[00:00:00] Jason Button: Trust and transparency, get it right, and you and your team are on easy Street, but get it wrong and you are in for a world of trouble. So what does trust and transparency look like within business? In this episode, Daniel and I will dive in for an overview of trust, the benefits of building and retaining trust and transparency.
And also provide a few helpful hints to implement in your business today as the great Russian playwright. Anton Checkov once said, You must trust and believe in people, or life becomes, impossible. When you think about it is so true in regards to our relationships within business and the pursuit of business growth.
You're listening to Worker X Edge, the podcast designed to break down business challenges and turn them into competitive advantages to take your business forward. Hey guys, and welcome back for another exciting episode, and today we are gonna cover off on a pretty cool topic, it's trust and transparency.
I've got my co-host Daniel Roberts with me. Mate, welcome back. Excited to get started.
[00:01:18] Daniel Roberts: Jason, how are you?
[00:01:19] Jason Button: Ah, very good mate. Very good. Trust and transparency. What do you got for me? What do, what do we covering off on today's episode?
[00:01:25] Daniel Roberts: Well, we're talking about it during the week and obviously there's been a fair bit of pressure this year when it comes to businesses and, you know, accommodating not only, I guess, demands, but also how to supply that demand.
And we're talking about, the importance of having people in your business that you can trust and let go of, send decisions that you've gotta make to then allow for you to make the time to work on your business. But also to start building a team so that when you do have bigger projects and everything like that, You can go to your team, sit down with them and actually share the load with them. So I thought, why not break it down a little bit further and see what we come up with.
[00:02:03] Jason Button: Yeah, you're right mate. It can be a bit bloody restrictive when you're running a small business or a medium sized business and you're, you're on the tools, you know, you might have started out as a sole trader or something like that.
So, the old adage, mate, you can only make so many decisions in a day. I think today, when we're, we're covering off on some of these topics, it's important to consider and keep in the back of your brain. If you don't start to build trust and transparency in around your team or, or people you're working with, you're really going to restrict your capacity for growth.
So I think that's a really important consideration. So, without further ado, mate, let's get into it. Let's start having a chat about it. So, first and foremost, trust in business. Mate, what sort of comes to mind in regards to, you know, some recent events or a bit of a scenario that the listeners could sort of connect with? When we're talking about trust?
[00:02:53] Daniel Roberts: Well, I think firstly, like business owners have to trust other professionals when it comes to things like their accounting and all their legal work and everything like that. But then when it comes to science in your own business, I think that you tend to take control or you constantly allow your team members to come to you to answer the question. So I think when you look at, say for example what you need to achieve as a business for sales at a certain stage, you know your numbers, you know your KPIs, but you need to trust that someone else can oversee that and put in the work for that and come to you only when they need the support.
I think the worst thing you can do is oversee what that person's doing to the point of, I guess, micromanaging and almost doing it yourself, and then they don't have that rope. But then also you're not actually giving them the opportunity to earn that trust to then further expand.
[00:03:45] Jason Button: Yeah, that's exactly right, mate. I mean, going back to some of the territory that we covered in episode one, around skill shortages, that alignment between what an employee or an individual is looking for compared to what an employer can offer. If you've got, Again, it's, it's having that open communication and that, that trust piece.
I go, Hey, just because I'm taking a wage off you or I'm paying you to do this task and activities for me, it's not necessarily that one way street, is it? It's gotta have that alignment that both people are achieving. What they want to achieve in life and with the goals that they're sort of setting for themselves.
So yeah, I, I think that alignment piece is huge. And just going back to your sales example there around as a business, we might have that, um, that ultimate revenue or, or gross profit or whatever we're trying to achieve for our sales team. But then sales team themselves have their own drivers around individual commissions or sales or targets that they want to hit a month. So it's getting that balance right between Okay. And having that trust to, in the individual to go, Hey, you're not only representing yourself, but you're here to represent the business as well. And there is times you need to walk away from a sale.
I think we've all been there. A lot of the listeners have probably been there as well. So yes, she might wanna grab that final sale to get you to that level of commission or that, that target for the month. But if you know it's gonna be a, um, a dog's breakfast or a really, a really dodgy, dodgy outcome, or the customer's client isn't a right fit for the business, sometimes, the employer needs to have trust that you've got the business's best intentions at heart there as well.
