In this essay, we explore the complexity of culture as it relates to trust, and how every culture is made up of different “ingredients” that evolve over time. For leaders, getting the recipe right makes all the difference, especially when one considers how culture is built.

Frankly, culture is a struggle for many companies, especially those that strive to create high trust companies. Why does it matter? HTCs have stronger revenue growth, better margins, lower customer churn, less employee turnover, more innovation and better risk adjusted returns on capital and healthier brands.

Here’s the executive summary (below), as well as the link to read more:  “Part Five: A Deeper Dive Into Connections-Based Trust.

 

Executive Summary

  • Connection-Based Trust is all about the non-competency, non-character things that keep us connected to others in a healthy way. Yet this is the area where most companies struggle. As a result, it’s the area where most companies have the biggest opportunity for gain.
  • Every culture might be compared to a soup, composed of a unique collection of ingredients, which are not all equally represented in terms of either the amount (aka weight or importance) or the impact (aka intensity of flavor). As such, cultures are created by a collection of chefs and sous chefs who are not all in the kitchen at the same time or watching one another as the soup gets made.
  • Creating the expected culture is one of the toughest things when building a great high trust company (HTC). The four dimensions (mixed together like ingredients of a soup, interdependent and complex in structure) include: values; individualism vs. collectivism; hierarchies, and time. The leader of leaders in every group owns their group’s culture.