Shape of "Trust" - Pt 1
Multiple part essay on my observations and notes on how Technical Program Managers deal with and can foster a strong healthy culture of trust.
“There is a lack of trust between the teams which is hampering our progress.”
“Engineering doesn’t feel like they have the trust of the leaders so how can we be effective at our jobs.”
“Please don’t give that project to Engineer X, you can rely no them to get this done on time.”
“I can’t do my job as a TPM because I don’t have the leadership/engineers/product managers trust.”
“There is no point in escalating to Leader A; Senior leadership has no trust in them.”
“Trust is hard to build but easy to lose.”
Trust is the prime magic that makes organizations effective. Yet, it is the hardest thing to build.
We have all heard the above statements at some point in our career, or difficult projects. It usually comes in the oddest of hours, in the beer bashes, after work parties, and private 1:1s but never openly.
I have been thinking about this a lot late, the nature of trust and how TPMs can help build and foster a culture of trust. The obvious solutions of alignment, collaboration, honesty, work together, harmony, that all leaves me wanting a deeper think on the subject. What is trust and what does it look like?
I have observed TRUST to be multi-dimensional and multi-faceted. If you ask me, it is the sacred metric of the effectiveness of an engineering organization. Can you measure it? What KPIs or quantitive benchmarks do you use? Is it more “I will know it when I see it”?
Before we dive into the measure, I want to share my thoughts on what the shape of trust is that I have observed over the past severals years.
Trust comes in three shapes:
Pathways - trust within individuals
This trust is built upon the skills, qualification, mindset, talent you bring to a team. It speaks to your ability to rise on the occasion, how you are perceived to be working with others on your team. Are you a team player? Are you a team leader? Are you doing a great job? X person is senior and is expected to do a fantastic job. Can you lead big projects? Are you DRI material? This is why you were hired.
Roads - trust between teams
This trust is built on how well the teams collaborate, how well the managers get along, ability to negotiate priority changes, ability to deal with conflict without escalation, the combined skills of the team, their social standing as it pertains to the quality of their work.
Bridges - trust between leaders
Do the different leaders get along, can they have a rational honest conversation between them, how much politics is at play between them, how much stock does senior leadership place in their opinions, who is getting the most visible and profitable projects.
Are these shapes in an equilibrium or require balancing?
If your PATHWAYS and ROADS are strong, can that offset the lack of BRIDGES.
Can strong BRIDGES overcome the lack of ROADS because they have strong PATHWAYS to fall back on.
Can ROADS alone pull the weight of a dysfunctional set of BRIDGES.
Above all, how can we as Technical Programs Managers help foster PATHWAYS, maintain ROADS, and help build BRIDGES?
More to come in the next post. To be continued….
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