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The Koen file

Help your people trust you

Trust is the most fundamental aspect of leadership, bar none, and it’s the first thing that needed to be rebuilt at SAVVIS.

“If you are lacking trust, there is really nothing more to talk about,” Koen says. “Think of a world where suddenly you bring together 100 different people from different ethnic and economic backgrounds, but they are all united around a common vision or goal and have developed a very strong sense of mutual trust — how powerful that could be.”

Building that trust is a lot easier said than done.

“I wish there was a trust pill you could take and suddenly things happen, but life doesn’t work that way,” Koen says. “The way it works is that it’s the cumulative effect over a long haul of how you handle interpersonal relations. Do you live by your commitments, and do you make your commitments clear? Do you treat people fairly, openly and honestly?

“It’s not a difficult concept. If you ask any person on the street, ‘How do you build trust?’ it really boils down to I want to be treated as you would treat me. You do that consistently over a period of time and it’s remarkable what happens.”

But it’s not just what you say. Listening and observing is just as important in your efforts to build employee trust.

“It’s just being observant and listening and asking good questions to spark people to open up to you,” Koen says. “You can figure out pretty quickly the situational analysis that you find yourself in. When I think about the problem solving around leadership, I don’t think figuring out the situation is the hard thing. It’s figuring out what you’re going to do about it that is the tough part.”

You may need to adapt your style to your people to build trust and show them that you’re working toward the same goal. If they don’t feel like you care about the things they bring to the table, employees aren’t likely to care much about what you have to say.

“Leadership style has to change according to the situational parameters that you find yourself in,” Koen says.

He references Pete Carroll, the football coach at the University of Southern California who struggled in his stints coaching in the National Football League.

“He goes to USC, and the program was OK, and he’s built it into a powerhouse,” Koen says. “Going into that situation, his leadership style had to fit. His shareholders, what they call alumni, they are not going to be real patient. He had to mold himself to be effective in that situation, and he figured it out.”

Koen also wanted to get employees involved in giving input on how SAVVIS could maximize its potential.

“What I wanted to do was make certain that I was tapping into the broader organization at all levels, really listening to the concerns and the great ideas and making certain I could have a clear view as to what it was that was causing people to opt in, to be here and to make this a better organization,” Koen says.

“People underestimate how much time and effort goes into teasing out of the organization the great ideas and making absolutely certain you synthesize that into the ones you want to pursue and continue to communicate that in a consistent message.”