Positive high trust cultures are underpinned by collaboration, problem solving and great teamwork. These co-creative relationships drive innovation and high levels of employee engagement, customer satisfaction and productivity.

We see many organisations facing the same strategic and cultural challenges where improving relationships and how people work together and support each other would have a significantly positive impact. When we investigate the root cause of relationship challenges we find teams not trusting each other, frontline staff not trusting their managers, management not trusting the senior team or the senior team not trusting each other. This can flow into a lack of trust of customers and other external stakeholders. We find undercurrents of negativity, low satisfaction or silos of cynicism that business leaders struggle to eradicate. Low levels of trust result in wasted time, lower levels of productivity, reputational damage and a resulting impact on the bottom line.

Culture is played out by what people say and do every day. Seeing how people behave with each other, how they speak to each other, their customers and suppliers gives you a great barometer for levels of positivity and trust in your organisation. Developing excellent levels of collaboration, co-creation and co-operation are an essential step to creating a positive culture based on high trust. In a positive high trust culture people believe that everyone can be relied on to do what they say they will do and everyone is working productively towards a clearly laid out vision with a set of common goals. It requires the entire team to have a mindset of ownership and responsibility, optimism, respect for each other and a strong belief that they really make a difference.