Daniel Little: Trust and organizational effectiveness

Daniel Little writes about Trust and organizational effectiveness.

Trust is enhanced by individuals having the opportunity to get acquainted with their collaborators in a more personal way — to see from non-organizational contexts that they are generally well intentioned; that they make serious efforts to live up to their stated intentions and commitments; and that they are generally honest. So perhaps there is a rationale for the bonding exercises that many companies undertake for their workers.

Likewise, trust is enhanced by the presence of a shared and practiced commitment to the value of trustworthiness. An organization itself can enhance trust in its participants by performing the actions that its participants expect the organization to perform. For example, an organization that abruptly and without consultation ends an important employee benefit undermines trust in the employees that the organization has their best interests at heart. This abrogation of prior obligations may in turn lead individuals to behave in a less trustworthy way, and lead others to have lower levels of trust in each other.

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In other words, trust is crucial for collaboration and teamwork. And an organization that manages to help to cultivate a high level of trust among its participants is likely to perform better than one that depends primarily on supervision and enforcement.

Emphasis Mine

A revolutionary party must continual live up to its ideals through its practices and organisations.

Although we are in the real, continual danger of betrayal through the active interventions of the plethora of secret services, we must persist in trusting each other.

Trust, but verify.