Morale, Trust & Partnership 

To meet these challenges and take full advantage of their restructuring efforts, companies will have to address a frequently neglected aspect of organisational life - the moods of the company. Managers need to know how to help employees maintain a positive, productive mood about their place and future in the company. Autonomous teams need to build trust among team members and a mood of dedication to satisfying the customer. Companies - and especially their marketing representatives - need to build trust and foster a mood of partnership that will have customers coming back again and again.

In speaking of moods, we are not using the word strictly in its usual sense of "feelings" or "emotions." We refer instead to the ways in which people's past experiences predispose them to certain actions. For example, an employee who has seen many corporate initiatives come and go with little effect is likely to make only the minimum effort when the next announcement comes along. He may do little more than complain to his peers about how out-of-touch executives are, reinforcing the cynical mood of the whole group. In contrast, someone who has received high quality products and prompt, honest service at a reputable car dealership will probably patronise them again in the future. Her glowing stories of satisfaction will help build the dealership's reputation in the community.

We can interpret moods in terms of assessments that people have about the future. The employee in our example may expect that the new company effort will not improve the company's reputation with customers or his own possibilities for advancement and job security. The customer in our other example may expect that if she returns to her favourite dealership for a new car, she will receive good value and be treated well. These are not assessments that either person makes consciously. It is simply obvious to the employee that no new initiative is going to turn the company around, and it just wouldn't occur to the customer to look for a car anywhere else. For this reason, we sometimes refer to a mood as an "automatic assessment."

By taking moods out of the purely personal, subjective realm and into the realm of assessment, companies can begin to take action to produce and shift moods in their organisations, teams and customer relationships. We can design practices for helping people to shift out of unproductive moods, for building trust in internal and customer relationships, and for cultivating the mood of satisfaction with customers.

This unproductive interpretation of moods leads people to focus on the past, to try to blame their bad moods on some recent event. Since one can't undo the past, this offers them little leverage in controlling their moods. We propose that to begin to manage our moods and build stability, we should focus instead on the future. When we interpret moods as assessments about our future prospects, suddenly we are able to take action, because the future hasn't happened yet. We can choose to take responsibility for our moods and to resolve to take actions to improve our prospects.

Another challenge to managing our moods is the fact that we are constantly immersed in the assessments of the people around us. Very soon any group begins to have a mind of its own; something to give it purpose and drive it. Any group develops standards for behaviour that all the members expect each other to uphold. We take other people's opinions as indications of our future, as if they were inevitable truths about our personal character. So there is enormous pressure to conform.

But our own automatic assessments and the opinions of others do not determine our future. Whatever the source of a person's negative mood may be, he or she can begin to shift out of it by:

Identifying the assessment

The person may ask themselves, "what is the assessment about the future implied by my mood?" (Some typical moods and associated assessments are presented in the exhibits Typical Assessments for Some Negative Moods and Typical Assessments for Some Positive Moods.)

Grounding the assessment

The person may inquire, "is this assessment grounded?" By "grounded" we mean that a person can point to specific observable actions and events - not just the opinions of others - to support their assessment.

Speculating about new assessments and actions

When a person decides that a negative assessment is ungrounded, that in itself often begins to break the mood. In either case, the person may ask themselves, "what mood and assessment do I want to build toward?" and "what actions can I take that would create a more positive assessment about my prospects?"

Resolving to shift out of the mood and take action

The person may declare that a different assessment about the future is possible and that he or she is committed to take the actions that will bring about that new possibility.

If people do not recognise that moods and assessments can be examined and shifted in this way, negative moods threaten to become permanent life-styles, as if the future is already settled. Even when they feel good, people are worried about the really bad thing that is going to happen next. People caught in this trap cannot develop serenity or ambition about their future.

Here is where morale begins to be connected with a wider question, beyond any transitory mood or particular situation. For in the long term, a person's morale - whether he or she moves with confidence, eagerness and ambition - is driven by their interpretation of the future in general. A common belief is that the future is basically an extension of what is going on today. From this, and the notion that moods are assessments about future prospects, it is easy to see how people get trapped in negative moods and become ineffective. If something bad happens, it is as if their entire future will be determined by that event. Everything seems hopeless, and they don't see any possibility of taking action to repair the damage.

And so we find that to manage our own moods and cultivate enduring strong morale, we need a different understanding of the future as well. We suggest that the most important key to generating moods of challenge, confidence and ambition is to understand that people create the future in the commitments they make to each other and the actions that they take together. This notion - that we invent the future together - can be the source of a great sense of serenity.

