A Question of Trust

I’ve just finished reading Turn the Ship Around! by Captain L. David Marquet, a former U.S. Navy submarine commander. The book chronicles Marquet’s successful efforts to turn the USS Santa Fe, a nuclear- powered submarine from worst to first in the fleet.

It is a remarkable account, not least because Captain Marquet found himself having to challenge nearly all the Navy’s traditional leadership principles as he struggled to build a high-performing team out of the chronically under-performing crew he inherited when he assumed command.

Working with a very tight deadline to meet exacting combat readiness standards, Marquet knew he had to quickly find a way to move the crew away from the Navy’s traditional “leader-follower” leadership paradigm. In its place, he would seek to establish a “leader-leader” approach that would shift his middle-level managers out of their comfort zone or “position of privilege” as he calls it towards one in which they actively sought out and accepted increasing levels of accountability, responsibility and work.

As he tried to implement this new approach, Marquet often found himself having to make direct contact with people below his immediate reports. In some cases, this was necessary to ensure clarity about how the new approach would work, in others it was to check up to see if the new way of managing was actually working.

Now this is a problem I can readily identify with. As Human Edge has continued to grow and expand, I too have found myself struggling to find the right balance between empowering colleagues who are often assuming managerial responsibilities for the first time and maintaining close contact with their team members in order to monitor work output and quality.

Like Marquet, I have been accused by managers of undermining their authority by not demonstrating sufficient trust in their managerial abilities. However, until I read Marquet’s book, I could never quite respond to such accusations the way I really wanted. I do trust them, but perhaps not quite in the way they expect.

Fortunately, Marquet manages to hit the nail on the head when he explains that “Trust means this: when you report that we should position the ship in a certain position, you believe that we should position the ship as you indicated. Not trusting you would mean that I thought you might be saying one thing while actually believing something else. Trust is purely a characteristic of the human relationship. Now, whether the position you indicate is actually the best tactical position for Santa Fe is a totally different issue, one of physics, time, distance and the movements of the enemy. These are characteristics of the physical world and have nothing to do with trust.”

And that, I guess, is the real point. As managers we have a duty to obtain the facts about a given situation. This may require us to check up on the handling of a situation by whatever means necessary, including the questioning of people closest to the action.

Turn the Ship AroundMany managers see this as an issue of exercising legitimate control and not a question of trust. But with hindsight, perhaps it is a question of trust. Our reports must “trust” us enough to believe that we will not intentionally seek to undermine their authority with team members.

Needless to say, achieving such high levels of trust requires considerable hard work. In particular, attention must be paid to ensuring that people are clear about their individual roles and responsibilities.

Once people understand what an organization is trying to achieve and how they can contribute to its success, most of the unproductive second guessing and mistrust gradually fades away.