Laws of Digital Body Language: Trust Totally – Cor Scheepers – Consultant @pm-ideas
Digital body language requires the mastery of a new way of communication. We need to understand the four laws of digital body language:
- Value Visibly
- Communicate Carefully
- Collaborate Confidently
- Trust Totally
This article will cover the fourth law: Trust Totally. It only happens after the first three laws have been implemented, yielding 360-degree engagement. The “Totally” part of Trust Totally is key, since it implies the highest levels of organizational faith, where people tell the truth, keep their word, and deliver on their commitments.
Trusting Totally means you have an open team culture, where everyone knows they are listened to, where everyone can always ask one another for help, and where everyone can grant favours whose returns may or may not be immediate. Once the first three laws of digital body language are in place, leading to Trusting Totally, you have broken the stranglehold of fear and uncertainty in your organization and are on your way to assembling the always elusive perfect team.
When we Trust Totally, we get the most out of people. By creating psychological safety on our teams (beginning with our leaders’ own digital body language), our actions create trickle-down calm. Once trust exists, anything that helps support it is prioritized, and everything impeding or distracting from it is addressed and dealt with.
Trust Totally does not mean we extend unconditional trust to everyone – especially people with whom we have had negative or unresolved experiences in the past. Instead, Trust Totally refers to a workplace environment where no one wastes time sweating the small stuff, where an ambiguously worded message or late-to-arrive response does not automatically give rise to fear, anxiety, or insecurity, and where we confidently assume everyone is on our side. This is a pretty big ask these days, but Trust Totally works.
When a foundation of Trust Totally exists, people are more willing to say what they mean without fearing criticism or reprisal, and they may in fact come up with substantive improvements, even in tough situations. Trusting Totally can help transform a passive-aggressive or dominating colleague from being obnoxious and annoying to being a decent person.
Trusting Totally leads to empowerment. Often leaders tell teams, “I want to empower you,” but they are not willing to give up even a sliver of control to allow other voices to contribute. This causes the concept to ring a little false. In the context of Trust Totally empowerment means giving people full ownership of their work, as well as the resources they need to finish it.
Empowerment means everyone feels safe to speak up, to introduce a controversial perspective, or simply to say: “This is not working for me” without fearing they have created new enemies. Empowerment implies high levels of psychological safety, clear channels of information flow, candid discussions about how comfortable people are with failure, and clear ways forward that embed respect, alignment, and action across the workplace.
Trusting Totally is what happens when we combine Valuing Visibly, Communicating Carefully, and Collaborating Confidently in practice. When we Value other Visibly on the path to Trusting Totally, we are showing them the same level of respect and acknowledgement we expect for ourselves. When Jane stays up late to get her boss, Kim, a deck with a list of questions, Kim knows to send back a quick email response: Got it, thanks and will review on Tuesday when I am back. Kim knows that delaying her response until Tuesday would be disrespectful to Jane, who is liable to assume something is wrong (when the fact of the matter is that Kim simply has not had a chance yet to review her work). By taking the time to send the message, Kim is ensuring that Jane feels valued.
Communicating Carefully is another building block that helps achieve a Trust Totally culture. Imagine how anxious Jane would feel if, after spending weeks on her deck, Kim told her that the marketing department has produced a different strategy, nullifying all of Jane’s recommendations. If Kim had only taken the time to align early on with the marketing team, she could have saved Jane a lot of time and work.
A Trust Totally culture requires that, before anything, we Collaborate Confidently, eliminating the possibility of plans changing, or promises breaking, at the last second. You can Value Visibly and Communicate Carefully using an agreed-upon strategy, but everything will break down if Jane’s boss, Kim, is a mercurial leader slow to take action or make hard decisions. The same goes for teams without accountability measures, who miss deadlines or complete mediocre work without ever receiving constructive feedback. They need to know they can count on their leaders and one another.
Why it is so Hard to Trust Totally
Some leaders say all the right things about “speaking up” and “taking risks,” but many simply do not walk the walk, or support and empower team members who do. Organisations that Trust Totally are a lot different. In businesses with high levels of Trust Totally, teams are encouraged to work hard, because they are Valued Visibly and supported as they close in on their goals. High-trust organisations Communicate Carefully and seldom face misunderstandings. They Collaborate Confidently because they move past fear in team dynamics.
