Trust is often dismissed as ‘woke’ mentality:
‘After all, we’re not living in a fantasy world. We are a success-oriented company. And that means rigorous controlling and a focus on results.‘
Trust is good, but control is better? Sounds good. Unfortunately, it is questioned too rarely.
But maybe you’ve also wondered:
- How many fantastic ideas never get discovered and used for the company?
- What do excellent employees think when they receive precise instructions, even though they were hired as experts?
- How long can you keep outstanding employees in your field without giving them room for own ideas?
- How much time could you save for strategy, communication, and leadership if you didn’t have to worry about all the small details?
- How much time could your project managers and employees save if they didn’t have to write detailed reports and justifications constantly, and instead only needed to provide succinct, but purposeful feedback and assessments, receiving management support where possible? For instance, in this manner:
I still see no reason why my team shouldn’t achieve the expected results by the planned deadlines.
respectively
I’m currently seeing difficulties. We will likely finish three weeks later – we can meet the deadlines if we get an additional 150 hours of developer capacity in the next two months.
- How much potential are you wasting by not allowing room for new approaches, methodologies, and ideas?
- How much faster could your projects be completed if you give trust, and demand commitment?
Don’t get me wrong. We, the authors of the Execution Excellence Manifesto, advocate for regular and very rigorous controlling – but only controlling the key data and the expected results.
Avoid micromanaging at all costs. Give trust, but in return demand commitment.
Be satisfied with assessments. Personal, honest assessments from project management are, in our experience, worth much more than a detailed plan.
This is especially true when the project management understands the core business of your company.
Invest your money primarily in improving your project managers in the core business of your company – instead of trying to make them process experts and seasoned project management professionals, using a lot of money and time.
And how does one tough capitalist see this? See and listen here what Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple, has to say about trust and collaboration: Link to YouTube video
And here you may read about a very interesting study “the neuroscience of Trust – by Paul J. Zak” Link to Article
