As businesses continue to decentralize decision-making to meet the demands of the marketplace, effective collaboration within the organization, customers/clients, and partners is critical to success.
Management must engage employees with behaviors that build greater levels of trust or Relationship Capital (RC). The days of commanding the workplace to achieve organizational objectives are over. The expectations of multiple generations of workers must be understood and acted upon.
The reality today is that most employees do not have much hope that any meaningful change is going to happen in their work group or enterprise.
Management must do the following on a consistent basis to build Relationship Capital (RC):
- Willingness to be Vulnerable – Communicate to the staff that you do not have all the answers
- Act with Humility – This will enforce the importance & respect from all members of the team and their ideas.
- Communicate Gratitude – Nothing inspires empowered action as saying “thank you” and showing appreciation.
- Explicit Communication of Expectations – Transformational Change does not usually happen over night. So it is important to share your expectations and solicit expectations from all the members of the team.
Most of our business experience has been accomplishing objectives in a command & control authoritative structure. To meet the demands of the marketplace and act consistently & effectively in a truly collaborative manner, requires principles of behavior & communication that earn trust with every interaction (individually and with the team).
This is not another organizational development program you are implementing. This is a cultural shift that commits to guiding principles of honesty, accountability, responsibility, support, respect, boundaries, and trustworthiness that builds tangible levels of Relationship Capital (RC) to achieve objectives.
-Rob Peters
