Tag Archives: trust

Organizational Trust vs “Only the Paranoid Survive”

Organizational life can be punctuated by uncertainty, leading to mistrust.

Andy Grove

Intel’s former Chairman, Andy Grove, explained his success in guiding the company through a critical product flaw, which threatened Intel’s brand value, noting “Only the Paranoid Survive.”

Christel Lane

However, organizational paranoia’s counterpoint, trust, is associated with productivity, creative problem-solving, employee commitment and retention, found University of Cambridge’s Christel Lane and Reinhardt Bachman of University of Surrey.

Reinhard Bachmann

Likewise, Alan Fox catalogued negative consequences of suspicion in work settings.
Roderick Kramer of Stanford also confirmed that people in organizations often misconstrue and overvalue suspicions, leading to low collaboration and isolation at work.

Roderick Kramer

He observed that people with fewer resources or less power engage in self-protective behaviors, accompanied by increased hypervigilance, consistent with findings by Princeton’s Susan Fiske.

Susan Fiske

These strategies increase the possibility of “paranoid social cognition,” and may lead people to engage in:

-Idiosyncratic interpretations of interactions,

-Sinister attribution error,

-Perception of conspiracy, highlighted by Rutgers’ Ted Goertzel.

Ted Goertzel

To balance “prudent paranoia” with organizational trust, Kramer recommended considering alternate interpretations from people likely to hold different views.

-*How do you balance organizational trust and “prudent paranoia”?

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Detecting Trustworthiness, Opening Your Mind?

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Yaacov Schul

-*Does mistrust increases willingness to consider new information, or “open-mindedness”?

When people mistrust information, they are more likely to consider alternative information and interpretations, according to Hebrew University’s Yaacov Schul and Ruth Mayo, with Eugene Burnstein of University of Michigan.

Ruth Mayo

Likewise, Ann-Christin Posten and Thomas Mussweiler of Universität zu Köln noted that “distrust frees your mind” by leading people to use non-routine cognitive strategies.”

Eugene Burnstein

Posten and Mussweiler reported that when volunteers participated in an “untrustworthy” interaction, they later provided less stereotypic evaluations of others in an unrelated task.

Ann-Christin Posten

The research team replicated this effect when they influence volunteers’ expectations of others by “priming” participants with preliminary information that elicited stereotypes.

When people distrust information and interactions, they focus on dissimilarities and discrepancies, which enables people to more carefully attend to individual differences that disprove stereotypes, according to Posten and Mussweiler.

Thomas Mussweiler

Although trust may feel better, distrust can lead to more mindful observation, and reduced stereotyping.

-*How do people determine trustworthiness?

Princeton’s Alexander Todorov and Sean G. Baron with Nikolaas Oosterhof of Dartmouth presented volunteers computer model-generated faces representing a range of trustworthiness while participants’ brains were scanned with fMRI.

Alexander Todorov

Specific brain areas, the right amygdala and left and right putamen, became more active when participants’ viewed less trustworthy faces.

Sean Baron

Faces judged most trustworthy and most untrustworthy faces were associated with greater brain activity in the left amygdala.
In contrast, moderately trustworthy faces evoked strongest responses in the medial prefrontal cortex and precuneus areas.

Nikolaas Oosterhof

These findings pinpoint brain areas that lead to inferences of trust and distrust, and lead to relaxed or vigilant information processing strategies.

-*How do you determine trustworthiness for information and for people?
-*What helps you minimized stereotyped judgments?

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Evidence-Based Stress Management – Social Support – Part 3 of 5

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George Vaillant

Personal relationships and social support have been shown to buffer the negative effects of stress inside and outside the workplace, according to George Vaillant, then of Harvard, with colleagues SE Meyer, Kenneth Mukamal, and Stephen Soldz.

Kenneth Mukamal

They evaluated data from a 50-year prospective multivariate study of 223 men and found that engaging with others during a stressful event improves mood, but withdrawing from others increases anxiety, depression, and stress.
In this sample, friends seemed more important than closeness to spouse and to children for sustained physical health.

Lawrence Fisher

Social relationships that buffer stress and anxiety include family closeness and connectedness, problem-focused family coping skills, clear family organization, explicit decision making, and direct communication according to University of California, San Francisco’s Lawrence Fisher and Karen Weihs of University of Arizona.

Stephen Soldz

In contrast, lack of social connections can increase both stress and susceptibility to disease agents due to alterations in the neuroendocrine system, according to Vaillant and team.

