Change can come from any part of the organization. However, it needs an environment of trust,
openness and collaboration to survive through the moments of uncertainty and eventually create an
impact on the lives of people. Therefore, business leaders should observe the team dynamics and
employee behaviour & listen to the unspoken words often to identify any potential signals of
"uneasiness." Should they discover any, the leaders must immediately initiate the following five
steps:
A. Engage the voices of concern
B. Find underlying causes
C. Internalize the employees' points of view
D. Rationalize the context and finally co-create an approach to address the employee "uneasiness."
E. Implement the approach & continue to check the pulse of the individuals and the teams
The effort involved in this process is enormous; however, the profound outcome of this will
encourage every business leader to attempt and create a culture of collaboration, trust and
openness. As a result, every employee feels invited to share thoughts and ideas, and the
organization can benefit immensely from its people's huge (otherwise hidden and untapped) potential.
I want to extend this topic further to uncover some inherent challenges that business leaders might
face in creating an environment of trust. For example, how will they be able to hear or feel the
unspoken words of their teams? Easier said than done. However, in my experience, I have worked with
some leaders who are pretty good at this. I have witnessed many leaders who quickly understand the
concerns of their team. My curiosity about "Building a trusted environment" led me to study
excellent materials further and listen to experts. My analysis revealed that the business leaders
want to address the team's concerns; however, their desire lacks the fuel of focus. Therefore, it
takes a significant amount of time before their desire (for people's well-being) takes shape.
The top two reasons, in my opinion:
1. "Fire fighting" never stops - too many burning issues
2. I wish the person who is sharing the idea could lead it :)
I realized that every leader has the right intentions to support the teams and people. But,
unfortunately, they get pulled down by their day-to-day responsibilities, uncertainties, etc.
Then, I deliberated on this topic further and attempted to view this issue from the lens of the
employees. I realized that the employees also are the leaders of the company. Therefore, every
employee (not just the "named" leaders) plays a vital part in redefining/evolving the company's
culture. For example, suppose an employee has a thought/idea but is reluctant to share it since it
involves a lot of change. Their thoughts/ideas might be pretty promising. However, if they remain
disengaged and do not share ideas, the organization will lose the potential benefits that your idea
might bring to its customers.
Therefore, I encourage every employee to find someone in the organization they trust and share their
thoughts with. Then, at least, the idea gets validated from another perspective. In addition, the
employee will have more confidence in their concept since it has already taken a few initial steps
towards getting materialized.
Change begins with you, isn't it :)