The Rise of Distrust

Over the last year, we’ve run various programs to tackle the impact of COVID-19. Our first programs aimed to support organisations through the storm, with our Mindful Ways through Difficult Times. As the year has continued, and we’ve seen organisations adapt to the changes, we’ve received requests for programs focusing on improving team communication. If you want to hear more about these programs, book a call here.

What organisations are experiencing, research is backing and we are seeing first hand, is that while technology makes it easier to work remotely… working remotely makes it harder to establish real connection and understanding for each other.

The dislodgment from our usual hub where interactions happens naturally and face-to-face have put teams on edge, making them feel unnatural in their interactions or left out and removed from the decision making process. Overall, since the COVID outbreak, trust has taken a big hit.

When we miss out on thought processes and discussions, and actions are all we see, we question the action of other. We become suspicious and distrust seeps through the organisation. For staff this is especially true – already being removed one step from higher level decision processes due to the organisational map.

It’s easy then to go into lower level battles of right-or-wrong and win-or-lose, when what we should focus on is to seek a preferred outcome – for the organisation, the team or the individual.

So how to do we get back to better discussions and greater understanding?

The first thing that needs to be done is to understand at what levels the organisational distrust has risen to. Only then can we see what kind of intervention is needed to re-establishing trust. And the range is wide – it goes all the way from basic communication and usage of tone, how and when to use platforms like email and chats to team purpose and higher levels like influencing skills and managing differences.

Some of these might sound basic but these are absolutely fine to revisit, and essential to revisit, as the new order of a true hybrid world forms.

Hybrid is here to stay. We see it in the research that’s coming through and, most importantly, we hear it from you. Recently we ran a questionnaire which was backed up by one-on-one conversations to better understand what you are looking for in leadership development, how we best can support you and what you expect from thew future. More on this to come.