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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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42projects is an initiative across several teams at Microsoft to innovate in the way we manage by focusing on building trust, using games to increase productivity, and encouraging grassroots innovatio
Story by Ross Smith on April 11, 2010
 In 2009, Citrix CEO Mark Templeton issued a challenge: Make Citrix a leader of design excellence by transforming the traditional engineering-driven company into one whose very DNA is built on th
Story by Catherine Courage on July 14, 2013
For the past 3 years, Deloitte has been hosting an enterprise social network, D Street, to build connections, enable collaboration and foster innovation across the organization.  This y
Story by Patricia Romeo on December 4, 2010
This is the story of a Colombian based engineering company that grew from 60 people in 2006 to over 1000 by 2012.
Story by Peter King on June 24, 2013
Fundamental infrastructure innovations must overcome a steeper than normal entry barrier. The market-place considers them an avoidable adventure regardless of need. Early adopters are rare.
Story by Raj Kumar on September 5, 2010
Our conventional wisdom regards high stress executive leadership as indigenous to a high performance organization.  This belief is understandable when witnessing the ever accelerating rate of cha
Story by Bill Shirley on July 2, 2011

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