Episode 1108: Trust and Productivity

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,108 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Patrick Annuci: I'm Patrick Anson, Nucci from dad hackers, and I challenge you to become the man that you were called and created to be one way to be inspired to do this is to listen to this show. The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott.

[00:00:23] Scott Maderer: actually, I think COVID helped notice and make this more available. I know I used to work for a company that for a while it allowed people to work remotely and then they pulled back on that. There were some people that abused it. There were some people that didn't actually get done what they needed to get done.

[00:00:43] And so they took away the privilege of remote work from everyone. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent [00:01:00] and your treasures for your true color. In the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:01:04] You'll learn to invest in yourself. Invest in. And develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:14] In today's episode about developing your influence by stewarding your time. I talk with you about how trust is related to productivity. I talk about how this plays out in a workplace and how it plays out if you're self employed. And I also share why trust is an overlooked factor when it comes to product.

[00:01:32] As we talk about stewarding your time. Wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long, it turns out you can't. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission, we'll come back to support the show.

[00:01:51] Just that quick. If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired [00:02:00] stewardship.com/. First glance talking about trust and productivity together doesn't necessarily sound like it's all that related. In fact, trust is one of those words that we hear, but we don't necessarily really know what it means.

[00:02:17] The formal definition of trust is defined as the willingness to put oneself at risk based on another individual's action now. You're willing to take on some risk based on what someone else is going to do or not do or say, or not say their action or their attitude and their beliefs. And in a business context, it turns out that there's actually research that shows that if you survey employees and customers and look for indicators of trust, so asking them questions that allow you to determine how much they trust their particular organization that they either work [00:03:00] for, or they shop with or whatever.

[00:03:02] The higher trust is the higher, the profit margins and dividends and return to shareholders and all of these other numbers that are generally related to how well the organization is doing in some way. If you measure output and productivity, increasing trust increases production. Basically, because as trust goes up, it turns out that the biggest factor is the speed of action.

[00:03:35] And decision-making goes up as well. Think about it. If you're working in an organization and you don't trust whether or not the people that you work for, have your back, are you more likely or less likely to bring up concerns? Are you more likely or less likely to take action that moves things forward?

[00:03:57] Or are you going to [00:04:00] ask permission and really make sure you've got all your I's dotted, your T's crossed and documentation before you take any actions? Or do you feel more free to actually take the action that needs to be taken? Southwest airlines is one of those companies that a lot of people admire in a lot of ways.

[00:04:21] And one reason why is they actually empower their employees to take action. They'll let their employees make a decision on the point right there where the rubber hits the road, when the customer's in front of them and they'll back them up on those decisions. I'm sure that doesn't work perfectly because no organization is perfect, but that's one of their stated values and that increased the trust of the customer.

[00:04:48] And it increased in increases the trust of the employees. And it gets things done more efficiently and more effectively, which increases their profit. Employee disengagement [00:05:00] is a huge problem. And whether or not you trust the organization you work for is shown to actually relate to engagement. Because if the management is threatening and using fear and abuse to motivate employees, then they stop trusting that.

[00:05:19] And they begin to think if the organization is not going to do right by me, why should I do right by this? That is the definition of employment. Employee disengagement trust cuts down on some of the paperwork and bureaucracy and those sorts of things that have to happen and trust increases the ability of people to collaborate with each other and work together in an environment that Lao allows them to actually be more effective.

[00:05:50] So all of this is about trust in a workplace where you have managers and employees. What about if you're self-employed what about if you just work by yourself? [00:06:00] Even? What, if you are the only person in your organization? Like I run my own coaching business. It's still a factor of trust, not just self-trust, but also the trust you build with your clients and your customers, the trust you build with the network of people that you hopefully build around you.

[00:06:20] Not necessarily as employees, but as friends, as people, you can get advice from as other people that are in business as referral partners. All of those things about trust, still play out because the truth is almost nothing that we do is done in isolation. Everything involves input and connection with other people at some level.

[00:06:45] And trust is the thing that helps make those wheels turn. So to speak. Trust is overlooked as a factor of productivity because it feels like it's flat. It [00:07:00] feels like it's something that is hard to measure. And yet the truth is it's vitally important. And actually I think COVID helped notice and make this more available.

[00:07:10] I know I used to work for a. That for a while it allowed people to work remotely. And then they pulled back on that because there were some people that abused it. There were some people that didn't actually get done, what they needed to get done. And so they took away the privilege of remote work from everyone.

[00:07:29] But the truth is it wasn't remote work. That was the problem. It was that ability to trust the employee and for the employee to trust the manager and for them to communicate about what was happening and what was getting done. The truth is if they were able to get the work done and it took them less than eight hours to do it.

[00:07:48] Why then did they have to sit on the clock for those two or three hours done that they were just sitting there doing that? And yet we don't trust that the [00:08:00] work was done, we don't trust that the employee wasn't taking advantage of us and the management team not trusting the employees is a problem.

[00:08:10] And in turn, the employees don't trust the management team either. And because in a remote work situation, it's hard to walk down the hall and see what's going on. That lack of trust means an assumption that what's going on is bad. And I think COVID force through forcing remote work, some reevaluation of how we could actually trust the employee and trust the manager to work together.

[00:08:40] I know companies that have installed all sorts of software to see whether or not somebody was actually doing their work. And then I know other companies that set up an environment where it's trusting the employees and then looking for the evidence, of course, looking to see that the work's really getting done, but at [00:09:00] the end of the day, if it is then why micromanage the situation, which one of those would you rather work in?

[00:09:08] And again, that goes for when you're working by yourself too, because you still have connection with other people. Thanks for listening.

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