Page 102 - Managing the Mobile Workforce

trust or Bust � 81

different, however, are the strategies used to build upon those prin-
ciples and the magnitude of effort required. People are people, no
matter where they are located. As Michael Kroth, coauthor of this
book, said in The Manager as Motivator, everyone is the same, and
9
so you have to study human nature; and everyone is different, so you
have to study the human situation—which, in this case, is one of
people interacting to complete work and perhaps never meeting each
other. Ever.
What, then, does research and experience tell us managers must
do to create trust in their organizations?

` trust Is A proCess

Just as in a personal relationship, in a work relationship, or between lead-
ers and workers, trust is developed over time. It can be destroyed with
just one miscommunication or violation. Nan Russell, in Hitting Your
Stride, says, “Like love, trust is cultivated, grown, and nurtured. We
make authentic trust. We make it by what we do and how we do it.” 10
Roger Mayer, James Davis, and David Shoorman wrote an in-
fluential article in 1995, revisiting it in 2007, proposing a model of
organizational trust that throws light on what will build trust with
your employees. We share some of the basic elements here. One of
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the most important things to remember is that trusting involves tak-
ing risks.

taking risks
Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith (The Wisdom of Teams) provide
one of the best books about teams, how they’re formed, and how they
move to high performance. They talk about the importance of in-
dividuals on the team taking the risks required, of which “the most
formidable involve building the trust and interdependence necessary
to move from individual accountability to mutual accountability.