The Importance of Trust in Project Management

By Stephen Carter

One would be easily forgiven for thinking that life is not one grand result but actually the sum of its parts. To some extent, every part of life is a project seeking a manager whether its buying a new house; planning a well-deserved holiday; or building a new jail in one of the New York boroughs. Satisfaction is achieved if the required decisions along are vested in trust; trust of the evidence, the effort, and the people responsible for the outcome. 

Seems like I have this questionable habit of preparing my article on Independence Day. There may be something deep in this habit, but it is too hot where I am to drill down. But last year, using Gino Wickman’s book, Traction, I referenced his suggestion that management involves having people in the right seats. 

Anyone who has tried to shepherd any form of a project from conception to conclusion understands that the seat chosen or assigned is not always comfortable.  To use a Toyota management term, the “conditions of satisfaction” are influenced by the outlook and attitudes of all participants, and their trust of the mission and the people empowered to achieve the mission. 

Of course, scheduling, communication protocols, quality assurance, budgeting, and all the other requirements to deliver the project are essential, but the intangible glue that holds the project together, in the end, is trust. My dear friend and passionate architect, April Pottorff, always reminds me to “trust the process.” 

I don’t want to go too deep into the notion that trust is the foundation of effective project management but stay with me for a few paragraphs. James Grunig of the University of Maryland developed a theory that can be summarized by his following statement that trust is: “a willingness to open oneself to risk by engaging in a relationship with another party”. The two operative words for me in his theory are risk and relationship. 

Signs are apparent that the USA may be emerging from a generation of “warehousing” criminals largely impacted by mass incarceration policies and sentencing legislation. While we are furlongs away from a “Nordic Model” of incarceration, evidence exists that whether the stratospheric costs of construction or just basic common sense have mellowed attitudes towards the use of incarceration, the downward trend in the use of incarceration is evident.  

Just from what I currently know, correctional projects totaling more than five billion dollars are in planning or design, and that number could easily be doubled. Regardless of the form of project management being used, countless people are interacting daily to analyze evidence and data that will determine the capital and operational outcomes. 

Because the echo of these management decisions will reverberate for generations into the future, we need to pay particular attention to how we communicate during the process of decision-exploring, and particularly how we actually build a shared trust in the project management team members. 

Payl Zak is the founding director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies and a professor of economics, psychology, and management at Claremont Graduate University, and the CEO of Immersion Neuroscience. He is the author of Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies. In a recent article for the Harvard Business Review, he noted that “In my research I’ve found that building a culture of trust is what makes a meaningful difference. Employees in high-trust organizations are more productive, have more energy at work, collaborate better with their colleagues, and stay with their employers longer than people working at low-trust companies. They also suffer less chronic stress and are happier with their lives, and these factors fuel stronger performance.” 

Managing the development of a new correctional facility is a stressful endeavor that ebbs and flows over an extended time period. Participants from all levels of involvement in the project change frequently making sustaining trust even more challenging. Again, I am quoting from several management behaviors that foster trust from the extensive research by Paul Zak in his lab regarding the importance of trust in project management.  

Recognize excellence. The neuroscience shows that recognition has the largest effect on trust when it occurs immediately after a goal has been met, when it comes from peers, and when it’s tangible, unexpected, personal, and public. 

Induce “challenge stress.” When team members need to work together to reach a goal, brain activity coordinates their behaviors efficiently. 

Give people discretion in how they do their work. Being trusted to figure things out is a big motivator. Autonomy also promotes innovation, because different people try different approaches. Oversight and risk management procedures can help minimize negative deviations while people experiment. 

Enable job crafting. Clear expectations are set when employees assume new responsibilities within the group, and 360-degree evaluations are done when tasks wrap up, so that individual contributions can be measured. 

Share information broadly. Zak points out that team members trust the decisions of the decision-makers when information is broadly shared, and his research shows that withholding information to promote personal power is the death of trust. 

Intentionally build relationships.  We often get the message that we should focus on completing tasks, not on making friends. Neuroscience experiments show that when people intentionally build social ties at work, their performance improves. 

Show vulnerability. Leaders in high-trust workplaces ask for help from colleagues instead of just telling them to do things. Asking for help is a sign of a secure leader—one who engages everyone to reach goals.  

These several observations may seem obvious, but how often do we become so focused on the outcomes in managing a project that we overlook (and inadvertently diminish) the importance of establishing and sustaining trust.  

Defining and promoting the “right seats” for team members is one of the most critical steps in project management and then trusting them to return the trust through inspired performance is a sign of good leadership. From the Harvard Business Review article, Max Du Pree, the former CEO of Herman Miller (a name familiar to all architects) said “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant.” 

Stephen Carter, AICP is the executive vice president and global strategic development officer at Miami-based CGL Companies. 

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the July/August 2024 issue of Correctional News.