How Scaling Trust Is Key To Scaling Organizations
The role of systems in making big organizations seem small
The role of systems in making big organizations seem small
Photo Credit: Charlie Hammond
(This is Part II in a series on “Visibility at Work”. See Part I.)
“Is [insert name] good at [insert skill]?”
Knowing who is good at what in an organization is fairly straightforward when an organization is small — you simply ask around! This is much more difficult in large organizations with higher degrees of specialization. The purpose of this article is to talk about scalable systems of trust in organizations.
How we know who people are
Have you ever discovered you were good at something you didn’t expect? Or conversely, have you ever discovered you were really bad at something that you thought would be a strength? Have you had an experience where another person highlighted aspects of you that you hadn’t seen before? Have you ever helped another person see themselves more clearly?
The concept of “self” is inherently unknowable in the absence of an “other”. This is just as true in our personal lives as it is in the workplace. At work, our “self” emerges through our interactions with others (i.e. in the work that we do). If done well, these interactions form a sort of mirror through which we start to see ourselves more clearly. More specifically, within a healthy organization our working relationships should act as a sort of looking glass that makes clear the process by which we create value in a network.
Feedback shows us the way forward
This is why feedback is such a vital component of the work we do. And this is why the majority of workers want more of it. Through good communication and coaching, our colleagues help us see ourselves more clearly. When we see ourselves clearly, when we know what we’re good at, and when we understand the way we create value, it’s WAY easier to see how to maximize our positive impact at work and the optimal path forward in our careers.
Trust systems
Knowing the path forward is one thing. Being in a position to walk that path requires help from other people who often haven’t gotten to know us yet. This is particularly challenging in high growth or high turnover environments — so many new people exist around us that interpersonal communication patterns haven’t been consistent or solidified and trust hasn’t been formed. “Trust systems” have emerged to accelerate relational clarity, stability and performance. Some trust systems are purely social and have evolved to be part of our human nature; others are technological.
The most natural human “trust system” is reputation and status transmitted by word of mouth. In human tribes, especially local ones, this is very straightforward. But social networks are distributed across the globe and are huge by historical standards. This is why scaleable, distributed trust systems that leverage technology can be found in virtually every online social network, sharing, services, gaming and matching platform. Because nobody wants an Uber driver who can’t drive!
Trust systems are embedded within work platforms
On that note, have you ever seen a one-star Uber driver? You haven’t. What’s interesting is that the systems that makes it possible to TRUST that people are good at certain things (e.g. driving you from point A to B) are most often embedded in the very platforms that make it possible to SEE those people (in this case, drivers on Uber) at all! Trust is embedded in these “visibility networks” / services platforms. The network makes it possible to see people; trust makes it possible to see them clearly and work with them.
At work, departments, titles and role descriptions are structural systems employed to help clarify skills and value creation methods of individuals and teams. It’s an attempt to organize and convey “trust.” But these systems naturally segment value creation into buckets and modes. People’s skills may be getting more and more specific, but in a world where microskills must interact to create value, it’s critical to understand, see clearly, and trust the actual AND potential value creation modes of those around us (or not around us, as the case may be). We know that everyone around us is more than their title or role. What other micro-skills do people bring to the table that aren’t captured in their title? How can those invisible micro-skills be additive to the network of other micro-skills in the organization? How do we build trust around those too?
That bit where we predict the future
And this, I think, is the main point: for the modern organization to function efficiently and outpace disruption, trust systems need to be embedded EVERYWHERE. They need to be embedded in email, in calendars, in project management apps, in Slack, in OKR systems, in HRIS, even in spreadsheets! In the future, we will see a proliferation of trust systems across virtually every aspect of information technology being used across organizations. Some of these trust systems will be idiosyncratic (specific to a particular app) and others generalized (same trust system utilized across multiple apps — our product, Neat Work, facilitates this).
Ingredients of a trust system at your enterprise
So, in a big, modern organization with a distributed workforce and high-degree of specialization / skill-specificity, what are the ingredients you would need create a trust-flavored soufflé?
A situation in which work is being performed.
An observer or collaborator who can see what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.
A mechanism that captures the feedback of multiple observers over time and converts it into a “reputation” tied to specific skills or aptitudes.
A culture where a basic level of transparency is accepted. Or, at a minimum, leaders willing to leverage their personal legitimacy to support openness and transparency.
A system that makes your skill-specific reputation visible to colleagues across the organization in order to engender trust based on social credibility.
The trust system is sitting on top of the network or other system where the work is being distributed or performed.
As a worker in the system, you go do new things with new people, reflect upon the feedback, then reassess your opportunity set based upon these new insights into who you are, what you’re good at, and how you create value uniquely.
Who “we” are emerges from what we do — together
Who people are — who “we” are — emerges in the things we do. The way we create value does as well. In order to discover and leverage who we are and how we create value as individuals we need trust systems that are as emergent as we are, and make who we are visible to others. This is particularly true in massively scaled organizations where inherent disconnects slow down evolutionary processes.
And that’s what we build at Neat Work — ways for people to build teams, do work together, and capture the feedback and learning that results from that work. Out of all of this work emerges a better view of who we are and how we work together best. And we build it to scale!
No person is an island
I leave you with a bit of old English poetry by John Donne:
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Photo Credit: Ferhat Deniz Fors