COMMENTARY

An "Earned Trust" Model Breeds Success

February 2006

By Donald J. Pfundstein*
for New Hampshire Business Review

An organization's culture is one of its critical underpinnings. If individuals throughout the organization are in sync with the culture, a team will drive the business to success. Where individuals are disruptive and distrustful of the internal culture an organization will have difficulty achieving success. Disgruntled individuals make it difficult to get there.

I read the "Trust Fund" by Arthur Ciancutti, M.D., and Thomas Steding, Ph.D., with great interest. I actually read their article as published in the June 13, 2000, edition of Business 2.0 (which I no longer read), not the book by the same name.

The authors suggested the use of a trust model as a means of emphasizing and realizing the benefits of a culture of trust permeating throughout an organization. I share with you below one organization's earned trust model which hopefully may be of some use to you as you continue to review the direction of your own organization:

. We will provide everyone with the opportunity to meaningfully contribute to the continued success of the organization. We will insist that leadership be guided by this principle and allow each of us the opportunity to earn each other's trust and respect through demonstrated performance.

. We will endeavor to regularly communicate with every person in the organization and encourage and protect an environment for the free exchange of ideas by everyone. We will promote humor not inculcate fear or suspicion.

. Leadership will hold everyone accountable to the enterprise and will ensure mutual respect. Each of us will lead by example, not merely word.

. We will make our commitments to each other responsibly because we know you are relying on us to keep them.

. We will focus our energies in a constructive manner, emphasizing our respective strengths and working as a team to build on them.

. We will recognize authority to lead and manage in a manner consistent with these principles of earned trust but will not accept notions of entitlement, position or title.

. We will recognize that a true earned trust model is a continuous process and not a static set of principles. We commit to regularly review our organization to assure a culture based on providing opportunities, rewarding performance, demanding accountability, facilitating communication, encouraging creativity, and attracting, retaining and rewarding truly talented people.

Some have found it useful to have all members of an organization personally subscribe to the principles of the earned trust model. Those who don't personally commit to the principles probably should consider associating with another organization. Teams operating in a culture based on earned trust create success.

*Donald J. Pfundstein is admitted in New Hampshire.

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