The Leader’s Role in Creating Trust – an example from Microsoft
In 2016, to great fanfare, Microsoft released a Twitter “bot.” The company proclaimed that its new tool would help pave the way to a new era of human-to-artificial-intelligence conversation. The bot, named Tay, was engineered to be “casual and playful,” but it did not take long for Tay to be hijacked by Twitter users who, recognizing a “vulnerability” the design team had overlooked, taught the bot to tweet “wildly inappropriate and reprehensible words and images.” The ensuing headlines about Tay ranged from “Twitter taught Microsoft’s AI chatbot to be a racist asshole in less than a day” to “It took less than 24 hours to corrupt an innocent AI chatbot.” Within less than a day of its release, Tay was retired permanently, prompting Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to release a direct, thoughtful, and humble apology, expressing “deep empathy for anyone hurt by Tay.”
Instead of chastising his development team, Nadella wrote them an encouraging email. “Keep pushing, and know that I am with you,” he said, adding that the “key is to keep learning and improving.” Nadella later told USA Today, “It is so critical for leaders not to freak people out, but to give them air cover to solve the real problem. If people are doing things out of fear, it is hard or impossible to actually drive any innovation.”
Trust Totally shows up through our actions and communications in times both good and bad.
What does a Trust Totally work culture look like?
- When your boss sends a calendar invite without context or texts you saying they need to speak urgently, you do not get anxious.
- When all employees actively and thoughtfully participate in group discussions, both in person and on digital channels.
- When junior employees are willing to speak up and share differing opinions.
- When all voices are heard, yet interruptions are few during phone and video meetings.
- When bullying behaviour is rare, but if it happens, it is stopped swiftly.
- When there are low levels of anxiety around digital messages because everyone respects the norms of each medium.
- When teammates go on mute during conference calls, and you do not automatically assume they are multitasking.
- When you do not receive a response in an expected time frame, you do not jump to negative conclusions.
Model the Behaviour you want to see in your Teams
What you model as a leader ultimately shows up in the culture of your teams. If you are not clear when you assign tasks and responsibilities and you later chastise your team for failing to deliver on what you wanted, you erode trust. If someone challenges your idea and you shut that person down immediately, you further erode a company-wide net of psychological safety while giving your team implicit permission to shut down other members as well.
Another example: As Steve was overseeing a restructuring at his company, he realized that he had to fire the marketing head, who just was not performing. However, two months later, the guy was still there. “I just can’t,” Steve said when anybody asked. He knew exactly what he needed to do in order to grow the company right, but if he fired the marketing head, what would happen to all the unfinished projects, and would he also risk losing all his external contacts?
Problem was, not firing the marketing head confused Steve’s team. Was Steve really serious about improving the business? A few of them began doubting their boss’s commitment to making the tough calls. “Are you sure?” team members started asking Steve during meetings. Things came to a head one day when one of Steve’s direct reports delayed firing one of his colleagues. If Steve was so averse to firing people, why couldn’t he be too? Once Steve realized he was causing a negative domino effect, he immediately fired the marketing manager, later acknowledging in an email to his team, I should have moved sooner, and I learned my actions matter.
Create Psychological Safety
Psychological safety means being able to speak your mind without fearing any negative consequences to your self-image, status, or career. Without psychological safety in place in a company, no one will ever speak up. A Harvard professor, Amy Edmondson, advises leaders to “make explicit that there are enormous uncertainty and enormous interdependence.” Be clear that there are matters that still require explanation, and so each team member’s input matters. You could say things such as: “We have never been here before, we cannot know what will happen, so we have got to have everyone’s brains and voices in the game.” By framing your language appropriately, you set up your team as a cohesive force against whatever obstacles may lie ahead while also giving them implicit permission to speak up. Now that is confident collaboration.
Allow Yourself to be Vulnerable
The more emphasis a leader places on vulnerability and learning, the easier it is for team members to speak up, ask questions, and embrace the discomfort of uncertainty. Communicate simple statements - “I may be missing something – I need to hear from you;” “I will admit that operations is not my strong suit, and I am open to your suggestions” - that encourage your teams to speak up, and that also remind them how much you value their contributions. When someone offers feedback, accept it with grace: “Point well taken. We used to be a lot better at this and we lost sight of staff communications. I promise this will change.”
