Trust Part 5: Connection-Based Trust

It’s time to dive deep into one of the three dimensions of trust: connection-based trust. This dimension binds or repels us the most; without it, the other two forms of trust are irrelevant. If we can’t even stand connecting at the most basic level, does it really matter if the other person is competent or has good character? In my opinion, connection is the area that most companies — assuming they have a relatively well-thought-out Vision, a decent product and/or service, and a big enough target market to sustain themselves long-term — struggle with the most (and have the biggest opportunity to improve upon).

As I wrote about earlier in this series, connection-based trust is all about the things that keep us connected in a healthy way:While all the items in the above table could also be categorized as culture-based, I purposely chose not to call the connection dimension “the culture dimension” because I prefer to keep concepts like purpose, goals, investment, and compatible interests separate from discussions about the health of a company’s culture.

However, it’s important to note that connection-based trust revolves around our culture and our Core Values. Organizations run by enlightened founders (that is, those who make decisions based upon the best interests of their Ideal Stakeholders over the longer run) minimize time shared with people they don’t trust, who hurt them, who bring them down, or who have materially conflicting values, interests, competencies, or goals and don’t respect their unalienable rights and needs. These founders create explicit, coherent, and resonant cultures with mutually shared Core Values — the fundamental characteristics and behaviors that connect people into a tribe.

Connection and Culture

At the core of every company are its people. Everyone says this, but anyone who has ever worked in a company knows it to be true. We also know that our life satisfaction and well-being are fairly dependent upon our level of work satisfaction. Not only that, our work satisfaction significantly depends on our sense of fulfillment in our work relationships. I believe high-trust companies (HTCs) are those where the vast majority of team members genuinely love not just their Work but their workplace. And this is majorly dependent on the organizational culture they’re part of each day.

In their book Tribal Leadership, David Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright describe five distinct levels of organizational culture. Each level is defined by how the people in the company feel each day.

I dive more deeply into this framework in our Culture Brief. In my opinion, it’s possible for teams, departments, and companies to start at any level and for them to go up and down based upon both internal and external factors.

I’ve come to think of culture as a soup, one that’s created by a unique mix of ingredients that aren’t all equally represented in quantity or impact. Every time you add or remove something from the mixture, the very essence of it changes. Too much of this, not enough of that, or any of this other stuff could ruin the dish. It’s the exact dynamic associated with building a great company culture. And to make things even more complicated, this soup is always created by a collection of chefs and sous chefs who are not all in the kitchen at the same time, supervising, as the soup is created. Ugh, right?

The result of all the above is that, especially when it comes to company cultures:

• Some cultures are very purposeful, while other cultures are random.
• Some cultures are relatively simple, while some are a bit more complicated and composed of a lot of ingredients in various quantities.
• Most cultures have at least a few ingredients that were either accidentally or secretively added.
• Some cultures are healthy, other cultures are becoming spoiled, and some are outright toxic.
• Cultures are living things that evolve over time and, as such, constantly need to be tended to. (Building and maintaining a high-trust culture is a never-ending task.)
• Some cultures will appeal to our sense of taste, and others we will find unpleasant and even revolting.
• The leader of leaders in every group owns their group’s culture.

In my experience, one of the toughest things about building a great HTC is creating a culture that:

• You and virtually all your team members love
• Attracts the kind of talent you not only need but want to be connected to
• Repels the people who don’t like your unique collection of ingredients (Those are the people who will try to reformulate, if not poison, your soup.)
• Is conducive to building an extraordinarily productive, humane, and resilient company

There has been a tremendous amount of research on culture across all sorts of demographics, including countries, regions, tribes, communities, and even companies. From that research, coupled with years of experience building, running, and scaling companies, I believe that HTCs have cultures that not only recognize the importance of people and their need to matter but also minimize the inherent friction associated with all these different types of people coming together and breaking apart to do Work. To do that, they develop cultures built on trust with a small collection of very well-developed Core Values.

Connection and Core Values

Without a clear set of deeply shared values, there cannot be an enduring connection. If you want to lead and build something that endures, I believe that, sooner or later, you need to understand how and why people think and act as they do. As Jim Collins and Jerry Porass masterfully presented in Built to Last (the book that unquestionably launched my career), enduring companies are founded, and later led, by individuals who not only provide their organizations with strong and well-defined philosophical belief systems but endeavor to ensure the systems persevere. Many of us call these Core Values, and I’ve written about them extensively in the past, including in the recent Grow or Die Series and in the 90u Library with a step-by-step brief on creating your company’s Core Values.

We all have values. Some values are strongly held (such as what’s good and important tends to endure and is typically widely held by a group), while others are more personal and subject to change (like what’s useful, beautiful, desirable, or constructive). Values help us distinguish between important or not important, desirable or not desirable. They help us find our kind of people and steer clear of the wrong people for us. They are a tightly aligned set of lights that guides us toward and away from actions.

In other words, values help us form a hierarchy for thinking, feeling, doing, and protecting (all four of which are needed to create and innovate) that not only simplifies our choices but also makes it significantly easier for us to Work and, through our Work, make life better. That’s what makes genuine, well-crafted Core Values one of the key ingredients necessary for building and maintaining a high-trust company.

Core Values are 100% about connection-based trust. I’ve worked with dozens of companies that dilute their Core Values with words, concepts, or traits related to character or competency. The problem with this is that character-based traits like “integrity” and “honesty” are table stakes and add little value. In the words of author Patrick Lencioni, these values are “permission to play,” not distinct defining characteristics. Likewise, incorporating competency-based traits like “innovative” and “detail-oriented” in our Core Values is also problematic because they typically don’t apply to every seat in the company.

Consider this: Do you really need your Accounting team to be constantly innovative and always pushing the boundaries — or would you rather they were dependable, organized, and predictable? You see the problem.

Instead, Core Values must focus on what connects every single person in your company on the most basic, foundational level. These connection-based Core Values will stand the test of time, and you can use them to assess every person in your company and every candidate you consider hiring.

Connecting to our Purpose

Without connection-based trust, we can never get the full power out of our organizations.

After more than a couple decades living on this planet, most of us have learned that there are all sorts of groups out there — some we’re attracted to and comfortable within, and some we’d rather not be a part of. This doesn’t mean we can’t coexist and thrive without belonging to all possible groups. And it certainly doesn’t mean that different groups cannot get along.

What it does mean, however, is that we are not well suited for all groups and, frankly, not all groups want us. Some groups need a certain level of competency we don’t possess (for example, an NBA team for more than 99.99% of humans), and some require a character trait that we may not possess (for example, a spy ring for me — I couldn’t lie well enough to save my life). Many groups also possess values that don’t match well with ours.

Deep down, I believe we all want to matter, and for us to matter, we need to feel like we’re making life better. This is consistent with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. If we matter, we’ll have a reasonable likelihood of developing comprehensive self-esteem. I write “developing” because you cannot give someone self-esteem; you have to earn it for it to be yours. It’s not enough to just say everyone should be born with it. You earn it. You own it. You can take it with you if you want to move to another tribe (aka company). I like to say, “To matter, you have to matter.” You can’t just want to matter; you must earn it.

For team members to fulfill that need to matter, they must believe that their Work matters. They must buy into the company’s Compelling Why, a purpose they are pursuing with an entire tribe of people deeply connected by a shared culture and resonant Core Values.