How (And Why) I Created A Culture Of Trust

Whether I’m meeting with Polen Capital clients or our employees, the importance of psychological safety in the workforce often comes up. And while talking openly about it is crucial, businesses must take action to move it from a talking point to a reality.

Generally, all teams — especially new ones — can’t develop psychological safety until they form meaningful connections based on trust. Trust creates the foundation for psychological safety. Recent research indicates that around 25% of employees lack trust in their employers.

Creating a culture of trust can be challenging. I know because we embarked on a full-scale, firmwide psychological safety initiative at Polen Capital.

Our path began in 2012 with our pursuit and learnings around a growth mindset. At Polen, fostering a growth mindset in a psychologically safe environment is crucial for delivering exceptional value. It’s our commitment to create such an atmosphere, as it encourages innovation and the free flow of ideas, essential for our firm’s success. The key learning from the aforementioned study is that people need to receive real-time candid feedback if they want to continuously improve. To have real-time candid feedback, a foundation of trust is necessary.

This journey accelerated in January 2022 when we closed our first acquisition and expanded our team of 140 people to nearly 250. We knew we needed to build a foundation of trust for the acquisition integration to be successful.

Today, we follow these strategies to ensure everyone’s rowing in the same direction and fostering a culture of openness, empowerment and security:

1. Commit to psychological safety and communicate about it clearly and consistently.

To execute successful change, you must be 100% committed. This means setting clear, measurable goals and objectives and sharing these objectives broadly across the organization.

In January 2022, during our first all-hands meeting post-acquisition, we shared that trust would be the theme for the year. We turned to experts in corporate trust-building and assigned David Horsager’s “Trust Edge” as a firmwide reading, which served as the centerpiece for the internal meeting. We also assigned and shared quarterly trust-related action items.

Horsager then delivered a keynote to the firm at our second all-hands meeting in May. His work focuses on eight unique pillars of trust. Stemming from that, we assigned a different trust pillar to each of the remaining eight months of the year. Eevery month, employees nominated colleagues who have embodied the particular trust pillar. This effort helped keep the topic of trust top of mind for the firm.

In addition to reading Horsager’s work, we’ve added structure and coordinated learning around trust. We’ve also studied and assigned firmwide training on radical candor (more on that later). This decision led to higher client survey scores, lower attrition, and a seven-year run on Pensions & Investments’ Best Places to Work in Money Management list.

Being very real about psychological safety and connecting everything to business outcomes changes everything. People are more open to receiving, listening to, and implementing feedback because they assume the giver’s intentions are good. Ultimately, consistently talking about how our efforts toward trust are improving our firm shows everyone how real the effects can be.

Psychological safety is critical to our performance, but if we want employees to put it into practice, we can’t just expect people to figure it out on their own — we have found that practical tools, strategies, and frameworks have all been incredibly helpful. Training in practical communication tools helps uphold a trustful, psychologically safe culture where feedback is welcomed and acted upon. Mistakes aren’t seen as fatal; instead, they’re learning opportunities.

For instance, a recent significant trading error led to substantial losses, but instead of terminating the responsible employee, we supported them, underscoring our commitment to a nurturing environment. As a CEO, I strive to be approachable through an open-door policy, regular floor walks, and skip-level meetings, helping ensure psychological safety and open dialogue across the firm.

2. Build relationships and give a voice to team members.

Storytelling is a key component of our culture. At each all-hands meeting, we ask two employees to share their personal stories and their “why.” These stories are meant to show who they are and describe a defining moment in their life. Their honesty inspires attendees, contributes to team cohesiveness, and illustrates that we believe in establishing and nourishing a tight-knit group of great people who can trust each other.

Technology is instrumental to our success. It helps us connect with each other and support our clients across the world in all time zones. However, in-person interaction is key to building trusting relationships. Each May, every Polen Capital employee around the globe is invited to travel to our headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida. During the meeting, we discuss our firm’s vision, the importance of continuous improvement, and how we connect our work to our purpose. At its core, it’s about building trust and meaningful relationships with each other.

Forming trusting relationships has many positive outcomes, including a more effective feedback process. Being a good receiver of feedback can separate you from the pack. The better you are at responding to it, the more you receive and the better you become. Without trust, you are less inclined to ask for feedback and provide radical candor.

Radical candor is a concept that involves giving and receiving real-time, constructive feedback. Here’s the thing, though: Radical candor isn’t possible without a high degree of trust. Therefore, we’ve used it as a guide to help us grow trust.

If I provide feedback to help you get better and improve business outcomes, you need to trust that my intent to help you is genuine. If you start from that place, you will be more open to receiving, listening and implementing feedback (even if the delivery isn’t the best). However, if you initially assume bad intentions or are defensive, the probability of giving continuous and thoughtful feedback declines, and the feedback loop breaks.

3. Talk the talk and walk the walk.

It might sound trite, but leading by example is essential. Put simply, I need to be vulnerable if I ask others to do the same. That’s why I volunteered to share my personal story in front of the firm. It’s the “talk the talk and walk the walk” concept. This also goes for providing radical candor and being a good receiver of candid feedback. It’s easy to give feedback, but it’s much harder to receive it.

Go into any bookstore and you’ll find plenty of books about giving feedback. There are far fewer books about receiving, processing and reacting to feedback. If I am reluctant to model the right behaviors when receiving radical candor, my team members will understandably be less willing to be accountable and open-minded.

Psychological safety at work requires continuous effort and improvement — accomplished through building trusting relationships, providing radical candor, having honest conversations, and challenging people. In this environment, employees can learn and grow, and businesses can transform from the ground up. I am grateful that get to I see the benefits of a trusting workforce every day.

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