[00:05:19] Daniel Roberts: Yeah, for sure. Like you said, bringing it back to episode one, basically you are collaborating with your employees, right? And you probably should actually treat it that way. So something that we've struggled with in the past has been training. For example, an individual may not understand, you know, exactly what you're trying to achieve by constantly putting on more people, what that means to them.
So the other key word in our title today, transparency. I think that's where that comes into building the trust and having that with your team. So, Say like if you're gonna put someone on darting in your manufacturing, for example, It's actually talking to the person about what you're trying to achieve as a bigger picture and how they play a part, and that you are actually giving them the trust that they're gonna actually create another version of themselves by giving, passing on their knowledge, making them what they can become, like almost making it so they feel like it's an obligation to pass on your knowledge, but also take it as an accomplishment to see another person out there with your skills that you've passed on.
I think it's important to, um, not only think about well trust component of, um, this, but also how we can be transparent as business owners about what we're trying to achieve.
[00:06:27] Jason Button: Yeah. Cool. I, I think that gives a pretty good, pretty good summary to the listeners out there can relate to in regards to trust in business.
So let's just divert our attention a little bit to look at some of the specific impact of not having trust. We've spoken at length around bit. You can get a lot of discontent between employees and it starts to really affecting culture and also your supply chain as well. If you don't have ultimate trust that your goods and services are gonna be delivered on time, so you can then produce what you need to produce, you're gonna have, um, big problems.
So in the business, you've obviously been in a family business for a number of years. I think sometimes people in that situation where working in a family business, you've got that implicit sort of layer of, of trust straight away, through blood and growing up with, um, and really getting to know your family members sort of inside and out.
So, that trust sits there. Have you got any sort of examples of, you know, or scenarios where the trust that you've tried to bring in or, or build within the team where, where it's gone, right or where it's gone wrong?
[00:07:31] Daniel Roberts: Yeah, there's no doubt in my mind that trust accelerates growth. So as soon as that trust is lost, yeah, you're in all sorts of trouble with that individual.
You see it in sports, with in teams and stuff where there clearly becomes a disconnect between the coach and a player and quite often, come transfer season or whatever. The players shipped off, or the directors and stuff lose trust in the manager and they stick with the playoff. So that happens in business too where you see certain examples might be when someone starts with your business as a employee, they might be prepared to do all sorts of things. It doesn't matter so much if they're 30 minutes behind schedule for the day and it means that they're gonna get home late.
But they start feeling like, Hey, I'm not getting rewarded for this, or I'm not getting any sort of appreciation for my effort, they start to care a little bit less to the point where all of a sudden you don't know, maybe when they're finished for the day or they've got home at midday and they could have done another job, which they may have done when they first started, but after the time goes on and stuff, if they feel like, Hey, I'm not actually being rewarded for my effort, they lose trust in you as a business owner.
I think it happens also when you are working with your suppliers or potentially trying to build a partnership. It might be that you've offered someone a kickback or a referral just as an example, and you, you get to a stage where you've made a couple you've, you've paid them, it's going really well, and then you make a silly decision to potentially go, Oh, well they're not gonna know about this one, I'll just keep the $150 myself and that sort of stuff. It does come back to bite you. If that individual finds out, that relationship's broken, the trust is gone. And building it back once you've burnt someone, I think is really difficult. I think we gotta keep in mind when we are putting on new employees or working with new businesses, trust is everything.
[00:09:17] Jason Button: Yeah. I like that point there around looking at when the trust breaks down and not airing that over to another relationship, whether that's the supplier relationship or a new hire, a new employee or a contractor. I think it's a really difficult thing. Like any of us, once you've been burnt in business, it is hard to drop that suspicion around someone's sort of character and, and just keeping yourself very guarded against potential pain or fear or, or something like that with the trust being broken again.
So in terms of if that has happened and we're now getting into the territory of, obviously we're talking about the impact of having it and we'll go into benefits a little more. We're sort of merging the two, two concepts together a little bit. But if the trust does break down, what are some of the core things that we could do as a, an owner or an operator right now? Say we've had a really bad experience, we, we'll continue down that sales path. We've had a sales consultant or a salesperson that has effectively put the company's corporate image at risk with some of their behavior. We've found out about it. We've had to let them go. Where do we go next when we're approaching a, a new hire, what are some of the things that we can go through to almost recalibrate ourselves? What process would you go through if you were to make that new hire?
