I am Aarihant Aaryan! Welcome to the Iron sharpen Iron newsletter,
I share my homework from my startup journey every week, learning about human behavior, and sometimes decoding industries and business models for fun.
I can’t control my curiosity :) )
I started working very early in my life, I was fortunate to work diverse workplaces.
Couples of weeks back when I was thinking what is the difference between a company that’s extremely successful ( success = all the team members experiencing some level of growth in monetary value or experiential value) & company that’s stagnant
The major difference is how trust flows in the company
Most companies constantly seek trust first, instead of trusting their team first
You can't be trusted, if you don't trust first in the company -> teams trust on management is absolutely important, otherwise the company is dead
How low trust companies operate:
Most companies and organizations have low trust behavior which makes them micro manage everything
In low trust behavior only few people in the team are trusted with everything, if that one key person quits - entire organization goes into paralysis mode
In low trust companies, the management wants to know every process every initiative and control them irrespective of their competency in that
In low trust companies, the entire and departments wait to get the approval of the senior authority, hence delays execution and the desire of the team to do something exceptional declines
In low trust companies there is lesser bond among the team,
people share opinions and gossips vs ideas
In low trust companies the management decides what it wants for the customer without talking to the team or looking at the data
In low trust companies the team fights among them to win the trust of the management, the team ends up doing things that pleases the management - but they were called to do things that please the customer
Low trust companies eat efficiency for breakfast
How high trust companies operate:
The company is in a pursuit to use their resources and build the team member vs using the team member to build their resources - They are never insecure about people consuming all the resources and leaving them
The company will take the leap and trust you first, companies like CRED send laptops once the candidate is hired. Most of the best western companies pays salary at beginning of the month and not end of month. I.E pay for march on 1st march and not end of march. Trust is earned. And reciprocated when you do it first.
High trust companies share wealth with their teams, since it is easy to lead a shareholder team vs salaried employees
The team constantly shares the win and losses together, everyone has the ownership mindset. One of the observations I have made is when a team member is rewarded he shares the reward with everyone on his team - that signals that team has built a bond that stronger than outcomes, same behavior can be seen in sports teams.
You are highly trusted to execute your ideas and your work is rarely checked
Would love to know if you work at a high trust or low trust environment - do let me know in the comments :))
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