Trust, Sociology, and IT

by Ioana Justus

In my last blog, I talked about how to build trust with a customer, and the advantages of doing so. By building a relationship of trust, communication becomes more open, allowing the customer to feel comfortable sharing their needs, and allowing the IT service provider to better customize service and anticipate needs. This concept also extends to intra-IT interactions – or regular life interactions, for that matter.

Sociologists will tell you that humans are social creatures – even the most introverted of our species require interaction with others. There is also the concept of the “inner circle” – each person has an “in” crowd that they trust and want to interact with. Evolutionarily, having such a group ensured survival: the group would mutually protect each other and they worked together to find food and raise children. The flip side of this evolutionary model is the rest of the world: If you’re not part of the inner circle, you’re not trusted and are thus treated with suspicion, prejudice, or even disdain. Individuals in your inner circle get the benefit of the doubt when they do something wrong, and you are compelled to help them through it. Individuals not in your inner circle are assumed to be malicious when they do something wrong, and you are compelled to be defensive and accusatory toward them for it.

It frequently surprises me how people assume that things in the IT or business world work so differently than they do in daily life, when there is actually little or no difference. We are the same humans with the same genetic make-up whether we’re home in our sweats or at work in our suits. Everyone knows that the best way to get a new job is to network with people at the target company, and many a manager has been accused of favoritism – Mary got a perk that I didn’t get because the boss “likes her better” (i.e., trusts her more) than me. Even security networks are built on trust (e.g., PGP): if I trust you and you trust John, then I can trust John.

So it stands to reason that if we can increase trust in the workplace, everything gets better: issues get resolved faster, there are fewer nasty surprises, there is greatly increased communication, and a strong desire to be inclusive. This then results in better collaboration between IT teams, which increases sense of ownership that in turn decreases errors and improves the overall quality of deliverables. All of this makes the customer – and thus the boss – happier.

But how do you go about this? Theoretically, it’s simple: communicate and include. Practically, it’s quite a bit more challenging. Make it a point to build trust with your coworkers, especially where you know it doesn’t exist today. At work, your inner circle is most likely your immediate team. But you probably work regularly with other teams. Are you accusatory of them? Do you have a less than impressed opinion? Do you think they screw up or are sub-par? Do they point their fingers at you? Those are the individuals you most want to target. Be sure to have face-to-face meetings with them – it’s a lot harder to think someone’s a jerk when they’re sitting right there. When you invite them to the table, ask everyone (including you and your team) to leave their prejudice at the door. Talk about what’s going wrong openly and honestly, with the intent to fix the problem, not lay blame. This may take some time, but have the good will to keep trying, and consider engaging a practiced facilitator if needed (many people are naturally good facilitators, but if you need someone who has been specially trained, try looking in HR or the training department). Extend gestures of goodwill by inviting the other team to an outing (e.g., lunch or drinks after work) or to meetings that they should’ve been invited to but weren’t. Above all, really listen to their perspective and make an effort to see their point of view. It might take a while, but what you’ll notice over time is increased respect and much smoother workings between you.

It may be a bit pie-in-the-sky, but imagine if you had trust with every team you worked with. I guarantee you’d be a happier employee and you’d enjoy your job a lot more. You’d also get work done faster with higher-quality results, making your customers and supervisors happier, too. And in this tenuous economic climate of cost-cutting and down-sizing, that’s maybe as close to job security as any of us can get.