John O. Whitney in his 1996 book, The Economics of Trust (Originally published as the Trust Factor in 1994) asks the following question:
" If everyone in your organization knew what to do; why he was doing it--
what would the organization chart look like?
If everyone desired to do his job correctly, on time, and could be trusted
to act with integrity in support of the firm's aims and goals, what would
your organizational processes and control systems be like?"
To answer his own question, he proceeds to put forward the hypothesis (which I paraphrase here) that like the concept of 'original sin', the entire management philosophy as we know it today is based on the presupposition that people are inherently untrustworthy and they can't be relied on to do the right thing. To ensure the check and balance is in place at all times, organizations have developed a complicated hierarchial system whereby each level in the system presupposes the one above or below it self will 'screw up' at the first opportunity.
Of course, I am putting it crudely here but that is about sums it all up.
I must admit that when I first read Whitney's ideas almost a year ago, it caught me by surprise. I felt that he has been able to explore the fundamental psychology on why organizations do what they do and why employees behave the way they do.
Maybe because this idea has been germinating in the recesses of my mind, it seems that for the past 1 year I have been 'picking-up' instances where I can trace the root-cause of a management/people issue back to a lack of trust in the parties involved. And, as Whitney has pointed out in his book, this lack of trust has a financial cost to it. Surprised? Consider this : How many signatures must a leave application carry in your organization? How many approvals for a purchase agreement? How many layers of decision making to decide on a new office mineral water supplier? You get the picture?
Anyway, the Foreword for Economics of Trust was written by no less than W.Edwards Deming himself. He writes:
" We have reached the limits of the capability of our current philosophy
and resulting methods of management....We can emerge from this prison
only through knowledge that is not part of the present system".
There it is. Its time to re-think, re-create and re-mind ourselves with new knowledge paradigms. As is often quoted : Yesterday's Solutions Can't Solve Today's Problems!
The next time you make a management decision, maybe you should consider the Trust Factor.