Karen Weihs

Undermining relationship characteristics include hostility, criticism, and blame within the family; family perfectionism and rigidity; and psychopathology, according to Fisher and Weihs.

Stress-reducing social support can come from animal companions, according to SUNY Buffalo’s Karen Allen, Barbara Shykoff, and Joseph Izzo, who demonstrated that “nonevaluative social support” from animal companions reduces blood pressure in response to mental stress.

Joseph Izzo

Forty-eight hypertensive volunteers were assigned to random comparison groups: One group had animal companions in addition to an anti-hypertensive medication (angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitor or ACE inhibitor) and the other group received medication only.

Before participants received medication, volunteerss in both groups had similar physical responses to stress, measured by blood pressure, heart rate, and plasma renin activity.

Allen, Shykoff, and Izzo monitored these physical indicators after experimental mental stressors (serial subtraction and speech), compared with baseline measures.
They found that although medication alone lowers resting blood pressure, social support from animal companions was associated with lower blood pressure in response to mental stress.

Mark Ellenbogen

Like some other stress management recommendations, this research-based finding requires willingness, and commitment to engage with others when it may seem easier and more appealing to be alone.

Oxytocin may promote seeking social support when experiencing stress and the impulse to withdraw from others, shown in research by Concordia University’s Mark Ellenbogen and Christopher Cardoso.

Christopher Cardoso

They demonstrated that oxytocin can increase a person’s trust in others following social rejection.
Volunteers received oxytocin nasal spray or a placebo, then experienced experimentally-induced social rejection when confederates challenged, interrupted, and ignored the participants.

Volunteers who inhaled oxytocin before the experimental social rejection and who reported greater distress on mood and personality questionnaires also said they generally invest greater trust in other people.
In contrast, oxytocin had no effect on trust among volunteers who were not bothered by the evoked social rejection.

These findings suggest that oxytocin may help individuals experiencing stress access the benefits of social support and may become an additional stress management option.

-*How can workplaces enable social support for employees experiencing stress?

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Vitamins and Probiotcs (Part 1)
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Physical Exercise (Part 5)

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Companion Animals in the Workplace

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Technology companies like Autodesk, Google, and Amazon made news when they permitted employees to bring companion dogs to work. Dog at work

This policy was viewed as an employee benefit or “perk”, but a recent study published in International Journal of Workplace Health Management indicates that bringing a companion dog to work can lower stress levels, increase productivity and make work more satisfying.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

In fact, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health conclude that companion animals can lower individuals’ cholesterol, trigylcerides, blood pressure, heart rates, weight, stress, risk of heart attack, social isolation, inactivity, and overall healthcare costs, all of which benefit organization’s operational costs.

National Institute of Health

Randolph Barker and collaborators from Virginia Commonwealth University examined a service-manufacturing-retail company in North Carolina with 550 employees and between 20 – 30 companion dogs.

Randolph Barker

Researchers measured 76 employees’ stress levels via surveys of attitudes toward animals in general and in the workplace.
Equal numbers of employees perceived dogs’ presence as increasing or decreasing work productivity.

Employees’ perceived stress levels, measured by cortisol in saliva samples, were significantly lower and job satisfaction was higher on days when dogs were present at work.

Companion dogs at work appeared to boost interpersonal communication, organizational engagement, and morale when employees who did not own dogs asking dog owners to interact with dogs or take them for a walk.

Considerable research around the globe suggests that the stress-reducing effect of companion dogs is tied to an increase in oxytocin when humans and dogs interact.

Kerstin Uvnas-Moberg

Kerstin Uvnas-Moberg of Uppsala University and author of The Oxytocin Factor: Tapping the Hormone of Calm, Love, And Healing, reported that women and their dogs experienced similar increases in oxytocin levels after ten minutes of friendly contact, and women’s oxytocin response was significantly correlated to the quality of the bond they reported in a survey taken prior to the interacting with their dogs.

The Oxytocin Factor

Likewise, JS Odendaal and RS Meintjes, then of Pretoria Technikon, showed that friendly contact between dogs and humans release oxytocin in both and Miho Nagasawa‘s team at Azabu University found that amount of oxytocin among dog owners increased with the amount of time they shared eye contact with their dogs.

Suzanne C. Miller’s research group showed that oxytocin increased among women but not men after greeting their companion dog when returning home from work.

