Principle 1: Senior Executives as Role Models (Item 1)
The senior executives' constant role modeling of these Business Excellence
Principles and creation of a supportive environment are necessary to
achieve the organization's potential.
You must have a climate of trust.
The climate of trust runs through all the Principles. For example,
it will not be the boss who does the actual work. The boss needs enthusiastic
people who volunteer their creativity in dealing with customers, finding
solutions to company problems, building new and innovative products
and services. Nothing kills off volunteering, enthusiasm and creativity
more than lack of trust. There is a direct relationship between trust
and creativity. As trust goes up so does creativity and enthusiasm.
Once you get above a certain point. Below that point (which is probably
different for each individual), you get no enthusiasm. The person has
switched off. You get their body but not their mind. And, you cannot
buy trust, creativity or enthusiasm.
Establishing this environment is a lot harder than you might like it
to be – even after you have adopted the new thinking and are truly
working towards the Principles.
For a start, your employees will distrust you. David Firth [1]
says that everyone is watching the boss (to see what bosses do and because
what the boss does will affect them). When you watch something, you
focus on it. When you focus, it is like putting a spotlight on it. When
you put a spotlight on someone, you get shadows that you can see at
the same time as you can see the person.
Bosses have two shadows.
Shadow 1. The boss is saying "challenge me, give me info,
tell me what is happening". The troops `know' that the last person
who did this was beaten to death. They know that you "never challenge
the boss, or tell what is going on". Even if this is a myth, it
is a strongly held belief.
Shadow 2. Every one knows that "All bosses are inherently
untrustworthy and deceitful. All bosses are bastards".
Although the boss is saying, "we need to do new and exciting things"
and would like to be treated as a trustworthy person, everyone knows
not to trust the boss and that the best way forward is to believe in
the shadows and not do anything.
This is a huge dilemma with maybe insurmountable problems for the boss.
It is at the heart of building successful companies.
 There are two solutions
to this dilemma. Covey's concepts of trustworthiness and emotional bank
accounts give you deliberate actions to show you value, respect and
appreciate diversity of opinions.
One of the principles that underpins Covey's work is that of trustworthiness.
If you have integrity and honesty, you will keep your promises —
to yourself and to others. People can trust you. Or putting it another
way, if you keep your promises, you are worthy of trust or trust-worthy.
It is a circle. If you keep your word, people trust you (to keep your
word). If people know you are trustworthy, they are likely to believe
you. That is, people will trust what you say to be the truth.
As we all find out, trust is an ephemeral thing. Despite your best
intentions, it can be very easy for people to lose their trust in you.
It might be the first time you break your word — the first time
you do something untrustworthy. You may not even mean to. Or, it might
only be one group that perceives you have broken your word. You can
certainly lose your trustworthiness without deserving to. There is no
guarantee of fairness.
You can quickly find examples outside the workplace. Think about your
family. Your kids will certainly let you know when they think you have
broken your word.
To help us deal with this issue, Covey gives us the tool of making
`emotional deposits'. He says that we establish an `emotional bank account'
with each other. Just like a bank account - we make deposits in the
`emotional bank account' against which we make withdrawals. And all
of us do make withdrawals — regardless of our best efforts. The
boss will make significant withdrawals just by the nature of the work
place. When we line this analysis up with David Firth's work, we are
left with the conclusion that the only path forward is constant work
on the Emotional Bank account. Below is a table showing activities that
make deposits and those that make withdrawals.
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Emotional Bank Account © Covey Leadership Center
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Deposits
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Withdrawals
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- Kindness, Courtesies
- Keeping Promises
- Clarifying Expectations
- Loyalty to the Absent
- Apologies
- Seek first to understand
- Receiving feedback and giving `I' messages
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- Unkindnesses, Discourtesies
- Breaking Promises
- Violating Expectations
- Disloyalty, Duplicity
- Pride, Conceit, Arrogance
- Seek first to be understood
- Not receiving feedback and giving `You'
messages
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Notice that Covey talks in terms of emotion. Most people make their
decisions on their emotions, experiences and the impact on their alliances.
As with all of Covey's suggestions, these are not quick fix ideas.
He talks in terms of the Law of the Harvest — the Law of the Farm.
There are no short cuts. No step can be missed in building character.
It takes a long time to build up the deposits that can be eroded in
an instant with a thoughtless action or comment. You have to be seen
to be trustworthy and making your deposits for a long time. An old saying
is `It takes 100 "well done's" to make up for one "Ah
shit!"'
Communications within the company is a good indicator of trust. In
most companies, all people complain about the communications.
Covey suggests that this is indicative of an environment of poor trust.
If people believe that you tell the truth, there are not likely to be
`communications problems'. As he says, "It is very hard to talk
way out of problem that behaved way into". Actions always speak
much louder than words.
Integrity is keeping your promises to yourself and to others (In this,
it is consistent with Covey's points about `trustworthiness'.)
Integrity also contains the concept of wholeness. You keep all
your promises, and tell all of the truth, all of the time.
"Impossible" I hear you say.
Another way to establish trust is to take deliberate actions to show
you value, respect and appreciate a diversity of opinions of others.
Valuing diversity implies respect for individuals; and valuing and
seeking different perspectives. The days of leaders who believe they
are the only ones who have useful ideas are long gone. Effective senior
executives are those who know they do not have all the answers, or even
a few of them, and build teams around them who provide diversity in
their opinions and perspectives.
You should
- deliberately build your teams so that they comprise people with
a variety of perspectives
- encourage people to see things differently
- enable them by providing knowledge, skills and opportunity
- provide the `space' for them to speak up and have their say.
Footnotes
David Firth is the author of
The Corporate Fool.
This material is adapted from
the concepts presented by Stephen R Covey. See
recommended reading.
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