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Increase trust, reduce fear

“The most critical challenge for any organization is to enlarge the circle of trust.”

Command-and-control systems reflect a deep mistrust of employees’ commitment and competence. They also tend to overemphasize sanctions as a way of forcing compliance. That’s why so many organizations are filled with anxious employees who are hesitant to take the initiative or trust their own judgment. Organizational adaptability, innovation, and employee engagement can only thrive in a high-trust, low-fear culture. In such an environment, information is widely shared, contentious opinions are freely expressed, and risk taking is encouraged. Fear paralyzes, mistrust demoralizes—they must be wrung out of our management systems.

124 Stories
236 Hacks
22 Barriers

Increase trust, reduce fear

“The most critical challenge for any organization is to enlarge the circle of trust.”

Command-and-control systems reflect a deep mistrust of employees’ commitment and competence. They also tend to overemphasize sanctions as a way of forcing compliance. That’s why so many organizations are filled with anxious employees who are hesitant to take the initiative or trust their own judgment. Organizational adaptability, innovation, and employee engagement can only thrive in a high-trust, low-fear culture. In such an environment, information is widely shared, contentious opinions are freely expressed, and risk taking is encouraged. Fear paralyzes, mistrust demoralizes—they must be wrung out of our management systems.

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Once upon a time there was a successful leader. He had an important role in the management of a huge fair.
Story by Bernhard Sterchi on November 1, 2016
Interestingly enough, many management surveys show that there is a high degree of trust from employees toward their first-line manager and that trust is eroding level after level as we are getting clo
Hack by Olivier Lavergne on November 29, 2010
By reconsidering the idea of a 'job creation program', individuals in a low income public housing area were able to take on the level of responsibility they were comfortable with, learn new skills and
Story by Martin Butcher on October 28, 2011
This is the story of a group of students at Universidad EAN that belong to the humanistic management youth researchers group, that have been working for the last 5 months in a Colombian company in ord
Story by Konocenos Human on May 26, 2015
Feeling recognized feels amazing. At work we started a recognition revolution with StarmeUp!
Story by Laura Alfonsin on August 17, 2017
With the existing technology, it's very easy to establish a wikilocation to bridge the gap between what we do internally in theoperational side of university and colleges (as well as any othereducatio
Hack by Aaron Anderson on June 24, 2010
A bottom-up approach in which the employees in each department "draft" their Manager and Supervisors, given certain limitations. The draft occurs every six months, fostering renewa
Hack by Justin Astrin on December 13, 2010
In emerging markets, the lack of talent forces HR dept to concentrate more on recruiting more people rather than devising strategies towards retaining the existing employees.
Hack by Gaurav Varma on March 20, 2011

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