Seeing Trust Below

According to Mintzberg (1991), in strategic thinking seeing below supports seeing above and can be characterized as hard and messy digging, to be able to find a gem of an idea that changes the organization. In strategic thinking, trust itself is the gem which should be discovered and the benefits of which have been repeated in the literature continuously. Ciancutti and Steding (2001), who name trust-based organizations as leadership organizations, emphasize the need to build an emotional environment in which people feel valued, satisfied, and certain as they contribute their talents and abilities. Accordingly, this leads to higher productivity, greater personal happiness, and the intelligence that increases with the diversity of the team. Bickham (1996, p. 102) shares this opinion when he talks about liberating the human spirit in the workplace. He states: "If trust prevails, individuals are free to enter into their work relationships in an open manner, with the confidence that they will be accepted as they are and that the vulnerabilities that they expose will not be used against them in a harmful way. In the atmosphere of trust, employees will offer suggestions and will generally be willing to risk more in all of their work situations."

One of Shaw's (1997) trust imperatives is demonstrating concern and respecting the well-being of others. Shaw divides this into four elements, which are: (1) building one vision and one company, (2) showing confidence in people's ability, (3) establishing familiarity and dialogue, and (4) recognizing contributions. According to Shaw, demonstrating concern is nowadays more related to offering opportunities than providing security. Organizations can provide opportunities to grow on the job and develop a career, but they cannot guarantee job security without achieving results both on individual and organizational levels.

Supporting people and providing them opportunities to move on in their careers can be understood as seeing below and searching for the gem that changes an organization, because organizations can learn only when their members learn. Recognizing people's contribution and their appreciation plays the same role of the gem, which changes the organization. People who do not feel appreciated will not give their best. Instead, people who feel appreciated are also ready to work toward earning still more recognition. Fukuyama has described this by stating: "…all human beings believe they have a certain inherent worth or dignity. When that worth is not recognized adequately by others, they feel anger; when they don't live up to others evaluation, they feel shame; and when they are evaluated appropriately, they feel pride. The desire for recognition is an extraordinary powerful part of the human psyche" (p. 358). Driscoll noticed already in 1978 (cited in Kouzes & Posner, 1995) that trust has been shown to be the most significant predictor of an individual's satisfaction with their organization.

It's important to create reward systems that encourage individuals to contribute to the organization's performance and to collaborate. Therefore, various collective rewards are more desired and successful than rewarding individuals that can easily result in secrecy among employees (Shaw, 1997). Instead, prioritizing collective rewarding systems may produce shared ownership and build trust. Further, the managers should avoid rewarding easy riders or a disturbing behavior because it will be a wrong sign to the others who contribute.

Further, seeing trust below means understanding the vital role of trust in knowledge and information related processes in the organization. As described elsewhere in this book (Huotari & Iivonen, 2003), knowledge and information are crucial resources and also raw materials of production in the knowledge-based society. Therefore, managing the processes where knowledge and information have been created, maintained, developed, and used through trust instead of control and fear can release creativity for innovation production, and herewith change the organization.