People won’t follow you if they don’t trust you.

Trust has an enormous impact on organisations and our effectiveness as change leaders.

My guest on The New Way podcast this week is Melanie Marshall. Melanie is an author, speaker and coach who specialises in helping organisations build high performing cultures and trust transformations. Melanie has extensive public sector experience in complex, large-scale organisations, and private industry experience.

In this episode, we talk about how to build trust when leading change. Melanie defines trust at work as a personal decision individuals make for something they haven’t experienced yet. In this way trust requires vulnerability, it’s contextual and is based on folks’ past experiences AND the current situation.

A recent study published in the Harvard Business Review found high trust organisations reported 50% higher productivity and more than 100% higher energy at work from employees. I’m sure you immediately get how important cultivating a high trust environment can be when it comes to facilitating successful change initiatives.

In this ep you’ll discover:

The traits of high and low trust organisations (this was an a-ha moment for me!)
The 3 Cs of trust
The 9 core competencies you must focus on if you want to build trust at work
How to bake trust-building tactics into your change strategy
Word for word prompts you can use to quickly uncover an organisation’s trust level

You’ll find so much value in our conversation today. Listen in now!

TOPICS DISCUSSED AND WHERE TO FIND THEM:

[1:04]: A Harvard Business Review article found high trust organisations reported 50% higher productivity and more than 100% energy at work from their employees.

[4:13]: Melanie defines trust in organisations. It’s a personal decision that you make for something you haven’t experienced yet.

[5:56]: Trust is contextual and personal based on your previous experiences along with the current experience you’re going through.

[7:00]: A sense of safety in the workplace is a big indicator that trust is there.

[8:13]: Distrust in the organisation is felt very quickly. A sense of heaviness, lack of energy and joy, people just clock in and out and people tend to hide things.

[11:06]: Melanie takes us through the example of a canary in a coal mine to describe recovering from a toxic workplace.

[13:29]: When you understand the impact of trust in the organisational context, it is definitely tangible and has dollar figures attached.

[14:05]: Melanie believes you improve the employee experience first in order to get the customer experience. Leadership at all levels means you can trust yourself to take the risks and put your hand up when something can be done better or isn’t right.

[15:30]: Melanie explains the 3 Cs of trust: Connection, Clarity and Commitment.

[18:03]: Your level of commitment and consistency over time, builds trust in yourself and with others.

[19:06]: There are different types of transformation: 1. Improving what you’ve got now and enhancing your ability to deliver, and 2. Totally shifting your identity and changing what you do to deliver something completely different.

[19:48]: Melanie talks about the Heart and Soul Model. There are 9 core competencies: honesty, empathy, accountability, reliability, trust in yourself and others, sincerity, openness, understanding and a lasting focus.

[21:43]: If you don’t know how to create trust with someone, ask. When you’re a change leader, you do change impact assessments in partnership with the people who are going to be impacted.

[25:08]: Melanie asks every client the trust questions because they are the fastest way to get to the thing that matters the most to them.

[26:03]: Where to find Melanie.

ARTICLE MENTIONED:

Good Leadership? It All Starts With Trust.

CONNECT WITH MELANIE:

Website: https://melaniemarshall.com.au/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniemarshallaustralia/

Book: Trust: The foundation for Healthy Organisations and Teams

CONNECT WITH KATE

Website: https://www.everchange.com.au/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ever-change-and-communication

How To Build Trust When Leading Change with Melanie Marshall