Trusting people more is the simplest way to cut your workload and stress

Stop a moment. Think about all the extra work people load onto themselves because they don’t trust others: the checking, following through, doing things yourself because you don’t believe others will do them properly — or at all. If you took all that way, how much extra time would you suddenly find in your day? How much of your work pressure would disappear?

Trust is fundamental to life. If you cannot trust in anyone or anything, life becomes intolerable — a constant battle against fear, paranoia and looming disaster. You can’t have any sensible relationships without trust, let alone good ones. Intimacy depends on it. I suspect more marriages are wrecked by lack of trust than by infidelity. The partner who can’t trust the other not to betray him or her will either drive them away or force them into some real or assumed act of faithlessness.

In the workplace, trust is just as essential. An organization without trust will be full of backstabbing, anxiety, and suspicion. If you work for a boss who doesn’t trust her people to do things right, you’ll have a miserable time of it. She’ll be checking up on you all the time, correcting “mistakes” and “oversights” and constantly reminding you to do this or that. Colleagues who don’t trust one another will need to spend more time watching their backs than doing any useful work. The office politics would make Machiavelli blush.

Trust lowers stress and pressure

I’m constantly amazed when people claim to be overworked and under constant pressure, yet fail to do the one thing most likely to ease their burdens: trust other people more. Here are some examples:

• People don’t delegate, because they don’t trust people to do what they’ve been asked to do; so they have to take on every significant task themselves.
• They attend every meeting, however futile, because they don’t trust others not to talk about them behind their back, or reach decisions they don’t like.
• They demand copies of every memo, report and e-mail, because they don’t trust what might be said if they’re not watching.
• They’re constantly keyed-up and tense, watching for rivals or other departments to launch some covert operation to undermine their position.
• They don’t ask for help, because they can’t trust others not to use the request as evidence that they’re “not up to the job.”

It’s not the pressure of actual work that’s driving them towards some stress-related illness, it’s their lack of trust in anyone and anything. Is it any wonder they’re close to total burnout?

More trust means lower costs

Organizations are always trying to cut costs. But think of all the additional tasks that are caused directly by lack of trust. Audit departments only exist because of it. Companies keep voluminous records because they don’t trust their suppliers, their contractors and their customers.

Probably more than half of all administrative work is only there because of a pervasive sense that “you can’t trust anyone these days.” If even a small part of such valueless work could be removed, the savings would run into millions of dollars.

What does it cost to run annual performance appraisals and collate the results? They only exist because the organization doesn’t either trust its workers to do a good job, or their bosses to help them. Instead, they spend money on collecting data and analyzing it, just to make sure that they can focus in on anyone — subordinate or boss — whose results are out of line with the corporations expectations.

And that’s without factoring in the number of “supervisory” jobs deemed essential because the top guys believe that no one will do what they’re paid for, unless someone is watching them and keeping them up to the mark. How much would be saved by removing all jobs whose only role is to supervise others?

Where does trust start? Right with you

Someone has to begin the cycle of trust by an act of faith. It’s no use waiting for the other person to make the first move. They’re waiting for you.

All it takes is a conscious act of unconditional belief in that other person’s good sense, ability, honesty or sense of commitment to set the ball rolling.

Will your trust sometimes be misplaced? Of course. Life isn’t perfect and some people aren’t trustworthy. But will increasing your willingness to trust produce, on balance, a positive benefit? Will it make your life more pleasant and less stressful? I believe so. You have little to lose by trying.

Trust has to start somewhere. Why not with you? Why not today? Why not right now?

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