Ton's Interdependent Thoughts: How to Measure Trust in Your Organisation?

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How to Measure Trust in Your Organisation?

In recent months I have spend
time regularly on trust and its implications for knowledge management. This has
all been sparked by a article of John Moore on the value of trust. Only last
week a whole new Trust Special
Interest Group on KnowledgeBoard.com has been started, which John moderates,
since the topic had become too large to be just a part of the Emotional
Intelligence SIG. A must-go-see for all who are interested in trust. Also I
wrote an article on the role of trust
in knowledge management myself, and among the people reacting to it, was
Frank Kouwe, who is knowledge manager with Waterschap De Dommel, a semi-governmental
institute for regional watermanagement. Last Friday we met and discussed how to
go about getting a picture of trustflows in his organisation. A sort of
temperature reading of trust. As I work for a company that deals with developing
questionnaires, e.g. for employee satisfaction measurement, it seemed likely to
start from there. Normally these types of research address communicational and
leadership issues in a company, topics which can also be viewed from a Trust
point of view. Both leadership and communication probably have large trust
components build into them. We strongly suspected that trust is not something
you can ask about directly. Either you won't get useable answers because the
questions get too abstract, or people will give answers that seem desireable. So
how to ask about trust in questionaires? We came up with the following points:

Give examples and ask what one what would do given this situation. (e.g.
Say, you don't trust a colleague, how would that affect your actions?)

Ask questions that address not only the existence but also the absence of
trust or distrust.

Ask what people think are trust generating actions, and also ask whether
they encounter them often or not within the organisation

Ask questions that give an indication of the general world view of the
person, as the discussion until now seems to indicate that there are people with
generally trusting views and generally distrusting views of the world.

Ask questions that address (organisational) change since this relates to the
previous point. This from the assumption that trust is openminded, forward
looking, and distrust correlates with stagnation, maintaining status quo, and
looking back.

Ask about opposing interests between people

Apart from asking questions,
you can also try to conduct a survey to do social network analysis, one making
an inventory of contacts people have, another doing the same for the people they
trust the most. This would give you a picture of where personal relationships in
your company are sparse, or where trusted people also form important nodes in
the social network. These people could be important trust 'hubs' in your
organisation. ("I trust John, because Peter trusts him, and I already trust
Peter", where Peter is the trust 'hub') A third approach to mapping trust could
be looking at incongruency between formal and informal structures in your
organisation, and also looking at what happens at boundaries between different
parts of your organisation. What messages are organisational structures giving
your people. For instance if you've put your support desk in the basement behind
the boiler room, what are you telling your people about the amount of support
they can trust on getting from you(r organisation)? Other structures to be
examined in this sense are measurements and reward systems. Are they having side
effects as trust-creating or trust-destroying messages to your people? Using an
idea from Chris Macrae, you could also try and map opposing interests and
blockades between parts of the organisation. By charting what obligations and
promises part of an organisations has to meet and keep, and then looking at
where keeping one promise leads to breaking another promise, you'll probably
find trust undermining structures in your organisation. The above is the result
of talking for an hour or so, and certainly needs more work to be useful. I'll
keep you informed of how we will move forward from here.

Permalink
(posted by Ton Zijlstra at November 24, 2002 09:02 PM)

Comments

Hi
I am studing my master degree in business leadership and is currently busy with an
assignment on leadership behaviour in the organization and more specific the role that certain constructs like trust, organizational commitment and pshycological contract play among employees and managers. We are conducting a survey on a national medical company and would appreaciate it very much if you can give me some
advise pertaining to how the qeustionnaire should look like. I maybe you have an example of such a questionare that I can take a look at, It will be very much appreciated.

Posted by: Stefan at February 14, 2004 03:55 PM

Advise me on how to conduct organisational survey and the contents of the questionnaire.

thanks
Ivy

Posted by: Ivy Saldanha at February 17, 2004 12:41 PM

Hi
I am studing my doctorate degree in education management and is currently busy with an
assignment on organisational citizenship behaviours in the organization and more specific the role that certain constructs like trust, organizational commitment and civic virtue play among employees and managers.We would appreaciate it very much if you can give me some
advise pertaining to how the questionaire should look like. Might tou help me how I could reach them.

Posted by: elif yapici at April 16, 2004 09:23 PM

i'm studyng my master degree in human resource management. The topic in thesis about organisational commitment. I appreciate if you give some questionare about that case. Thank's

Posted by: richard at May 15, 2004 07:07 AM

Hi,

I'm working on my final paper for a postmaster degree in auditing. I'm looking for a way to find out how to measure the trust of society in the work of an independent auditor, when he signs annual reports. Can somebody help me get started?

thanks/regards

Posted by: Sander at July 20, 2004 06:59 PM

Hello,

I am getting a degree on Internation Relations. Can you help with a lack of trust questionnaire?

Thanks

Posted by: Guyma Noel at March 29, 2005 12:10 AM

Dear sir,
I am doing PhD research, and my topic is 'Trust, distrust and national culture'. Can you please solve the problem of trust or distrust measurement in a business organisatgion, and can you send me a suggested questionaire format which I could use in obtaining a measured trust/distrust response from the participants.
Thanks and Regards
Syed

Posted by: Syed Rizvi at June 13, 2005 08:09 PM

Employees come to work with an implicit trust that their managers are always working for the best interest of the company and its employees. That trust should not and cannot ever be taken for granted. Look what is happening today. It is no longer "What's good for the company is good for the manager." It has become "What's good for the manager is good for the company." Top executives have totally lost sight of this phenomenon and are allowing managers to run amok for their own personal agendas.
Several years ago I wrote a book on the subject of workplace culture and employee morale. It is as relevant today as it was then. Employee morale is directly linked to the interaction of employees with line managers who are charged with executing the policies and strategies of companies. Unfortunately, many of these managers subvert the good intentions of the organization to meet their own personal goals and agendas at the expense of their peers and subordinates. This management subculture is the result of a corporate culture of ignorance, indifference and excuse. Better corporate level leadership is the key. Read more in "160 Degrees of Deviation: The Case for the Corporate Cynic."

Jerome Alexander

Posted by: Jerome Alexander at January 20, 2007 07:07 PM