During one-on-ones, try to locate places that your team may be vulnerable. A team leader at Facebook typically asks four questions of his teammates: What are you working on? What is going well? What is not going well? and How can I help? Depending on what team members need month by month, he finds himself playing the role of therapist, coach, cheerleader, and advocate.
It can be challenging to show vulnerability, and depending on a person’s title or company role, that vulnerability is often met and judged differently. For example, if the CEO asks a question, it is bound to be perceived differently than if an intern, or even a middle manager, asks the same thing. Some comments or actions are perceived differently across gender, age, and culture. Nevertheless, we should communicate across these differences in whatever channel and style feels most psychologically safe.
The Team Member’s Role in Creating Trust
A leader is mostly responsible for establishing a tone of psychological safety, but that does not mean that other team members have to feel powerless. Everyone is essential to creating a Trust Totally environment. Having said that, what can be done to increase trust on a peer-to-peer level.
Migrate from Phony to Authentic Communications
Most people do not reveal themselves all at once. Instead, they show themselves slowly, bit by bit. How do we reveal what lies under the surface and show who we really are, what we really think, how we really feel – in short, what is really going on?
For example, you might find yourself composing a message that reads, Hi, Stewart, this is Steven. I was looking over your website and feel my company, DBX Corporation, has a product that fits your needs … Sorry, but could that possibly sound more canned? Instead, go out there and do the work. Study the company’s website, read as many blog posts as you can, and assess what the company needs. Where can you be most helpful? Also, why should they trust you? Once that information is under your belt, try again: Hi Stewart, this is Steven. First, let me tell you how much I enjoyed reading your post about the elementary school initiative this past year. What a cool way to build team spirit and give back to the community. Go forward from there. With every scrap of detail, you begin to develop trust.
Engage in Digital Watercooler Moments
When we transition to remote work, what we miss most are the social, relationship-building activities that take place spontaneously, like when we walk past someone’s desk and say hello, converge in the breakroom to discuss our latest Netflix binge, or ask a distracted colleague if he is okay. These “watercooler interactions” are essential ingredients for building camaraderie, morale, and trust. They also keep us in the loop around what is really going on in an organization.
Without an actual watercooler, what are you supposed to do? The answer is to create the time to just hang out and have fun together. It does not have to be a strictly planned social gathering; five to ten minutes at the beginning of a team meeting will do. Your team should feel comfortable acknowledging the obvious fact that they have lives outside work. One team member of a fully remote team said: “Every morning we start with Zoom all-hands meetings—what did you do yesterday/what about today/do you have any blockers? We also do another at the end of the day—what worked? What did not? What did we try? It is a great way to celebrate our successes, share challenges, and create boundaries.”
At another recruiting firm, shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic sent the entire country into quarantine, the team discussed how virtual happy hours helped members navigate the sudden shift to remote work. As one member recalled, “I had a virtual happy hour with about sixty of my colleagues. We laughed, celebrated, connected—saw some very cute kids and also pets in the background. We have committed to keeping this tradition going, which is so helpful. What a morale booster!” As months went on, the social Zooms generally had fewer participants, but it was good for team members to know that they were set up and open if anyone needed some social interaction.
A member of a nonprofit organization said: “My team decided to do a 30-minute call once a week, not about work, but just to chat casually. It is about having fun, talking about positive things, and hearing how we are all making use of our time.”
What to Expect when you apply all Four Pillars into your Team
You might be wondering, If I take all the necessary steps to initiate these four pillars into my team, what exactly can I expect?
The answer? You can expect an organization that is resilient and adaptive, one that comes together in tough times as well as in good times.
When you Value Visibly: Team members show up at work with excitement and drive. They are motivated to make meaningful contributions and innovations, prompting employee engagement, retention, and productivity.
When you Communicate Carefully: Teams present a single, united front, get projects done quickly and efficiently, and feel safe bringing up potentially groundbreaking ideas.
When you Collaborate Confidently: You create organization-wide alignment on common goals without misunderstandings or petty disagreements, leading to cross-team collaboration, innovation, customer loyalty, and marketing effectiveness.
When you Trust Totally: You create high levels of organizational faith, where people tell the truth, keep their word, and deliver on their commitments, in turn creating client/customer sales growth and cost-effectiveness.
References used:
- Dhawan E. Digital body language: How to build trust and connection, no matter the distance (2021)
- T. Frank H.A. Digital body language: How to build trust and win in the online world (2021)