[00:10:34] Daniel Roberts: Firstly with the individual that broke the trust, if you, you're gonna stand any chance you've gotta get in a room and communicate about it. You've gotta take action. Straight away. If what I've found is obviously a lot of people get frustrated and tend to stay within their own sort of inner circle within a business or psych and maybe start to talk down that individual, which is only gonna create a more toxic environment anywhere. If it's obviously got to the stage where there's no turning back and you're gonna move on from that employee like you suggested, you've gotta take a open mind. It's gotta be a blank canvas. You've gotta always start assuming that this person's gonna have your best interest just like you are gonna have their best interests. I think if you take some of that sour taste from that previous relationship, you are gonna always struggle to build enough trust to then be able to let go of some rope and eventually all the rope of a particular function or whatever that is within the business.
[00:11:29] Jason Button: 'Cause yeah, it can be hard to then shift back into that growth mindset and come at it from an abundance mentality, particularly if we have had a negative experience. So being able, I would imagine, to get grounded once again, have that time to reflect on where the trust broke down. Looking at what led up to that, particularly around sort of some of the communication and and transparency issues that probably surrounded that I think is always a great opportunity for growth, yeah? Like when we move on to our next individual, once we've had that time to review, reflect, and then go, Cool. That's where you need to carry blame yourself. It's not always on one party, right? You need to reflect on your own involvement in that breakdown and then go, Right, what can I put in play so that it doesn't happen again? How can I make this the most successful hire? How are we gonna approach this from a, a really good mindset to go right, the next individual that is coming into the business, I can't carry anything that happened with the previous one. This person is gonna be the one that's gonna help drive my business forward. I'm gonna continue to communicate to that individual. We're gonna have a really clear and open relationship. We're gonna get that alignment between what they need, what I need, what the business needs, and we're gonna work together to continue to drive that forward.
[00:12:48] Daniel Roberts: Yeah. I really like the idea of actually removing yourself from the business for a little while to reflect on a situation. In some capacity, we need to accept ownership of our role to play, you know, that we've played in that situation. But I do think, if you can take 30 minutes to, whether it's to drive away from work or whatever you really fired up, you can actually reflect on the situation. Quite often, you can then bring yourself back down a few notches, get away from being angry at the situation and Yeah. Whether it's moving on or having to address that individual that's potentially broken your trust, I think, Yeah, stepping aside and actually doing that within yourself first and then coming up with your approach is a great idea.
[00:13:29] Jason Button: They're great opportunities to learn. We take a lot out of the wins in business, but we take even more out of the negatives, that makes sense. Like we've been in business for 5, 10, 20, 30 years, whenever someone comes up up to us or we might be at a networking event or, something, we're able to connect really strongly, not necessarily on the wins about, Hey, you know, I've won this tender, or we did this really exciting program, or, you know, had this order from a tier one contractor.
It's usually connecting with someone on, Oh, hey, we've had this negative experience with this third party, or, or whatever. But if we can take that, not be bitter about that, learn from it, implement some bull staff to make ourselves better, well, that's just gonna add to that growth of the business and take your year forward even, even quicker, particularly when you get that next level of management or leadership under you, you can shortcut their success to growth and contribute that flywheel of growth within the business because they don't have to go through that. You can sit them down when the signs are starting between one of your mid-level managers and, and maybe one of their team and go, Hey, okay, there's a little, let's put the flag up a little bit. Let's take five. I've gone through this five, seven years ago, this is what happened, I'm starting to see that this relationship or trust is going to start to deteriorate. Let's try and put these couple of things into effect. Let's see if we can get that relationship back working happy. It allows our business to continue to move forward.
[00:14:53] Daniel Roberts: Yeah, I think acknowledging the wins is another way of closing a gap on any distant relationships you may have. So breaking the ice as such. So if something, we probably don't do enough when we are busy in business, but yeah, you can definitely see it on someone's face when they've been appreciated for something out of the blue by someone.
