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May 13, 2008
Tip #413:
"You can't manage a secret."
Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford Motor Company
Dr. Alan Zimmerman's Comment:
Comedian Rich Hall offered a test to help
you determine which economic class you're in. He says, "If the BUILDING you work
in has your name on it, you are a part of the upper class. If your DESK has your
name on it, you are a part of the middle class. If the SHIRT you wear to work
has your name on it, you are part of the working class."
I'm not sure that's totally true, but I do know there is often a lack of trust
among the classes and even amongst the members of the same team. And that's a
problem. As I often say in my presentations, "Trust is a must or the
relationship will bust." Trust is the foundation of every strong, effective
team.
So how do you build trust? Well that would take me an entire seminar to answer,
but let's start with these tips.
=> 1. Open up the communication.
Get everyone in a meeting to participate ... to really participate. For example,
if you have some quiet people on your team, from time to time ask for their
feedback. Ask them how they're reacting.
And that means asking more than surface, yes or no questions. It means more than
asking, "Are you okay with this?" More often than not, those kinds of questions
won't get much of a response. The quiet people will give a polite "Yes" or
"Yeah, I'm okay." But that doesn't tell you very much.
So try a behavioral description ... followed by a question. For example, "I
notice you haven't said anything for 30 minutes" or "I notice you looking down.
What are you thinking about all of this?" You'll probably get a much more
informative response.
Or try the "one-word go-around." Go around the circle and ask each team member
to describe how he or she feels in one word. You'll often be surprised by the
answers.
Best of all, use my Brave Question technique. It works for your teams on the job
as well as at home. Listen to author and certified personal trainer Jimi Varner.
Jimi says: "Around 4 months ago, I purchased your incredible, thought-provoking
book, 'BRAVE QUESTIONS: Building Stronger Relationships By Asking All The Right
Questions,' and have seen the miraculous effects it's had my relationship with
my soon-to-be fiance. Although practical and simple, we have found it extremely
beneficial to all of our relationships and highly recommend it to anybody in
need of urgent or not-yet-so urgent relationship repair!"
Sid Slatter echoes that comment. He says: "I was a 35-year old General
Contractor and the epitome of the husband who did not communicate well with his
wife. But then I attended your seminar and learned about Brave Questions. I
purchased your book on 'Brave Questions,' and, boy do I owe you huge thank you.
If you were to see me and my wife now, you might think we were on our first or
second date. This book has also helped me to build better relationships with my
customers and employees."
If you want to master this technique and get a copy of the book,
click here
=> 2. Model honesty and openness.
As Eleanor Roosevelt said, "It is not fair to ask others what you are unwilling
to do yourself." Or put another way, you can't expect your team members to be
totally honest and open if you aren't.
So get rid of your pretense. Be yourself ... with no embellishments. And get rid
of your efforts to make a "good impression" or your little cover-ups of the real
truth. The only way your team members can trust you is if they know ... what
they see is what they get.
Bring your authentic best to every team encounter. As Jim Collins points out in
his book, "Good To Great, it's a critical piece in team building. Collins says,
"While you can't control the outcome ... you can control the integrity of your
input and effort." So make sure your input is honest and open.
=> 3. Kick down the silos.
Trust is almost impossible in a climate of secrecy. The same goes for success.
And Alan Mulally knew that when he took over the reins of a struggling Ford
Motor Company. When he went there, he found an internal culture filled with
silos, where people and departments walled themselves off from everyone and
everything else in the company.
A silo culture extended from the company's overall structure into individual
divisions and subdivisions. Each of Ford's four operating divisions had its own
unique management, product development, and manufacturing units. Even minor
parts such as mirrors, hinges, and springs were specific to each vehicle line,
requiring more than 30 different platforms company-wide. By contrast, Ford's
competitors, such as General Motors and Toyota, had only five or six.
Information was also "siloed." Mulally was aghast that the operating
groups didn't share financial data. When he began requiring them to do so, they
were equally aghast and called him privately to make sure he meant it. He did
mean it. As he said, "You can't manage a secret."
Silo thinking even extended into Ford's management meetings. So Mulally now
requires division chiefs to meet weekly ... instead of monthly ... to make
certain all data gets discussed. More importantly, the chiefs must attend the
meetings in person or via video conference, and not merely send assistants as
they'd done in the past. In fact, they must bring a different assistant to each
meeting so the word gets out more widely and quickly.
To keep discussion flowing once meetings start, Mulally has banned the thick
briefing books managers used to bring to defend their every position. The phrase
"I don't know," once feared at Ford, is now encouraged when applicable. To
prevent attendees from being distracted from all this information, he's also
banned BlackBerrys and has forbidden side conversations while someone else is
talking.
These new, fundamental changes at Ford won't necessarily create new vehicles
that the world wants to buy. But they will make that creation more likely. After
all, how can a customer be expected to trust Ford, if the teams at Ford don't
even trust each other? So kick down the silos in your team or your organization.
=> 4. Make a commitment to stick together.
Now this is going to sound old fashioned, but trust can only exist in an
atmosphere of commitment. That's why the original marriage vows asked the man
and woman to pledge their loyalty to one another, in good times and in bad,
until death pulled them apart.
By contrast, trust cannot grow in a relationship if one or both of the parties
feels free to cut and run at any time. And the same thing goes for trust on the
job. Trust cannot be maintained if labor or management sees the other as
disposable.
No. Trust is built when we know ... we really know ... we're in this together.
And we're going to do whatever it takes to make the relationship work.
A good example might be a team of mountain climbers. If they're going to make
it, they know they've got to hang together. Or as Earl Wilson teasingly asked in
the "Herald" newspaper of Durango, Colorado, "Do you know why mountain climbers
rope themselves together? To prevent the sensible ones from going home."
The fact is ... trust is built and trust continues to grow in a team when all
the team members are committed to sticking together. The famous Aesop of
"Aesop's Fables" talked about that hundreds of years ago.
In one of his stories, there was a farmer who had a quarrelsome family, filled
with rivalry, bickering, and mistrust. He couldn't reconcile their differences
with words, so he thought he might readily prevail by an example.
He called his sons and told them to lay a bunch of sticks before him. Then,
having tied the sticks into a bundle, he told the lads, one after another, to
take it up and break it. They all tried, but tried in vain. Then, untying the
bundle, he gave them the sticks to break one by one. This they did with the
greatest ease.
Then said the father, "Thus, my sons, as long as you remain united, you are a
match for all your enemies, but differ and separate, and you are undone."
Action:
List five ways you could dramatically increase the quantity and quality of
communication in your marriage ... team ... or organization.
Make it a great week!
Dr. Alan Zimmerman
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