Have you ever heard the phrase, “The feeling is mutual”? It generally means that there is reciprocity between two or more individuals pertaining to a given feeling, topic or any subject matter. The phrase implies that the feeling is shared equally among the individuals in question. In our experience as business leaders, organizations tend to achieve optimal performance when their members have three key mutually shared attributes. These three attributes are respect, support, and trust.
Think of a time when you interacted extremely well with another person. Did you respect the other person? Did you support the other person? Did you trust the other person? We venture to guess that the answers are all yes. It’s really not a surprise that the presence of mutually shared respect, support, and trust (MSRST) between individuals tends to lead to powerful outcomes. The power of MSRST can and should be used to achieve exceptional outcomes within any type of business organization as well.
Mutually Shared Respect
It is worth noting that – as is the case with all three attributes – it is important that respect be two-way rather than one-way. It should be mutually shared between the individuals within the organization as the first step toward achieving optimal organizational efficacy. If respect is not mutually shared, it will be difficult for the organization to truly achieve its fullest potential. The lack of mutually shared respect will limit how much the organization can achieve. At the foundation of MSRST lies the fact that there is no room for prima donnas in the organization when it comes to respect among its members.
In order to achieve the full power of MSRST, all three attributes should be in place. However, the first step is to ensure that the members of the organization mutually respect each other. Once the members of the organization truly respect each other, they are ready to move on to the next two attributes of mutually shared support and trust.
Mutually Shared Support
Once mutually shared respect is firmly in place, individuals are more apt to truly support each other. It is important to understand what we mean by support. Support, as used here, can also be thought of as a means to help each other achieve goals or maintain one’s stated positions.
Mutually shared support naturally emanates from mutually shared respect between individuals. For instance, when mutually shared support is present, not only are you more likely to accept ideas from others, you tend to support the ideas and push for them as if they were your own. Without a foundation based on respect, it is difficult to support each other.
Instead of looking for common ground, members of an organization may seek ways in which they differ. Doubt starts to surface, thus causing individuals to exert more energy on checking and re-checking the work of their coworkers when there is no need to do so. In this situation, members question the most basic and fundamental concepts of peers in order to find things that help to discredit or dismiss each other’s ideas. In an attempt to address this situation, the organization creates processes and procedures to remedy these issues. Gradually, these extra layers of work become the norm. People stop questioning the validity of the extra layers of work. More and more time is spent on making sure everyone is on the same page with less time being spent on getting actual work done.
On the other hand, respect and support among team members translate into the team members asking how they may help each other and the organization succeed. Better organizational alignment is achieved when mutually shared respect and support are in place.
When mutually shared respect and support are firmly in place, the organization is ready to move on to perhaps the most difficult to achieve attribute of mutually shared trust.
Mutually Shared Trust ‒ Optimal Organization Actualization
In his 1954 book entitled, “Motivation and Personality,” Abraham H. Maslow postulated that humans generally have five levels of hierarchical needs ranging from basic physical needs to the highest level of self-actualization. Once self-actualization has been reached, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory implies that humans can be all that they are created to be. Similarly, for an organization, once its members achieve mutually shared respect, support, and more importantly trust, the organization can actualize its optimal organization potential (i.e., the organization can achieve optimal actualization).
The definition of trust as used here is where individuals fully, and in many cases unconditionally, rely on and believe in each other. Mutually shared respect and support usually culminate into mutually shared trust. The MSRST progression is depicted below:
The diagram depicts that when mutually shared respect alone is present, the organization has developed some level of organizational efficacy and maturity; however, both organizational efficacy and maturity are still considered to be at a low level. When the organization achieves mutually shared respect and support, then the level of organizational efficacy and maturity is a bit higher. Once the organization achieves complete MSRST among its members, the organization is operating at peak levels of organizational efficacy and maturity – the organization has reached its version of self-actualization.
