A good piece on trust and hierarchy

The most broken departments I’ve worked in were also the least trustful of colleagues, new or old. The biggest project failures crumbled on relationships that began with mistrust. If an organisation doesn’t trust itself, why would anyone else?

Our best hope, I think, is to combine great leaders with networks that reward trust.

At the moment, civil servants often default to mistrust. As for tailoring, many use grades. When you meet a civil servant, they will often introduce themselves as ‘I’m the Grade 5 from the Department of X’. What they’re saying is: ‘You can trust my level of competence and decision making power within this organisation you know nothing about.’

Grades are a rubbish rule of thumb for trust. They tell you little about what a person has done or what they could do.

Source: Why trust beats hierarchy | Medium | Andrew Greenway, March 2016.