High Trust Organisations

I’ve written many times over the years about the paralysing impact that fear has on the education system.  There is so much of it about.  So many teachers and managers are orientating their actions to minimise criticism or to keep their heads below the parapet.  This happens in every sector, of course, but it does seem to me to be particularly prevalent in teaching.  I think much of this fear comes from the low trust system we have created over recent decades.

Having worked in many sectors and, like you, just being curious about other industries and investigating what works, it’s obvious that the most successful organisations try very hard to create and maintain a high trust culture.  We know it works, but seem unwilling to make it happen across the education sector.  It is commonplace in education to meet people at all levels who act as though they have very little agency.  This could be a MAT CEO doing the mental gymnastics required to convince themselves they are working in the best interest of their pupils whilst actually most of their actions are geared towards currying favour with policy makers or civil servants.  It could be the principal who is afraid to make decisions and feel they have to do as they are told by someone on a MAT central team, LA or Ofsted.  It could be the head of department, who was hired under the guise of being a subject expert and deep thinker, reduced to being an administrator of policies and initiatives they know to be ineffective.  It could be the expert classroom teacher, with a 30-year repertoire of pedagogic actions, believing they need to ignore their own, hard-earned wisdom, in favour of the latest educational fad.  This is madness.  What on earth is the point of recruiting intellectuals and then treating them as fodder?

In the most effective organisations, everyone, no matter what their position, understands that agency, autonomy, intellect, passion, good faith and a desire to improve and learn is how to succeed.

I think some of the fear comes from the perceived high stakes accountability, some of it comes from the ever-shifting goalposts.  But a lot of it comes from the insecurity of those in positions of apparent power.  For example, as the MAT system began to come into existence, we saw the rise of what I call the "cult of personality" MAT. Where, instead of the CEO position being understood as one of custodianship, it became one of self-promotion and feathering of personal nests.  The system has matured over time and this (and the criminality that often accompanied it) is now far rarer.  But still a culture of insecurity remains.

In great organisations, leadership is not felt through control, but through the effective conditions those leaders have cultivated, which is to say the environments where smart people are trusted to do excellent work and not micromanaged into a bland mediocrity that everyone involved knows is less than they are capable of.

I have had the pleasure of leading a variety of organisations over the last few decades, and if there is one truth I have learnt, it is this: the surest way to strangle an organisation’s potential is to operate from a position of low trust.

Low trust organisations appear, on the surface, to make many of the same claims as those organisations that thrive. They have job titles, frameworks, targets, and strategies. They produce newsletters and host CPD. But, on even the most cursory of inspection, their hollowness is revealed. In a low trust MAT, for example, the principal carries all the burden of responsibility and accountability, yet has no professional autonomy to act. The head of department is just a job title or recruitment trick, rather than the curious,  intellectual thinker and leader they need to be. The classroom teacher delivers a curriculum they have no faith in, using materials they are never allowed to question. So, the talented leave and the brain-drain begins, leaving compliance where we should find contribution.  And work life becomes one to be tolerated rather than one of purpose and joy.

And at the centre, too often, is a CEO who has misunderstood their role.  They think it is about control rather than about removing blockers and allowing institutional talent to grow and accomplish.

In the “cult of personality" MAT, the CEO’s focus turns inward, and every structure put in place serves to reinforce their own position, when it should be focussed on the flourishing of the people they work with. In such MATs, no decision is truly delegated, and no dissent is truly welcomed.

I write this not as a whine, but to call for a better way.  It’s not as though we don’t already know that things can be better.  Countless organisations have proven the benefits of becoming high trust.

High trust organisations are built from a different premise. They believe the best way to raise standards is to raise people. The principal is trusted to lead. The head of department is trusted to think. Structures exist not to constrain action, but to support it. Instead of endless directives and rigid workflows, there is space.  Space for teachers to think and to teach well and space for leaders to use their wisdom.  High trust organisations also recognise that every individual has more and more potential waiting to be unlocked, so a culture of continuous learning permeates everywhere.

I’ve seen this work in so many places.  From Toyota’s philosophy of Kaizen, the radical decentralisation of Buurtzorg, or the peer-led culture of MorningStar. The high trust organisation leader asks of everyone : what can I do that helps you be your best self at work?

This is the foundation of a culture of continuous improvement, where daily we ask of ourselves and of others: what one small thing can I improve today that makes the organisation better tomorrow?

High trust doesn’t mean low accountability.  There is more accountability in high trust organisations because when people feel respected and autonomous, they raise their game far higher than any directive or any policy ever could.

I have seen too many organisations where knowledge is hoarded, where decision-making is centralised to the point of paralysis, and where capable people are treated like liabilities. But I have also seen what happens when you trust good people to be great.

The high trust organisation does not come about by accident. It is a deliberate choice and takes hard graft to maintain.  From the discipline of delegation or the courage to let people fail safely.  It starts with the CEO who chooses to deliberately deconstruct their ego and to lead from a position of faith in others.

So, if you are leading, ask yourself: are you the architect of conditions in which others can thrive, or merely the manager of other people’s talent? Are you the custodian of a mission or just its mascot?

Because trust, once truly embedded, doesn’t just transform an organisation, it ensures it can outlast you and any other individual.