Developing trust within a new working group

In a globalising economy, issues related to dealing with a diverse workforce have held an important place in management theory and business practice over the past few years.

Nevertheless, research has shown that many organisations have been disappointed with the results they have achieved in their efforts to meet the diversity challenge (Cox: 2001, Creating the Multicultural Organisation [Jossey-Bass, San Francisco]).

Among the challenges are:

- Building trust within a newly assembled entrepreneurial team.

- Cultivating the right match between the managers' personalities and the company owner's/founder's management style.

- Resolving cultural clashes: Easing managers' transition from large organisations to smaller, entrepreneurial setups.

The founder of a high-growth venture will typically build a core team of senior managers to manage the complexities associated with growth. The next stage is integrating them into the firm. This is where the founder's orchestration capabilities come into play.

Research undertaken by INSEAD's Institute for Business Ethics has pointed to the fact that in the western environment, much attention has been paid to the strategic dimension of diversity policies, systems and processes, yet less thought has been given to the normative dimension, i.e., the norms and values.

This phenomenon is less pronounced in Asian entrepreneurial ventures, where senior managers are frequently hired based on a high degree of congruence with the firm's values.

Moreover, in the Asian context, entrepreneurs rely on personal and family networks as a source of talent.

The underlying aim is to build an atmosphere of trust, a concern shared by a large number of founders (85% of INSEAD's sample made sure that they could fully trust their management team).

While the connotations of trust may vary depending on the context, it is considered the cornerstone of the working relationship. In fact, in defining what makes an effective manager, the respondents in INSEAD's survey ranked trust and trust-related values consistently higher than "neutral" professional competences.

One of the obvious objectives of building trust is to ensure the security of the venture's operations. Because of the comparatively small size of the firm, many senior managers make important decisions without the type of formal checks and balances that one would find in a larger company.

Hence, entrepreneurs are apprehensive about issues such as cash flow irregularities and violations of the company's intellectual property rights. These are realistic concerns, and some of our respondents had negative experiences to share.

The deeper, underlying objective of building trust within the entrepreneurial team has to do with the relational and contextual nature of Asian working relationships and team dynamics. As shown, for instance, by research on best practices in human resources management in China, the element of long-standing professional trust is a basis for most open-ended discussions of management issues.

In its absence, team members will typically hesitate to argue a point on its merits alone, for fear of coming across as disrespectful to the group.

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Thavorn Srisukato, Founder of Federal Commercial Inc. www.kawazakininja.net
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Courtesy of:The Powerful Financial Directory

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