In his posting of the 16th Feb, Ian continued to build on the theme of
trust.
>....And it raises this very serious issue about trust. Can we move
> the thread >in that direction.........
My own experiences of change lead me to believe that TRUST is one of the
most important elements of organisational development. If there is no
trust then people adapt very quickly by forming defensive routines - a
popular one being to withhold information about their real problems and
their approach to the job.
An little anecdote to show the relevance of trust in change......
I once had the role of production supervisor within an aircraft
manufacturing business. The section operated a day shift and nightshift.
The nightshift had no immediate supervisor but would take their
instructions for the shift from a 'Nightbook' traditionally written by the
dayshift supervisor. In an effort to eliminate the misunderstandings that
resulted from their interpretations of my interpretations of the
information given to me by the dayshift workers I asked the day shift
'Would they please start to fill out the Nightbook?' - 'Oh no' they said-
'we don't know how' - so I showed them ' But', they said 'we might get it
wrong and then I'd tell them off' - I showed them how many mistakes I had
made and suggested that I knew they could do it better than me. They
said, 'We haven't got any Biros to write it with'. I got a box full of
biros. On the first day all the biros disappeared - so I got another box.
On the second day they all disappeared again - so I got a third box. The
third box was only half empty when I looked that evening so I just
replaced a few. On the fourth day the box was hardly touched - and the
Nightbook was written! A simple exercise in trust - costing cents/pennies
and saving masses.
Demonstrate that trust is real and people will learn to trust you.
Regards
Matthew
Matthew Holmes
E-Mail: matthew.holmes@warwick.ac.uk
Warwick Manufacturing Group
University of Warwick, UK
Learning through Change
--Matthew Holmes <HOLMES_M@WMGMAIL.wmg.warwick.ac.uk>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>