The Leader’s Role in Fostering MSRST
The exponential growth of organizational efficacy is the true power of MSRST. The following are a few things leaders should consider as a means to harness the power of MSRST:
- As the leader of your organization, clearly state that mutually shared respect, support, and trust are basic requirements for how team members interact with each other.
- Provide crisp definitions of mutually shared respect, support and trust so that there is no ambiguity regarding the meaning of these attributes.
- Work on ensuring that your organization first has mutually shared respect in place, then support, followed by mutually shared trust. It is important to follow the order of respect, support then trust as the attributes build upon each other in the order presented.
Once members of the organization mutually respect, support and trust each other, it is easy to imagine how work gets done much more effectively. When MSRST is completely in place, the speed at which the organization produces results is limitless. Leaders and managers will find that the organization efficacy grows exponentially as its members gain MSRST.
How to Achieve MSRST
At this point, you may be asking how an organization goes about achieving MSRST. The answer is simpler than you might think. It all starts with the successful delivery of organizational tasks. These successful deliverables do not have to be big. In fact, it is preferable that organizations start off with small, but impactful task deliverables.
Completing tasks successfully is crucial to building mutually shared respect, support, and trust at each level of the MSRST cycle. For example, even if individuals do not know each other well, if each person is successfully delivering their tasks time and time again, a natural respect of each other is built up among the members of the organization. As members work with each other to deliver joint projects, the members tend to support each other, as this is in their mutual best interest ̶ especially when projects are initially kept to something that the team can successfully manage and quickly deliver.
As teams within the organization successfully and consistently deliver small yet impactful projects, the members develop a strong trust of each other and the need for cumbersome checks and balances diminishes. This does not by any means imply that all checks and balances are bad. On the contrary, checks and balances are used to ensure that the organization delivers at the highest level rather than to ensure that each individual has done her or his job.
Some may argue that MSRST appears to be a form of “group think” and that MSRST could potentially lead to complacency in which the members of the organization blindly agree with each other. By its very nature, MSRST allows for members of the organization to agree to disagree. At its core, MSRST is not about agreeing to something. It’s the constructive dialog between the members of the organization that creates a more positive environment leading to increased organizational effectiveness. To avoid the potential of “group think,” members should regularly monitor how well they are delivering on the goals of the organization. After all, the true measure of an organization is gauged on the success of that which the organization is in place to deliver.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, we recommend the following actions in order to achieve optimal levels of organizational effectiveness by harnessing the power of MSRST:
- Leaders and managers should foster an environment in which team members are able to successfully and consistently deliver small tasks or projects.When small tasks and projects are successfully and consistently delivered by each individual, the members naturally start to respect each other and their capabilities.
- Form small project teams and assign them small projects that can easily be delivered.As a part of working with others to jointly deliver projects, team members learn to support each other because it is in their mutual best interest. You might be asking, “What if you only have huge, complicated projects?” The work can still be divided into smaller pieces so that teams can gain confidence with more frequent and successful deliveries of smaller chunks. As the old question goes, “How does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”
- Lastly, as project teams successfully deliver their small projects, ensure that the teams receive adequate recognition inside and outside of the organization for each success. Not only will they trust each other, they will also be more apt to trust you as their leader.
By doing these things and more, you and your organization can realize the full power of MSRST, to achieve high levels of organizational effectiveness and maturity.
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About The Authors
Dr. Milton Mattox is an Executive Coach, CEO Peer Group Facilitator, Motivational Speaker, Author and Technologist who has worked with some of the world’s most acclaimed companies. An authority in helping CEOs overcome everyday business challenges to achieve the success that they seek, career coach and expert in “all things technology-based,” he continues to practice the leadership techniques and methodologies outlined in his books and articles to successfully increase return on investment for companies, organizations, and individuals seeking to be all that they desire to be in life.
Dan Luo is a senior technology architect with a degree in Computer Science from Iowa State University and an MBA degree from Arizona State University. He has 15 years of experience working in various industries including technology, retail, and insurance. Dan is an expert in business application architecture, design, and development.
