What is really meant by a trust inducing workplace?
“Can I trust him to do a thorough job of fixing my car?” “Can she be trusted with my problem?” When we talk about trust, it is often in relation to a personal relationship; to how another person might behave towards us and our feelings associated with that behaviour. It is also commonplace for some of us to use the idea of trust as part of making or breaking our personal relationships (e.g. “I trust you to take care of me” or “I don’t trust you any more”). While this may be how people think about trust in an everyday way, it is how they experience trust in an organisational context that is central to questions of organisation design and to the role of managers in making it work. In human societies, trust develops in response to the social system rather than in how individuals might decide how they will ‘differentially’ treat each other. The Australian highway system for example ‘induces’ this trusting response. In the system, we feel mutual trust, not because we are neighbours or frien
