個案資料

Most leaders are so overworked that they have few resources left with which to energize their teams. And yet, as Peter Drucker noted, the foremost job of a leader is to “take charge of your own energy and then help orchestrate the energy of those around you.” This article uses science to explain why trust is an effective means to improve performance. It then shows how trust can be measured and provides an action plan to build and increase workplace trust. Dr. Zak’s lab discovered in 2004 that the brain chemical oxytocin allows us to determine who to trust. The mathematical models he has built to understand how trust affects economic behaviours reveal that trust accelerates transactions such as investments in factories and equipment. It does this by reducing transaction costs associated with distrust. When there is increased trust between trading partners, there are fewer delays and more deals occur. Conveniently, the eight factors that create a culture of organizational trust — Ovation, eXpectation, Yield, Transfer, Openness, Caring, Invest and Natural — have an easy-to-remember acronym: OXYTOCIN. <br><br> To increase trust in their organizations, leaders should: 1. View employees as volunteers, who continue to show up only if they are engaged by the organization’s purpose. 2. Use joy at work as a measure of an effective culture. 3. Experiment by changing OXYTOCIN factors one at a time and measuring the effect on joy and productivity. 4. Invite co-workers to tangibly recognize each other weekly (see Ovation). 5. Communicate your organization’s transcendent purpose internally and externally via an engaging human-scale story that goes beyond increasing shareholder value.

• Neuroscience
• trust
• culture
• business performance
• neuroeconomics