We had a lovely break from our usual work day yesterday.  Jonathan Rens, an entrepreneur with vast experience in leadership and developing company strategies, came and gave a talk on ‘trust and daily decisions at work’.

Jonathan started his talk by posing the following question:

“What is the most important ingredient in a business?”

We all thought the answer was rather obvious – people of course! Not so!

TRUST is the most important ingredient in a business.

Without trust the business will struggle no matter how many employees there are.

Jonathan went on to explain ‘there can be no relationship without trust.  Trust is more important than profit. Trust impacts the entire life of the business.  For truth and integrity to flourish there has to be trust between the staff and between the business and the customer.
Communication is how we manage trust’.

“When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.” –Stephen R. Covey

Some synonyms for trust are ‘believe in, have faith in, depend on, count on’

We need to be able to trust our co-workers, our managers, our bosses, and customers need to be able to trust us, the company.

“If you don’t have trust inside your company, then you can’t transfer it to your customers.” —Roger Staubach

 We are determined to have many more of these lunch time talks in the future.

I would strongly suggest that all companies implement something like this in their businesses!

After the talk we helped ourselves to more food, mingled and spoke to each other – a lovely break from eating at the desk, or in the kitchen, or on the run, and Jonathan was available to answer more questions.

The verse below sums up TRUST in the workplace!

“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness, and to godliness, brotherly love”    2 Peter 5-7

To be effective in the workplace all the above qualities are needed.

For more information on WorkPlace Living please contact Jonathan at Jonathan@matisse.co.za

WorkPlace Living centres on a decision framework for organisations, a framework that is an extension of the biblical framework that is basic to the individual Christian. For the organisation, the framework gives context to traditional corporate values, and using it increases the ability of inculcating corporate values into the life of the organisation (puts values into decision making and creates greater protection from outside influence).

The framework:  1) enables values influence across the entire organisation, 2) is an opportunity to introduce Christian thinking into the organisation and in so doing provide Christian leadership to the organisation, 3) provides potential for operational consistency within the organisation, and 4) helps in the measurement of values in decisions.