Typical Assessments for Some Negative Moods

Negative Moods

Resignation "Nothing is going to improve this situation; it has always been this way and it always will be; there is nothing I can do to change it."

Despair "There is a disaster approaching quickly; I don't see how anyone can prevent it; I don't know what to do next."

Distrust "I don't believe that you really intend to fulfil the promise you made to me," or "I don't believe that you are able to fulfil the promise you made to me."

Resentment "You have limited my future opportunities, and it's useless to complain to you." Also often, "Those idiots have screwed us up again and the people in authority (Them) refuse to listen to our complaints."

Confusion "I don't see what is going on here. I don't know what to do next. I don't see anything good coming out of this situation, and I don't like it."

Panic "I assess that I'll never be able to keep up with all of my responsibilities if I do not work harder and faster right now."

Arrogance "I already know what's going on here. Your comments may be interesting in a way, but if you want the real truth about this situation, then listen to me."

Typical Assessments for Some Positive Moods

Positive Moods

Ambition "There are future opportunities for me in this situation and I am committed to take action to make them happen."

Serenity "I accept that the future is uncertain, that both good and bad will come unexpectedly, and I am grateful to life."

Trust "I believe that you are sincere and that you are able to fulfil your promises to me."

Acceptance "I understand that there are certain things that I cannot do and cannot change, but I am still grateful to life."

Wonder "I don't know what is going on here, but the world seems full of new opportunities, and I like it!"

Resolution "I see opportunities here and I am going to take action right now."

Confidence "I have successful experience in this area, and I am competent to act in this situation."

Our capacity for invention is not limitless. We must learn to accept those things that are clearly impossible: we will not live forever, and we cannot fly without machines to help us. But for most of the events and situations that put us into bad moods, we always have a way out- taking action with others. The future is always unfolding and has not happened yet. It's a future in which a person can make a difference. He or she can be committed to participate in inventing the future. That's the core of a person's identity: people see each other in terms of how they work with others to create future possibilities. And when people really own that commitment, they can build moods of challenge and serenity, and avoid getting caught up in temporary setbacks and the moods of others around them.

Moods, Morale and Teams

Learning how to manage moods is also a key responsibility of a productive team member. Since negative moods close off possibilities and disrupt our coordination with others, moods are not just "personal." They are a morale issue and a productivity issue. Managers need to watch the moods of their teams and help individuals to manage their moods.

People who fail to manage their moods exhibit a lack of respect for their team mates. Instead of counting on these people to fulfil their role on the team, they are constantly having to take up the slack and work around them. In contrast, when we see a particularly effective team at work, the team members seem to be "in tune" with each other. While they may not think of it in these terms, they are committed to maintain their team in a mood of ambition, focused on the future that they are inventing together.

Certainly we are not suggesting that people can avoid being affected by, for example, announcements of layoffs. But when people get trapped in a mood, when it becomes their standard attitude about their work, it is really a personal choice. We suggest that whether they think of it explicitly or not, people take one of two fundamental stances: life is something that they are inventing, or life is something that happens to them, and they react to their circumstances.

When people make this second choice, they are doing two things. They are absolving themselves of responsibility, which can seem like an easy course to take. But they are also cutting themselves off from the power to improve their circumstances, and to build their own identity in the world. The widespread presence of moods of cynicism, victimisation and resentment demonstrate the prevalence of this attitude in many of our institutions today. These moods are a major obstacle to teamwork, as well as to building the trust between different functions of an organisation that is required for cross-functional initiatives.

Cynicism is a kind of resignation in which a person has given up on the possibility of change. Cynics are no longer committed to the values and goals of the team or company, but they are hanging on for other reasons such as their position, salary, benefits, and so on. Frequently these people voice complaints like "the company is so big that I can never move it," "nobody listens to my suggestions" and "they are giving me 'stuff to keep me busy' and refuse to recognise my true capabilities."

Victimisation is an attitude in which all of a person's moods and circumstances are the fault of others, or of an unresponsive system. These people live in the story that they have no real power in the organisation, but they also have no commitment to build power. Everything that happens to them is beyond their control and they do not see that this is largely a matter of their own choice.

The resentful person feels that other people in the organisation aren't pulling their weight, but isn't about to say that outside of a small group of friends. He or she separates the company into three groups: his or her own team, which is working hard and getting things done, the "idiots" that are causing all the problems, and the people in authority who refuse to do anything about those idiots ("them"). It is a mood in which a person abdicates all personal commitment by refusing to talk to the "idiots" or "them" about what needs to be improved.