Christopher Honts

Christopher Honts and Matthew Christensen of Central Michigan University extended findings on stress reduction to evaluate trust, team cohesion and intimacy among teams collaborating on tasks when a well-trained, hypoallergenic dog was present.
During a collaborative creative thinking exercise, participants rated teammates higher on trust and teamwork than those without a dog.

Teams with a dog during the prisoner’s dilemma measure of trust and collaboration were 30% less likely to betray teammates accused of being co-conspirators in a hypothetical crime scenario.

Hiroshi Nittono

Hiroshi Nittono and team at Hiroshima University demonstrated improved performance on problem-solving, attention, perceptual discrimination, and motor performance tasks after volunteers viewing images of baby animals compare with adult animals or food, reported in Public Library of Science .

Despite evidence that companion animals in the workplace reduce stress, increase perceptual and problem-solving capabilities and health indicators, barriers include:

Cultural objections to dogs and other animals
Allergies to companion animals
Animals without proper obedience and social skills training for the workplace

-*What do you think about potential financial and morale benefits of companions animals in the workplace?

Gromit

<-Will this

Miss Sarah's Guide

Miss Fido Manners

be replaced with this? <—————>

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Trusted Leader Assessment without a 360 Degree Evaluation

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Ever wonder how you are perceived by the team? … and don’t have the time or budget for a complete 360 degree assessment?

Mike Figliuolo

Mike Figliuolo proposes Trusted Leader Assessment without a full 360 degree evaluation in his book, One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership

His Trusted Leader Self-Assessment is based on his Leadership Maxims training course, and expands his advocacy for the value of creating, articulating, and fulfilling a personal leadership philosophy.

He asks individuals to consider four areas of personal leadership:

• Leading yourself:
What motivates you?
What are your personal rules of conduct?
What do you want the “future you” to stand for? Does your team know what you are passionate about at work?
Does your team know your ultimate professional goal?
Have you ever shared your personal ethical code with your team?
Does your team know your sources of inner strength and motivation?
Do your team members understand your perspective on personal accountability?

• Leading thinking:
Where are you taking your team?
How will you innovate to drive change?
Is your team clear on what your most critical performance standards are?
Does your team know your view of the team’s vision and mission?
Does your team know how you like to generate new ideas?
Does your team know your views on how you make decisions?

• Leading people:
Is your preferred leadership style clearly understood by your team?
Do your team members feel like you genuinely treat them like individuals?
Does your team feel that you understand the day-to-day reality of each of their jobs?
Do your team members feel like you’re fully committed to their growth and development?

• Leading a balanced life:
How do you achieve equilibrium between work and personal obligations?
Does your team know your boundaries between work and life?
Would your team say you do a good job of keeping things in perspective?
Does your team know what you’re passionate about outside of work?

-*Which of Figliuolo’s “Four Questions” enable you to lead yourself and others?

Robert Galford

The Trusted Leader, Robert M. Galford, Anne Seibold Drapeau

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Oxytocin Increases Empathic Work Relationships, Workplace Trust, Generosity

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Paul Zak

Paul Zak, director of the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies at Claremont Graduate Center, and author of The Moral Molecule: The Source of Love and Prosperity, suggests that the hormone oxytocin empathic understanding, generosity (donating to charities, giving money to others in experimental situations), happiness, and trust/trustworthiness.

He verified these laboratory-based findings in real-world situations, like a wedding he attended in southern England, prior to which he drew blood samples from the wedding party.

Zak says that oxytocin can be increased by massage, dance, story-telling, prayer, engaging in social media with a loved one, and hugs.
As a result, he “prescribes 8 hugs a day” for better mood and improved “relationships of all types.”

He says that oxytocin can be inhibited by improper nurturing in childhood, stress, abuse, and by oxytocin’s antagonist, testosterone.
Known as the “selfish hormone,” testosterone is also correlated with expressions of power and leadership in the workplace.

One reason women may have challenges expressing these traits in work situations is that their average testosterone levels are ten times lower than men’s.
Zak’s TED Talk

Amy Cuddy

-*To what extent have you seen “eight hugs a day improve mood and relationships”?

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Kathryn Welds, PhD | Curated Research + Commentary

Consulting Organizational Psychologist | Change Consultant | Leadership+Career Master Coach | Coach Supervisor+Mentor Coach |

Tag Archives: trust

Detecting Trustworthiness, Opening Your Mind?

Companion Animals in the Workplace

Trusted Leader Assessment without a 360 Degree Evaluation

Oxytocin Increases Empathic Work Relationships, Workplace Trust, Generosity

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