Trust is considered a “soft” issue in many companies. This is misleading. Trust is the prerequisite for organizations to function under uncertainty. And this characteristic is essential for survival in the current climate.
What this means in concrete terms: people base their actions on the fact that a company means well for them – today and in the future. They cooperate even though they do not have all the information. They support decisions whose consequences they cannot fully understand. They take risks.
Are we ready for trust?
This willingness is the invisible engine of cooperation. In quiet times, this is hardly noticeable: People are motivated, business is running. In uncertain times, however, trust becomes more important and at the same time more difficult to obtain. Decisions are more difficult to assess, things change at a rapid pace and management does not always have all the answers to questions about future developments. Employees ask themselves: What risk am I actually taking here? And who is responsible?
Companies often underestimate how rational this review is. Trust rarely collapses from a single disappointment. It collapses when a pattern emerges: expectations and promises are raised but not fulfilled. Participation remains inconsequential. Corrections are subsequently reinterpreted.
Lack of trust is measurable
The consequences are measurable – even if they are rarely mentioned:
- Decisions take longer.
- Coordination loops are increasing.
- Responsibility is escalated upwards.
- Energy flows into protection instead of implementation.
- What we see here is not a motivation problem.
It is the result of a structural void: a lack of control logic. In many organizations, it is not clear enough which criteria are used to prioritize, decide and resolve conflicting goals. It is precisely this lack of clarity that forces employees to interpret risks individually – instead of being able to bear them collectively.
However, trust does not arise from interpretation, but from clarity. Where the rules of cooperation are visible, the individual perception of risk decreases. Where they are absent, it increases – regardless of how well-founded individual decisions are.
From trust to performance
In our work on performance culture, we encounter this pattern time and again: organizations try to increase performance through targets, processes or pressure. In fact, performance often fails much earlier – namely where there is a lack of trust. This is because people only take on responsibility if they can assume that decisions are comprehensible and risks are distributed fairly.
Three things are decisive:
1) Honesty in dealing with impositions.
Insecurity cannot be explained away. But it can be explained fairly. Burdens are more likely to be accepted if it is clear why they arise – and that they are not simply passed down the line.
2) Reliability over time.
Trust is based on patterns, not on individual scenes. Do words and actions still match when things get uncomfortable? Do promises remain recognizably valid?
3) Signals for the future instead of reassurance.
Employees today do not demand guarantees. They themselves know that no one can predict the future. They want to know something else: Will I still feature in this company’s plans? Is there a place for me in the story that is being told here?
The crucial question is therefore not: “How do we strengthen trust?”
But rather: What promise do we make as a company – and how can employees recognize every day that we are actually keeping it?