These moods stem from two sources. The first is the mood that is around in the company. People get captured by the moods of others and reinforce each other's negative moods. This is a phenomenon that cannot be helped. As we've said, though, these moods persist because people fail to take responsibility for inventing their own future. This is an opening for people to start to destroy these moods on an individual basis. The way to get out of these moods is to recognise them, realise that they are given to people by the larger social context, and that we will fall into them from time to time. At the same time, a person can commit to making certain declarations and taking certain actions to shift out of those moods.

People can declare who they want to be, and what role they will play in the company. They can commit to the missions of their teams, and to take action toward fulfilling those missions. They can commit to staying out of these destructive moods, and to be open to talking about them when they arise unnoticed. They can be authentically critical and sceptical where they see the organisation needs improvement. This means to speak up and try to change things or honestly work to improve their own part of the whole. Above all, they can commit to avoid swallowing or whispering complaints behind peoples' backs, because that is the road to resentment. They may be greeted with hostility by some for taking a stand, but in the end if they can prove that their way is valuable, they will get the credit. This is how someone accumulates the power that is so absent from the victim's story.

People are going to be powerful when they discover that they can be the architect of their own lives, no matter what is happening in "the system." It is true that we don't control many things. But we can have intentions and can invent the kind of person that we want to be. This is the root of strong morale, and without this there is no teamwork, no long-run commitment to anything and no excellence.

We suggest that trust is neither a spontaneous nor an arbitrary feeling. It is not something we develop from "inside" as some ambiguous, personal, internal phenomenon. Trust is built in relationships when we demonstrate real concern about the well-being of others and manage our commitments rigorously. In our interpretation, trust is a mood that involves several related assessments. When we trust someone, we judge that a person is sensitive to our concerns and will fulfil his or her promise.

This is rarely a conscious decision. Generally, we experience this mood as an undifferentiated attitude about a person. We either trust the person to fulfil the promise or not. But we can also distinguish a number of aspects of trust. In doing so, we can learn both to be prudent in making our own assessments of trust and to identify actions that can build trust with others.

First, we do not typically trust people unreservedly in all domains. We might trust a physician to make promises to take care of our body, and not trust him or her to fix our car. We might trust someone to make promises to attend business meetings on time, but not to be punctual at family affairs. Also, we can distinguish three separate concerns that are always relevant to our assessments of trust. (These concerns appear briefly in the accompanying exhibit, Fundamentals of Trust). Whenever we accept a promise, we make a judgment of the other person's sincerity - whether the person actually intends to do what has been promised. We also assess the person's competence to take the actions promised and his or her involvement and commitment to the relationship. We can trust people in one of these areas and distrust them in another.

Sincerity

When someone makes a promise to us, we open new possibilities and simultaneously expose ourselves to potential problems. One of the risks we take is the possibility that the person may not be sincere. People are sincere when their promises are consistent with their own thoughts or what they say to others. Conversely, we say a person is insincere when we assess that he or she is hiding something - that he or she has a "private conversation" that is different from the spoken commitment.

When we have had experience with someone, we usually have developed some general impression of his or her sincerity. But we often face the need to accept or reject a person's sincerity without any prior experience or reports from other people to ground our assessment. Sometimes an opportunity arises suddenly, and if we take time to investigate the person, we will miss the chance to take advantage of the offer. We also may find that the appearance of questioning a person's sincerity can be damaging to a relationship, and not worth the risk involved.

In such cases, people often react according to a few predispositions for trust. These are like lifestyles; each person has a characteristic attitude toward new situations. We distinguish four possibilities: trust, prudence, naiveté, and distrust.

The trusting person is aware that people may be insincere, but typically accepts a promise when there is no obvious reason for not doing so. A prudent person will always investigate before making a request or accepting an offer. The naïve person trusts unreservedly with no thought to the possibility of harm. And the distrustful person is suspicious and hard to convince when there is reason to believe a person’s sincerity.

Fundamentals of Trust

Competence: The assessment that a performer is capable of reliable and timely performance in some domain. The performer builds this assessment by recurrently performing according to accepted standards and by rigorous management of his or her promises. This means either completing promises on time, or counter- offering, revoking, and declining in a timely fashion.

Sincerity: The assessment that a performer is serious and reliable in his or her commitments. The performer does not make promises that he or she does not intend to fulfil or that he or she is unable or incompetent to complete.