I've also seen it on the other side where someone's getting a phone call from maybe someone in the operations team and they're going, Oh, what have I done now? Like, what's the mistake I've done? And they just accept that anytime they're hearing from this individual, It's only gonna be bad news. And that then obviously means potentially they don't contact that individual to get help and everything like that, so then all of a sudden you got some distance in that relationship.
So yeah, like it may not even be something that should be break in trust as such, but it could just be purely the relationship's getting distanced, like happens and then the person assumes that that person was doing the wrong thing, which is terrible really.
[00:15:46] Jason Button: Never, never, never a good thing when we've got assumptions in business. It's an absolute killer. So if we can all promise we're never gonna make any assumptions in business, I'd be a much happier person. So, let's now look at what are some of the tools, practices, processes that we can put in there to help build and retain trust and transparency. I would imagine, probably the easy one or one a lot of people gravitate towards is things like team days and trust building exercises. And everyone might try and shut the office for a day to go and do paintball or whatever.
And you know, again, we're talking to a lot of owners and operators out there who couldn't do that in their wildest dreams because they're stuck on the tools. That may be the only option they get really to, to build on that trust element from a employer or just individual to individual relationship as maybe at a Christmas party or something like that.
So what have you seen people put in, in play to help build that trust and transparency outside of just the once a year Christmas party?
[00:16:45] Daniel Roberts: I think we've gotta be able to measure performance and then be transparent about the results that that individual's having. Be direct with them. So, in our business, we are building our own custom software, so part of that is making sure that everyone who is on a particular package, I guess, has their KPIs and they can see how they're tracking on a day to day basis. The reason we were doing that, essentially, so the business owner can see how the business is going, like across the board and not make assumptions or make decisions because of certain emotional contributions have factored into a decision.
Also for the individual to maybe see how far away they are from exceeding standards and stuff like that. We put a television up in our, um, factory as an example with the graphs at the moment. Part of that is, um, them seeing how they're tracking it against the standard for the day, and also how they're going against the other guys and almost create a bit of friendly banter amongst the team, get them excited about it. It's also something that if someone comes up, whether it's from the business owner side or it might be the employee and goes, Hey, I feel like I deserve this, or Why am I getting these jobs? You can bring it back to some facts, I guess, and say, This is what we need you to do again, be transparent about their role in the bigger picture.
[00:18:03] Jason Button: Yeah, that's a really good point. So what, I guess what we're saying then is, transparency effectively underpins that trust relationship, doesn't it? If you don't have ultimate transparency, you're really asking for trouble.
[00:18:15] Daniel Roberts: Yeah, exactly. The more you're playing business, you do the every day, you gotta be transparent from everything from what your business vision is, what you see that individual being able to achieve in your business. It may not even be that they see themselves there long term, but they can bring you some value for the period that they are there. You gotta accept that not every employee is gonna be part of your business forever, but can be still be a win-win. You can actually have employees leave your business. And have complete trust in them and be okay with it.
[00:18:43] Jason Button: A revolutionary concept that one Daniel, and I love it. And we have seen it. We're not just talking about this just for the sake of it, we have seen these employer employee relationships where they employee was really clear around, Okay, I'm coming into this business. This is my expectations. This is sort of mapping my journey where I want to get to. So I'm not gonna be a lifer or anything like that. But I will be here for a period of three to five years, and during that time, I want to help you as a business owner to achieve X, Y, Z.
[00:19:19] Daniel Roberts: I think also if there's any employees listening, it's also being transparent about your goals, right? If you are in a business currently, and you don't see yourself there long term, maybe you have the conversation of what that looks like, what the plans are, but also you might be waiting for the opportunity to be promoted, but no one knows that you want that. You might be the quiet or shy typically, you know, some businesses might go, Oh, based on the experience, um, pipeline who's been here the longest, have you start to push, I guess, a bit of a agenda about what you want and how you can help the business owner? You start building trust back with the business owner to feel like, Hey, this person's really wanting to get something out of this relationship, that can be a win-win. That's awesome.
[00:20:00] Jason Button: The old saying, the quiet ones are the ones you gotta watch, aye?
[00:20:03] Daniel Roberts: Exactly. Yeah. You just gotta speak up a little bit more.
