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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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In my ten years at Red Hat (the open source software pioneer), we had a very simple little cultural trick we used everywhere we could:We defaulted to open.What does this mean?
Hack by Chris Grams on August 5, 2010
Inspired by what Carsten Schloter told me once. Later I found out it quite matches Christopher Avery's responsibility process Once upon a time there was a dwarf.
Story by Bernhard Sterchi on May 1, 2016
If we look at all the crises our world is in, we definitely need some sort of societal renewal strategies. The crises put more and more pressure on it.
Barrier by Louis Dietvorst on December 6, 2011
Life is inherently a very dynamic process and, therefore, a constant balancing both at the individual and group level.
Hack by Charles Ehin on March 9, 2012
Increasing trust and reducing fear has a causal relationship to the meritocratic organization coupled to strong internal leadership.  Trust and fear is indicative of xenophobia endemic to the fir
Hack by Vidia S. Ramdeen on October 8, 2010
This is Karen's story. In 2011 a colleague and I attended a presentation at a conference. The speaker had made a mistake but had not realized it.
Story by Peter Rennie on July 14, 2013
My first real job was as a carpenter helper with Goodwin and Murphy construction company on a bridge building job on interstate 65 just south of Verbena, Alabama.
Story by Jim McGriff, Jr. on April 14, 2015

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