Don’t trust always, but first trust and then see if the person is trustworthy.
Yesterday, this gem of a wisdom transpired during a discussion I was having with a Senior Vice-President of one of India’s leading software companies. He said, “Not that I trust always, but I believe, first trust then see if the guy is trust worthy or not”. Nothing less than classic management wisdom! At that time, the gravity of his words didn’t go down my head immediately. But as I pondered over it and reflected, it dawned on me that this management wisdom is much needed in today’s world.
Trust and confidence go hand in hand. Only trust can generate confidence. When there are so many things to do requiring varying competence in so little time, delegation is the natural way out. With effective delegation, accountability and authority flows down but responsibility rests with one who delegates. This responsibility demands that work is delegated to someone who the delegating person has confidence in.
So instead of following the traditional time consuming process of first building confidence over time before trusting, use this nugget of wisdom to reverse the process. This will not only result in better use of time and talent but will also ensure that trust worthy people are found early and trust defaulters are weeded out as quickly.
This approach will also develop an excellent emotional bonding that will ensure that person who has been trusted gives his best to prove himself quickly and reinforce his trust worthiness.
But this approach is not for the chicken hearted. It takes guts to use this approach.
Yesterday, this gem of a wisdom transpired during a discussion I was having with a Senior Vice-President of one of India’s leading software companies. He said, “Not that I trust always, but I believe, first trust then see if the guy is trust worthy or not”. Nothing less than classic management wisdom! At that time, the gravity of his words didn’t go down my head immediately. But as I pondered over it and reflected, it dawned on me that this management wisdom is much needed in today’s world.
Trust and confidence go hand in hand. Only trust can generate confidence. When there are so many things to do requiring varying competence in so little time, delegation is the natural way out. With effective delegation, accountability and authority flows down but responsibility rests with one who delegates. This responsibility demands that work is delegated to someone who the delegating person has confidence in.
So instead of following the traditional time consuming process of first building confidence over time before trusting, use this nugget of wisdom to reverse the process. This will not only result in better use of time and talent but will also ensure that trust worthy people are found early and trust defaulters are weeded out as quickly.
This approach will also develop an excellent emotional bonding that will ensure that person who has been trusted gives his best to prove himself quickly and reinforce his trust worthiness.
But this approach is not for the chicken hearted. It takes guts to use this approach.
I am fully with you Mayank. I have seen managers who cannot lift eyes off what their subordinates are doing. And I have seen managers who do not believe in doing so. They have such high belief in their ability to have successfully shared the organization's vision with their subordinates, and also in their subordinates' ability to grasp them. Such people are a rarity and they are the true leaders. The collective output in latter case is much more because such leaders are inspirational.I myself did not believe such people existed till I saw one of the latter kind.
Very rare...
Managers are so risk averse that they cannot delegate work. Otherwise they (we) would have been entrepreneurs.
agreed totally! makes sense! giving everyone a benefit of doubt is always a good idea.