[00:20:07] Jason Button: I love it. I love it. All right, cool. So yeah, we, we talked a little bit around that, that transparency piece and what can go in with that. Now, if you're a smaller business and you don't have like a HR person or someone that can manage staff or you, you're more comfortable being on the tools and bit of a lot of this hiring, firing stuff doesn't come second nature to you, that's okay. What we're saying is, you don't have to sit down with every single employee and, and start to pull the whole balance sheet out and profit and loss and all that sort of jazz. That's far from what Daniel and I are talking about here.
What we are talking about, however, is having regular touchpoint with those individuals to go, Hey, this is where I see the business going. This is what I hope to achieve within the business. What are you looking at doing from an individual level and how does that tie into the roadmap that I've got? Or where can that roadmap support where you, you want to get to? That's where you are coming from?
[00:21:02] Daniel Roberts: 100% for those business owners that are listening invested in, I guess, some of the stuff we have to say, but are going, I've got no interest in paying someone an exorbitant amount to manage my business, potentially, the first step for you right now is to look for a mentor. Maybe it is a business consultant or an advisor to help go through some of this information, whether it is your, your profit and loss, or some of those relationships that you may have with your employees.
[00:21:28] Jason Button: The other cool one there, or a really good resource I think for people is local sporting clubs. Get in contact with coaches, see how they manage teams, particularly at the sort of the amateur grassroots level. Everyone's got something going on in their lives, whether they've got kids, whether they're dealing with covid, whether they're dealing with sicknesses. But you've all signed up at the start of the year, you've all paid. you read your fees or committed to coming to training and then playing on your Friday night or your Saturday afternoon, whatever that looks like. So then how does that coach then build that trust and transparency and expectation with the players? It's a really easy one, and I'm sure most of the clubs and coaches out there are really more than happy to make a connection with, you know, an individual in business. We've all got family members, which we might be able to reach out to someone through them or something like that. But I think that they're a really good resource as well.
[00:22:17] Daniel Roberts: Oh, exactly. Most of us have some level of interest in sport, and the team goes out and performs. It's not just out of sheer luck. They've got a game plan. They talk to their players about their role. Those that have got a certain role within the team have to understand what the goal is, what the end game plan is, what the, the objectives are, are we offensive? Are we defensive? Amazon Prime subscribers, there's a all or nothing series of different soccer clubs, different rugby clubs. There's some great speeches that coaches give for about certain things in a game in the moment. Might be worth starting there as well.
[00:22:47] Jason Button: Yeah, so there's, what we're saying is there's plenty of resources. You don't have to go and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars either doing particular courses or recruit, making a new recruit to look at trust and transparency in your business. So I think that's a really good point. They're a really good juncture to do a quick wrap up. We've been going, going for a little bit now.
We like to try and keep this nice, tight and concise for you guys listening out there. So quickly, we've covered off trust within business, putting that trust, within a role in having that alignment between employer and employee and understanding what both parties are trying to achieve. We talked a little bit on the impact of not having trust and the benefits of building trust and transparency and the role that that plays within that trust relationship. And also a little on the retaining trust methods. Daniel spoke about having a really transparent measuring stick and people understanding what their KPIs were and and so forth. So, that's a pretty well wrap up on trust and transparency, that subject, unless you are, you've got any, anything else to add on onto that, Daniel?
[00:23:48] Daniel Roberts: Well, just as a starting point, you've got a couple of key employees. Just have the conversation with a couple of the things that you, you can see where you want to take the business and where would they like to see the business? Or what role do they feel they can play in potentially making that vision come true? So that doesn't cost you anything to have a conversation. Maybe just start there and you'll be pleasantly surprised.
We found a sales manager that was never intending to be a sales manager just by having a conversation.
[00:24:13] Jason Button: Wise words as, as always, to finish Daniel, as you said, there's some really quick things you, you can put in your business, address it today, you've listened to the podcast. Make sure you go and put it into practice no matter what you're doing. If you're listening to this late at evening, make sure you get rock up to the business tomorrow morning. Have those key conversations and start to really understand trust and transparency in the team.
All right guys. As always, make sure you, if you love it, subscribe, tell your friends, family, other business connections about the podcast. We're on most of the podcast platforms now, so no excuses for anyone. If you are looking to get in touch with us, make sure you have a look at other LinkedIn for Daniel and myself, that'll be in the show notes as always.
Otherwise, we will bid you adieu and good day.
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