’s circular – when people don’t feel trusted, they aren’t

engaged because they want to operate in an

environment where they are trusted. If this distrust of people

is perpetuated in a company of competent, capable people, when all the systems and structures (and even some

volume 2 issue 2 fall 2007

straight talk on strategic issues

No Trust, No Engagement

the WATERCOOLER

Please turn to page 7.

An Expert’s Viewpoint

Trust brings out the best in people.

people) say, “I don’t trust you,” the effect is cumulative. It affects engagement but also leads to reciprocation – the people become distrustful back. Less than half of disengaged people trust leadership, and a principal reason why this statistic is so low is because management doesn’t trust them. Again, the opposite is true – when leadership extends trust to employees, they tend to extend it back to leadership. This is clear from data, research, and our own experiences. The connection between engagement and trust is intuitive, logical, and empirical. Trust is vital to engagement and high performance.

Trust Makes a Workplace “Great”

Disengagement is more costly than most leaders think. Disengaged people essentially “quit but stay.” We pay them but they aren’t fully “working for us” because they don’t trust the

By Stephen M. R. Covey

How to handle your employees with trust.

Trust at NASA.

Plus a ready-to-use visual tool you can use now!

Look Inside!

Visit us atwww.rootlearning.com

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Science has proven that highest among the indispensable physical requirements of life are oxygen, food, and water. But ranking next is the

most basic psychological need – the need to feel safe. No one can feel safe in an atmosphere with no trust. But many people don’t trust their leaders at work, and that means they can’t really feel safe, engaged, and free to do their best.

When we don’t feel safe, fear and mistrust drive our actions. We can’t be ourselves or do what we’re truly capable of. When we can’t trust those around us, we’re guarded, cautious, and restrained, and we do everything we can to regain a feeling of security.

You can tell a workplace atmosphere lacks trust when people are afraid that:

• Their contributions aren’t really valued.

• Their personal beliefs won’t align with the company’s.

• They won’t be able to adapt to new ways of working.

• They won’t have a safe place to practice new skills.

• It’s unsafe to fail and learn from failures.

• It’s not safe to say what they really think.

• It’s dangerous to suggest better ways of doing things.

• They’ll become branded “a problem” if they disagree.

When rules, policies, and requirements create environments where people perceive that they must behave in a certain way, think in a certain way, and believe in a certain way, they have reason to be mistrustful.

Making Your Organization Fit for Human Beings

Leaders and managers have to recognize that we’re ultimately trying to engage human beings. Until people truly feel trusted and safe, we can’t expect them to engage and perform at a higher level. Here are several ideas for creating environments where human beings can thrive.

1. Give people permission to not be afraid.Make it safe to discuss the hard issues. People will explore and take risks only when they believe they can trust their leaders and when they feel it’s safe to be authentic. When this happens, leaders create peers who are searching together – and this increases the chances of finding the solution to an organizational problem.

2. Create a welcoming, informal workplace.Management expert Larry Bossidy says that “to be real, you have to be candid, and informality increases the opportunity to be candid.” Many of the formal aspects of our workplaces reflect rules that define the cultures of the business. When there is a level of informality in the workplace, work seems less intimidating and more fun.

3. Focus on people’s strengths.Recognizing that “human beings work here” makes it easier to focus on their strengths. Fear and mistrust define us by what we don’t do well and strengths define us by what we do well, so this is a way to counteract a fear-dominated environment. When people do things they’re really good at, they get quick wins – and good feedback. So they repeat what they did, improve, and get even better feedback, helping to increase the feeling of trust in the workplace.

Leaders need to remember that human beings need to feel safe, and need to trust and be trusted. Trust enhances engagement because employees know they are free to excel without fear of consequences.

Until people truly feel trusted and safe, we can’t expect them to engage and perform at a higher level.

From the CEO’s Desk

Jim Haudan President and CEO Root Learning, Inc.

