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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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How do you make a big company’s culture more innovative and entrepreneurial? Start with a corridor and work your way out.
Story by Christos Tsolkas on February 11, 2016
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
Outside the world of academics popular culture splendidly captured the corporate imperative with the clarion call of “Show me the money!”   That demand is more incessant today with an ever i
Hack by János Pál NÉMETH on December 15, 2011
Decision making process relied for ages (and still does in a majority of cases) on a top-down approach, where decisions are taken by senior executives and executed by all layers below in a pre-defined
None of us is as smart as all of us - a safe, confidential and trusting peer group can be a powerful process for innovation, helping with opportunities, problems, challenges and issues of
Story by Mike Richardson on December 29, 2010
Implement a performance review mechanism that allows every employee to give themselves an "A" at the beginning of the period and then summarize what they are going to accomplish to earn that A.
Hack by Akash Sah on September 20, 2010
The assumption that employees must be hierarchically controlled has frustrated organizational innovation for decades.  We and five well-known business leaders stumbled upon the solution to this i
Hack by Bill Nobles on June 4, 2010

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