Innovation, Collaboration, and Trust

The Tennessee Titans recently named Ruston Webster their new general manager. Now Webster is not exactly a household name, so The Tennessean (Nashville’s daily newspaper) did a big story about him so Titans fans could get a better sense of the guy that’s going to be putting the team together for the foreseeable future.

So you know how these stories go, right? Whenever some “unknown” gets promoted to a high profile position they go back and talk to a bunch of people – old coaches, bosses, coworkers, etc. – and get opinions about who he is (as a person and a football guy), and they try to figure out how he’ll be as a GM. By all accounts, the Titans have landed themselves a real gem. Good guy. Great talent evaluator.

Through all the accolades though, the one thing that really jumped out to me were the comments from Jerry Angelo. Angelo is the current GM of the Chicago Bears and a former coworker of Webster’s at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Angelo’s assessment of Webster is that, “he is a real team guy. His only agenda is winning … He wants to know what everyone thinks and feels, knowing he is going to make the best decision for the team. And he doesn’t care who gets the credit.”

Wow! Really? He doesn’t care who gets the credit?

That’s really the attitude of a culture that makes a workplace most productive. It’s a culture built on a foundation of trust with people making decisions based on what’s best for the organization without regard for who gets the credit. I know that sounds "pie in the sky," but if stuff works, everyone benefits.

If we’re all on the same team, working toward the same goals, we have to let go of the need to “control,” and open up to those around us who also have excellent ideas. It truly is a new day, and 2012 isn’t the workplace of yesterday – we have to be more nimble than ever before and it’s going to require effort from all corners for organizations to succeed.

Sustained, long-term success won’t be achievable unless everyone in the organization can embrace and demonstrate the trust that fosters innovation and collaboration.

The truth is that if we can be less concerned with “turf” and who gets “credit,” everyone is better off. Intuitively, we know this is true because that’s how it works in our personal lives. Think about your friends and family: Are you constantly vigilant to make sure you’re watching your back? (If you are, you might consider who your friends are and whether your familial ties are as strong as they should be.)

The book I’m reading right now is The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge Into Action by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton. The book is about exactly what the title suggests: How hard it is sometimes to get things done even when everyone knows the right things to do. One of the reasons cited is that organizations often mistake talk for action and meetings for movement.

We spend a lot of time in meetings and a lot of time talking about things (and writing about them!), but it takes more than meetings and talk to turn talk into action. And it takes effort from the top of the organization to the bottom. At some point, if we want to progress, we actually have to start doing what we’re saying. All this bluster about innovation, collaboration and autonomy needs to be tested, right? Step up and pull the trigger.

I used to work for a company where nobody wanted to answer a question in the presence of the CEO until they heard his answer – that’s a real pain. No opinions of your own. No expression of ideas. It was the ultimate “you don’t get paid to think” place. That really sucks.

In today’s workplace, knowledge is power more than it has ever been and those who suppress their workers will find themselves S.O.L. We live in a great time, with great access to information. Smart leaders will encourage the workplace as an idea incubator, and smart workers will take them up on it.