The Essential Ingredient in Business Success
There are lots of parallels drawn between business success and sports success – particularly success in team sports. Sometimes the message is lost in translation. However, there is one key ingredient that is starting to get the attention and recognition it deserves and that is trust.
In the sports world of clichés and hyperbole, something as old fashioned as trust might appear out of place, however, it is gaining recognition for being the distinguishing factor in taking performance to the next level. It is the difference between a team of stars and a star team. Members of a star team trust each other to play their role and to put the team first – this lifts the capability of the team. It is just as important in business.
Growth Creators help lots of different businesses to grow across a wide range of industries. For all of them we use our business-of-promises framework. What promises should you be making? How are you going to deliver on those promises? And how are you going to take those promises to market? Threaded through this framework is the importance of keeping your promises. Breaking promises damages trust, sometimes completely, often permanently.
When identifying barriers to growth, we often find that there is a lack of trust in relation to certain capabilities or individuals within the business. The existence of this lack of trust is usually known to the business, what is seldom recognised is the cost of mistrust.
The cost of mistrust
The impact of the absence of trust is most easily understood in team sport. At some point in time everyone has played on a team with a teammate that they did not trust to do the right thing with the ball. Consequently, they look for other options even when that teammate is in the best position to receive the ball. The flow-on from this is that the team structure and plays are not followed, which compromises the rest of the team’s understanding of the way the team plays.
A similar thing happens within businesses. Salespeople are reluctant to sell a solution they don’t trust will be delivered as promised. There are also more subtle costs, time spent following up on progress, additional effort made to help or cover for the underperforming area of the business. Extending deadlines or making other compromises that ultimately undermine the competitive position of the business. Just as significantly, although difficult to measure, is the increase in stress and reduction in morale – which often leads to an increase in internal politics and staff turnover.
The other significant cost of mistrust comes from outside the business. We work in an increasingly complex network of business relationships and as the level of collaboration increases so does the level of interdependence and need for trust. These networks of collaboration are essentially your teammates, and if they don’t trust your organisation, they will stop ‘throwing you the ball’, and eventually find someone else.
Building trust
One of the reasons that trust is such a valuable commodity is because trust must be genuine. Sometimes it can be borrowed – which is why brands can be so powerful. For example when buying a can of Coca-Cola from a stranger in a strange place, most of the trust is borrowed from Coca-Cola. Within an organisation, some trust is borrowed from the position or job description – but borrowed trust dissolves very quickly. Genuine trust must be built.
Genuine trust comes from consistently keeping or exceeding on your promises. This starts with not making promises you cannot keep. Which brings us back to the business-of-promises framework: What promises should you be making? How are you going to deliver on those promises? And how are you going to communicate those promises to others? Part of this is understanding where you are reliant on others – no one is an island – and assessing your trust in them.
Being part of a high-performing team is one of the most rewarding experiences in life. Part of this is being surrounded by people you trust and who trust you in turn. Success seems to flow as a natural outcome of the team with what feels like less effort. It is something that every business should strive for, and every individual should strive to be a part of. It starts with a look in the mirror. Can you be trusted to keep or exceed your promises? Do those you work with trust each other and put the team first?