How important is trust in partnership working?

“We need to build trust with each other if we’re going to succeed”.

It’s a phrase I hear a lot in conversations between different organisations.

But is it true?

The term ‘trust’ is ubiquitous in the business world, but there are lots of different definitions.

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary says that trust is the belief that ‘…somebody or something is good, sincere, honest, and will not try to harm or trick you’.

Trust has also been described as the process by which people obtain ‘psychological safety’ by assessing others’ characters, including the qualities of competence, benevolence, and integrity.

Suffice to say, the meaning of ‘trust’ can vary widely, depending on your perspective.

But why is trust important?

According to the Harvard Business Review (HBR), people at high-trust companies report numerous benefits including 106% more energy at work, 50% higher productivity, and 40% less burnout.

A high-trust organisation is one where employees can take risks, express themselves, and innovate.

Between organisations, trust has been associated with enhanced performance, better co-ordination of resources, and improved productivity.

More pertinently for collaboration, research suggests that trust operates on three different ‘levels’: interpersonal, interorganisational, and at ‘systems’.

This is important because, while trust between individuals has long been argued as key to collaboration, others have argued that ‘institutionalised practices and routines for dealing with a partner organisation…’ transcend the influence of individuals that span organisational boundaries.

In other words, organisational culture probably trumps interpersonal relationships when it comes to trust.

The implication for collaboration is that trust between leaders of different organisations probably isn’t enough for long-term success: trust needs to be ‘institutionalised’, amongst other things, in the form of decision-making, processes, and procedures.

This is perhaps why senior leaders that work in collaborative roles across organisations can sometimes feel frustrated at a lack of progress, despite having strong working relationships with each other.

Yet all is not lost.

Research also shows that if we initially focus on getting just a few things right, ‘constellations’ of people can collaborative effectively before they’ve had time to build trust.

Indeed, some have argued that focusing too much on trust can detract away from collaboration and drive inertia.

Funnily enough, I was recently in a meeting with a breadth of professionals to discuss developing a local multi-disciplinary team.

In advance of the meeting, we held an online survey to act as a baseline assessment for the success of our project.

One of the survey questions asked to what extent we all trusted each other to work more collaboratively.

11% said ‘a great deal’, 11% said ‘a moderate amount’, 56% said ‘a little’ 22% said ‘other’, and 0% said ‘none at all’.

In summary: we don’t particularly trust each other, yet, but were still able to agree the patients we wanted to prioritise, how we’d work together, and a plan of action.

So perhaps we need a minimum level of trust to start collaborating, but over time, this trust between individuals needs to be ‘institutionalised’ to enable greater success. 

In my experience it’s best to initially focus on achieving tactical successes that can later be converted into more strategic gains.

Otherwise, the risk is that you’ll spend endless amounts of time discussing trust, designing complicated governance to hold each other to account, and ultimately, not getting anywhere.

This is particularly the case when the pressure bites and organisations can become more inwardly facing and as a result, develop a ‘fortress mentality’ that impedes collaboration.

So how can we build on that ‘minimum’ level of trust to improve our collaborative success?

• Communicate directly: communicating your ambitions, intentions, and priorities is a crucial first step to working effectively with partners.

• Identify joint opportunities: it’s crucial to identify those mutually beneficial opportunities and work together on progressing them.

• Reciprocity: a basic tenet of partnership working is reciprocity; “you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours”. It’s important to be upfront about how you can support each other.

• Commitment:  building trust requires a concerted effort from partners, not just informally, but through working together to achieve shared goals.

• Openness: building trust requires partners to be open about their ambitions, opportunities, and risks.

So, how important is trust in partnership working?

Not very, at least in the early stages.

But it is important to get the most out of a long-term, strategic relationship.

Yet to sustain trust over the long-term it must be reflected in the fabric of an organisation.

No easy task.

It requires collegiate, coordinated, and strong leadership.

It also requires a very intentional effort to change the structures we work within.

Like the 'fish and fish tank' metaphor, the fish can only thrive if the environment of the tank enables it.

So, ask yourself: do the structures you work within facilitate greater trust between partners?

Your organisation’s long-term success might just depend on it.

Image courtesy of Frantisek Duris on Unsplash.