Just Trust!
Somehow it has been ingrained in us, as a society, that we should be wary of trusting anyone. Sure, that may sometimes make sense when we initially meet someone. However, why at work is it so hard to trust the people who make up the organization?
Lack of trust impedes the forward movement every organization should be striving for.
We take the time to pre-screen candidates, have them speak to multiple people, possibly take a test of some sort, and so on... Yet, we have the hardest time trusting the people we hire. The result is an organization that is built around micromanagement, dictatorship, and fear.
Lack of trust in our employees is a main factor in impeding progress when transforming to being Agile. There's even an Agile principle that calls out,
"Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done."
So, why is it so hard to trust the people we hire? Is it that we don't want to give up the "power" associated with micromanaging, being constantly involved in details we don't need to be involved in, being constantly "heard", and so on.
Is it that we are so insecure in our ability to hire the right people? Is it that we are scared of small failures, not realizing small failures are the only way to prevent large failures?
I ask these questions to challenge us to think why we cannot trust the people we work with to get the job done. From management's point of view, it would seem a simple thing to do. Why not trust the people you hire? You did hire them for a reason.
So, let's drop our egos and our need to be "right", and trust the people around us to have grandiose ideas, to think outside the box, to be innovative, and to be allowed to do their job.
As Simon Sinek put it,
