Build Trust with Operating Principles
By Kathleen A. Paris, Ph.D.
Trust is an essential ingredient for a successful workplace. Employees perform at their peak when they have confidence in their leaders and colleagues. Conversely, without that bond of trust, productivity stagnates as employees withhold their full potential. That makes sense, but how is trust built in the workplace?
The Importance of Operating Principles
Many ingredients go into building trust including honesty, consistency, respectful communication, predictability, and dependable actions over time. Creating operating principles together is a tangible activity that can help a workgroup establish and develop a climate of trust.
Operating principles are written statements that describe how group members will interact with each other and those they serve–clients, customers, members. Operating principles translate values and beliefs into concrete actions. They are not the same as an organization’s value proposition such as “We serve only the freshest organic produce” or “We will send your purchase to you on time every time.” Those are promises to the customer or client or buyer and they are necessary, but different. Operating principles are about everyday behaviors of employees.
“Business operating principles are the rules of the road that enable people to know what’s in bounds – and what’s out-of-bounds – in their companies and workplaces. Operating principles can serve as guides, helping people make sound decisions, building trust and enabling greater innovation” (Lynch, 2008).
Industry Examples
Renowned companies like Google and Whole Foods Market, Inc. exemplify the efficacy of operating principles in shaping organizational culture. Google, for instance, embraces the principle, “You can be serious without a suit,” while Whole Foods emphasizes taking responsibility for both success and failures.
The HOWWE Culture at Raymond Management Company (RMC)
RMC, a prominent player in the hospitality and real estate sectors, anchors its operating principles in a culture of respect. This ethos entails treating everyone equally, fostering inclusivity, and cherishing individual backgrounds and talents.
- How We Respect – We respect ourselves and respect others. We accept others without judgment and value their unique backgrounds and talents.
- How We Act – We act in a way that encourages all teammates to communicate openly, be proactive, be held accountable, resolve conflict, and celebrate success. We each bring our best every day.
- How We Work Together – We serve our teammates and guests by offering an unconditional satisfaction guarantee. Working together can be summed up in two words: teamwork and collaboration. We work together to find the best solution for the problem.
- How We Serve – We serve our teammates and guests by offering an unconditional satisfaction guarantee.
- How We Lead – We lead by example; by working side-by-side and doing what it takes to get the job done. We “walk the talk” and don’t take shortcuts. We work to inspire our teammates through our actions and words.
Implementing Operating Principles
Operating principles are the glue for fostering trust, cohesion, and mutual support within teams. They are only useful, however, if everyone from top management to the newest employee pays attention to them. Economist Kay Plantes (Plantes & Finfrock, 2009, pp. 159-160) uses the term “guiding principles” and says,
There is no one set of ‘right’ guiding principles; what is important is that they are acted on, as opposed to being window-dressing statements. Leadership must genuinely attempt to model the guiding principles through their own actions and words so that no cynicism develops around these principles. You know you have a strong guiding principle when people feel free at any time to say to any other employee, including a boss, ‘Your actions are not consistent with our agreed-to values.’ (pp. 159-160)
I use a two-part process for helping groups identify their operating principles:
- Reflective Dialogue: Participants interview each other in pairs about a situation where they felt the organization was “at its best.” We then debrief as a group on the values that were the underpinning of those memorable situations.
- Collaborative Ideation: Participants silently respond to a question such as, “What are the everyday behaviors between us as employees and between us and those we serve that demonstrate our values?” Participants generate their own ideas on paper and then agree within their small group. The categorizing process Michael Wilkinson describes in The Secrets of Facilitation is ideal for clustering the behaviors and leveraging techniques for effective consensus-building.
Embracing Imperfection
I urge my clients not to expect perfection. Everyone will have slip-ups and make mistakes that may be out of alignment with the operating principles. Organizations must prioritize accountability and be committed to rectifying mistakes promptly. Imperfections provide growth opportunities and reinforce the importance of staying aligned with operating principles.
In conclusion, operating principles serve as guiding beacons, illuminating the path toward a trusting, resilient, and high-performing workplace culture when earnestly embraced and embodied by all stakeholders.
Learn actionable steps to address trust concerns and foster stronger, more trusting connections in our free white paper, “Why Don’t You Trust Me? The Five Cs of Trust“.
Interested in learning more facilitation techniques? Check out our course, The Effective Facilitator.