Handle with Trust By Jim Haudan

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Training at NASA: A Matter of Trust By Dorothy Tiffany

Industry Perspective

NASA’s work requires heavy reliance on teamwork. Whether we’re communicating with astronauts on the International Space Station, developing the

next generation of the country’s weather satellites, or implementing a new business system, we rely on our team members to get the job done properly. For a team to function effectively, they need a mutual vision, cohesiveness, expertise, and trust. You could pretty successfully argue that trust is the most important ingredient in team effectiveness in NASA projects.

A few weeks ago, I visited NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. This lab houses the world’s largest indoor pool. (http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/support/training/nbl/). Astronauts use the pool to practice space maneuvers in the closest environment on earth to space – which is water. Models of the Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope are submerged, and the astronauts practice the extravehicular activities that occur in space before trying them on the real hardware during a mission. Outfitted with their space suits, the astronauts spend their workday in the pool performing tasks needed in space to build the Space Station or repair the Hubble Space Telescope or the Space Shuttle Orbiter. Every operation is practiced many times, and modified as needed during these training sessions. In the pool, each astronaut is accompanied by several divers in scuba gear.

These divers are responsible for the safety of the astronaut. There is a great deal of trust required on the part of all these people.

At the end of their workday, the divers attach the astronauts to a large platform with elaborate harnesses. An overhead crane connected to the platform lifts the astronauts and the platform from the water. This technique is necessary because the space suit is so heavy that the

astronaut would never be able to float to the surface and leave the pool. Once the astronaut is above water, the harness supports the astronaut’s weight until the crew can remove the suit. It’s a fascinating operation to watch. (For photos of the lab, go to http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/presskits/ffs_gallery_nbl.html.)

Fascination aside, the essential point that you realize after observing this delicate

operation is that the astronaut is truly dependent on many people on the team for their wellbeing. Whether in the pool, on the Space Shuttle blasting to space, or returning from a mission, astronauts must have a great deal of trust in the people on their team. Without deep trust, they’d never be able to take the risks that they’re expected to take every day. Their lives quite literally depend on their team and this trust that fuels all of the team’s activities.

Please turn to page 7.

In any of our endeavors, where would we be if trust weren’t a part of teamwork?

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Try this with your team!

Masks of

MistrustTrue, the sketch shown here is an exaggeration, but it’s a clear example of how some teams and organizations work when trust is absent. Masks and cover-ups are all too common in today’s fast-paced businesses.

Try this with your team! To begin, describe the scene around this table. Read all the labels aloud. Then continue below.

1. Go from person to person at this table and read the quote bubbles. Describe the significance of the props, such as the shield held by the man at the top center or the box on the CEO’s chair.

2. What is the significance of the covered serving dishes? What might be under the covers?

3. What issues are “under covers” in your team or organization?

4. Fill in the empty bubbles with a quote that personalizes this for your team or organization. Add more bubbles if you wish!

5. Circle the two thought bubbles that, in your opinion, most significantly impede your team’s effectiveness.

6. Reflect for a moment on the root causes of these bubbles.

7. What can you do differently within your team to address these bubbles?

8. How could you use this tool to raise awareness and gain alignment on critical issues within your team?

9. What role does trust play in using a tool like this?

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Case Study

PETCO, a specialty retailer of premium pet food, supplies, and services, enjoyed leading the market for years. Although the $41-billion U.S. pet market

remains buoyant and all players have experienced growth, competition has intensified, and PETCO has lost share in the past few years. In 2006, we were acquired by private equity investors.

Our CEO, Jim Myers, has set the goal to regain the top spot in the market. To do this, he had to gain the trust of the entire company so they could see that his goal was not only possible, but that all associates had a big part to play in our success. We engaged Root Learning to help align our leadership and define a transformation plan to make that vision a reality.

Trust Starts at the TopWe started with our senior leadership. We needed to create a culture that promotes teamwork, learning, and fun. Myers urged his team to be very candid about the current state and where we needed to go. He created a safe, trusting environment in which real issues could be discussed openly, ensuring that no “elephants” were left in the room to sabotage the change process.

