As this winter gets more complicated and complex, we need to pause and reflect on the February 2020 comments of Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. As he wrote, “The pandemic will not change the basic direction of history so much as accelerate it.” For example, our screen time has increased, and our reliance on video connections to do business has increased. Next, manufacturers have diversified suppliers to create redundant supply chains. All of the above trends pre-existed COVID, now we are more aware of them and see their impact in our personal and professional lives.
Another change due to the global pandemic is how people are doing their jobs. Some people are still working in analog or co-located offices while others are working in hybrid or majority-remote offices. And then some people are working in all digital or remote offices.
Many people who are working from home report enhanced productivity and engagement. But as someone who spends a large majority of his working life listening to people in leadership and management positions from across the country, I believe that the success of working from home depends on three factors. First, it depends on the age of your children and whether or not schools or child care are possible. Second, it depends on your access to broad band and whether or not you have technology support. And finally, it depends on your level of economic privilege.
Many leaders report to me that there are on-going problems with people who are working all remotely. First, they are noticing a rise in communication problems. In particular, it is hard to read body language on a digital platform, and that just in time feedback is not happening. Second, problem-solving is okay but it tends to not be very group oriented because people are more advocacy than inquiry oriented. Next, many leaders are finding out that brainstorming is very hard to do, because most digital platforms tends to let who ever is speaking dominate the discussion. Fourth, knowledge sharing is happening but it requires disciplined attention. A lot of good information is all in people’s head and it is harder to access it when you don’t see people on a daily basis. Fifth, socialization and the building of camaraderie is not happening. For example, on-line happy hours are getting old and people are starting to feel disconnected and isolated socially and professionally. Sixth, in some companies, supervision, coaching and check-ins are somewhat working, but often get skipped due to people being so focused on just getting their work done. Finally, performance evaluation is struggling because most are built around analog or co-location metrics. The emerging question in this area will be the following: how do we evaluate someone on a digital platform? Most people report to me that they are focused on project management and not teamwork. For those of you who want to explore this subject in greater depth, I recommend you read the following article: “Our Work-from-Anywhere Future: Best practices for all-remote organizations” by Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury in the November-December 2020 issue of the Harvard Business Review.
The overall outcome of the above mentioned problems is that leaders report to me that during the October - January time period, they have witnessed an increased level of uncertainty about the path forward amongst their people, and a decreased level of trust at the one to one level and team levels.
The subject of trust is an interesting concept because so many thoughtful people have written about it over the years. The late Stephen Covey in his book, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness (Free Press, 2004) writes that “trust is the fruit of trustworthiness of both people and organizations.” It is “a verb and a noun.” He notes that “role modeling inspires trust without expecting it.” Brene’ Brown in her book, Dare To Lead: Brave Work, Tough Conversations, Whole Hearts (Random House, 2018) writes “We need to trust to be vulnerable and we need to be vulnerable in order to trust.” Charles Feltman describes trust as “choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions,” and he describes distrust as deciding that “what is important to me is not safe with this person in this situation (or any situation).” Patrick Lencioni in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Jossey-Bass, 2002) writes that the absence of trust is why many teams struggle. As he explains, “The most important action that a leader must take to encourage the building of trust on a team is to demonstrate vulnerability first.”
In the From Vision to Action Leadership Training, I point out that there are three kinds of trust based on the work in the following article: "The Enemies of Trust" by Robert Galford and Anne Seibold Drapeau, Harvard Business Review, February 2003. The first is personal trust which is "the trust employees have in their own managers.” The second is strategic trust which is "the trust employees have in the people running the show to make the right strategic decisions.” And finally, there is organizational trust which is "the trust people have not in any individual but in the company itself."
Given the events of the last year, we, as leaders, have to ask ourselves some important questions: Why should employees trust me as a leader? Why should I trust my colleagues? And finally, why should I trust my team? We need to think about these questions as we prepare ourselves and our organizations for a transition from a global pandemic to a post pandemic world.
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