Intimacy: The assessment that a performer is committed to the future well being of the customer and the possibilities for collaboration. The performer builds this assessment by listening to the concerns of the customer and continually articulating new conditions of satisfaction for them. The performer also demonstrates respect for the customer as a partner by respecting confidentiality and refraining from alliances with competitors.

Each of these predispositions contains a certain danger. The naïve person will receive the benefit of sincere promises but is also highly likely to be manipulated by others. On the other hand, distrust can restrict both our capacity to coordinate actions with others and new possibilities that may develop. Trusting people are open to new possibilities, but also expose themselves to risk.

One might think that the best course would always be prudence - not suspicious but minimising risk by investigating the sincerity of the person making the promise. In a rapidly changing world, though, life can be a very fast dance that continually presents us with requests and promises. If we were to take the time to gather evidence for all our assessments of sincerity, we would lose other possibilities. Often, we simply trust or distrust, deciding in favour of either opening new possibilities or avoiding risks.

Competence

Whenever we receive a promise we also need to assess the person's competence. We might assess that despite being sincere, the person is not competent to deliver the conditions of fulfilment. For example, an eight-year-old child may say, "Mum, don't worry. Go to your meeting. I'll cook dinner tonight." That mother may not doubt her child's sincerity but, at the same time, she can assess that the child lacks the competence to fulfil that promise.

Reliability is a crucial aspect of competence, and is especially important in business relationships. Often we think of reliability in terms of recurrence. People are reliable when they can perform some action not just once in a while, but whenever requested.

However, reliability also concerns a person's general competence to manage commitments. Are people able to fulfil the promise on time? When they fulfil the promise, are they fulfilling what we asked? If they are not clear on the conditions of satisfaction, do they ask questions to find out? Do they call in a timely manner if they can't fulfil the promise, or cancel and make a new promise? These are some of the observations we make and the questions we ask to determine if someone is reliable.

When we make a promise, we normally anticipate the actions needed to complete the conditions of fulfilment. But we cannot predict the future. We may need to alter our priorities and resolve unexpected problems. In these circumstances, we may need to revoke the promise.

Whenever we do so we need to consider the consequences. Breaking a promise to a team mate can affect a person's reputation for reliability, and breaking a promise to a customer can sour a relationship, perhaps even lose an account. We must also observe that the cost of not breaking a promise may be even higher. For instance, if someone has promised to chair a meeting, and right before entering, she is told that a member of her family has been injured in an accident - she might need to revoke her promise. She may assess that despite the potential cost for her team or company, she must take care of her relative.

Keeping promises and revoking them when appropriate builds the mood of trust in our relationships and contributes to our dignity. It is important not to become slaves to our promises, to try to complete all our commitments despite the cost to ourselves. And, there are actions that we can take to reduce the cost of breaking a promise and preserve our reputation for reliability. We need to promptly alert the person to whom we made the promise. We could offer an alternative way to address the concern involved in our promise. We might offer compensation for damages we may cause. We may need to explain why we changed our priorities. And, we need to know and accept that whenever we break a promise we may pay in terms of our own identity, the reputation of our teams, and the reputation of our companies.

Intimacy

We are concerned with sincerity and competence whenever we accept any promise. In some situations, such as making a simple request that can be completed immediately or buying a commodity product, these may be our only concerns with trust. But in a longer- term relationship, such as buying equipment that needs maintenance or contracting for custom-designed products and services, intimacy becomes a crucial issue. (See the accompanying exhibit, Trust in Customer Relationships.)

Intimacy is an assessment we make about the future of a relationship. We say there is a high degree of intimacy when individuals or corporations are strongly committed to continuing a relationship, and little intimacy when they are committed only to the immediate transaction. Among the members of a team, intimacy involves a long-term commitment to the team, to the team’s current mission, and to the development of new projects. Companies and their customers are intimate when they have a strategic relationship, perhaps even collaborating on the development of new offers.

Neither high nor low intimacy is inherently good or bad. A crack team can come together to handle a single emergency. A company can deliver excellent service on only one occasion. On the other hand, a team can persist by sheer inertia when it is no longer needed. If a company has little competition or the cost of switching between providers is large, customers can become trapped in an unsatisfying relationship. In this case, market conditions, and not superior service, maintain the relationship.

Conclusion

As the competitive environment continues to shift toward close alliances and long-term customer relationships, managing moods and building trust will be increasingly recognised as critical skills for any business. A company that is truly acting as a partner and is meticulous about managing its moods and commitments can build a very strong identity in the marketplace. That company will be able to charge a premium price for its services, and enjoy strong morale and intimate ties with customers, vendors, and others.