After conducting interviews with leaders and others, the Root team captured the feedback in a humorous yet serious Watercooler™ sketch. The sketch was a catalyst for a facilitated discussion about the current realities, good and bad, and helped us confront them constructively, enabling the team to build trust while accepting responsibility for the issues and necessary changes.

The result was a united team who shared an aligned “systems view” of the marketplace and knew what to do to regain leadership. We also refined the vision, mission, and strategies to bring the plan to life.

Organization-wide TrustWe needed to extend this “trust culture” to our store level, believing that engaged associates lead to loyal customers. It seemed that we’d stopped listening to people in the field and they had stopped telling us what they really thought. When you lose that, people become apathetic, or worse, actively disgruntled. Our re-engagement sessions provided

the ideal start for taking our message to all 21,000 of our people.

The results of these “strategy alignment sessions” have been gratifying. They gave our people a stronger sense of purpose in light of the new vision. Our employees know the plan and realize that the company is trying to do the right things. They understand how much

they matter to our success and how they can influence the outcome. Many associates have said that they’ve transformed from a sense of despair to hope, and hope to belief. Now they can use that belief to act in the best interest of the company and customers.

When I asked people for their reactions to this new approach, I heard things like: “Normally, I’m afraid that if I don’t give the right answer, I’ll be ostracized or I’ll feel stupid. Here, I didn’t have the right answer, but I wasn’t worried about speaking up because I felt as if we were searching for it together.”

Rebounding through Trust Charlie Piscitello SVP, Chief People Officer PETCO

By Charlie Piscitello

Continued on next page.

leaders or the company – and the leaders are often not aware of it.

Most companies strive to be “a great place to work.” For employees, part of what makes a company “great” is the basic trust level. If there’s no trust, it’s not a great place to work. Companies that achieve “greatness” outperform others by as much as four times. A big reason is that these companies have engaged, trusting workforces – leaders, managers, and employees. Mutual trust is the defining characteristic of what makes a workplace “great.”

Nothing is as fast as the speed of trust. Nothing is as profitable as the economics of trust. And nothing drives engagement more than the extension of trust. Trust is truly the one thing that changes everything.

Stephen M.R. Covey is cofounder and CEO of CoveyLink Worldwide, and author of The Speed of Trust.

Upcoming CoveyLink Events:

Leading at the Speed of Trust 2-day workshops:November 14 – 15, Sundance, UT

Stephen M. R. Covey public events: November 5, Six Disciplines, Atlanta, GA

November 13, IMAPS 2007 40th Annual International Symposium on Microelectronics, San Jose, CA

To learn more about these events and CoveyLink, go to www.coveylink.com.

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PETCO’s first step toward regaining leadership as the trusted provider of pet supplies and services started by creating a culture of trust on the inside. This provides a solid foundation for success, but ultimately, it’s our associates who will own and execute our strategy through their behavior every day.

Although my own job with NASA is not nearly as glamorous as that of the astronauts, I must also trust my team members to get my job done. I don’t have the time or energy to recheck or redo the work of all of my team. I rely on them – I trust them – to do the right thing. All high-performance teams in any industry must function in the same way. After all, where would we be in any of our endeavors if trust weren’t a part of teamwork?

Training at NASA: A Matter of Trust, continued

Dorothy Tiffany is the NASA EVM Program Executive and the NASA PM Challenge Conference Project Manager in NASA’s Office of Chief Engineer, and Deputy Associate Director for Business Management for the Advanced Concepts and Formulation Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

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straight talk on strategic issues the WATERCOOLEREvents and News• “Creating a Strong Brand from the Inside Out” – A one-day

conference on Thursday, November 15 at Mattel Inc., El Segundo, CA. Contact Nancy Hegedus at nhegedus@rootlearning.com for more details.

• ISPI International Performance Improvement Conference, April 3–8, NYC, www.ispi.org

• SHRM Annual Conference & Exposition, June 22–25, Chicago, www.shrm.org

• ASTD International Conference & Exposition, June 1–4, San Diego, www.astd2008.org

The next issue of The Watercooler will be published in January 2008.

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson