Measure What Matters: Turning Trust into a Strategic Metric

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Welcome back to the lab. Today, we are reviewing John Blakey's article in Harvard Business Review. If trust is so important, why aren't we measuring it? It's from November 2025. So trust is something that we often hear as foundational. It drives performance. It drives customer loyalty. It drives innovation. According to the article, every CEO he interviewed affirmed this. And yet, when asked whether they actually measure trust, many executives didn't have anything to say.

Some rely on proxies like engagement surveys or net promoter scores. Others believe trust is too soft to quantify. So in this podcast, we'll talk about why trust matters, why we don't measure it more often, and how you, as a manager, can begin measuring and improving trust in your teams and your organization. So what are some key takeaways from the article? Number one, trust is a measurable strategic asset. Now.

Now, I began to think about this concept when I read The Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey. That was the book that really started me thinking that trust is much more of a very hard business skill than any kind of soft skill. But the author here argues that trust shouldn't be treated as a nice-to-have. It can and should be tracked like any other key variable. So, we measure profitability, we measure customer satisfaction, we measure safety metrics, we should be measuring trust as well.

Because when trust is high, we see better employee performance, we see more innovation, we see stronger customer loyalty. But conversely, when trust is low, we see friction and avoidance and disagreement and disengagement. So the paradox here is, despite recognizing the importance of trust, many organizations do not have meaningful systems to measure it.

Okay, second takeaway, four steps to measuring trust. So according to the author, C-suite and boards need to follow a process. Decide on a measurement tool, monitor it, respond to the insights, and embed trust in measurement. And in governance of how they operate. It's not enough to ask, do you trust your leader? You actually need to look for the behavioral indicators like regular cadence and meaningful follow-up. And then measurement enables accountability and visibility.

The old adage, if you don't measure it, you can't manage it, really speaks volumes about how we treat this particular skill in our organizations. Okay, the third takeaway is that behaviors underpin trust. Blakely, in this article and in his prior research, emphasizes that trust comes down to three overarching elements. Number one, ability. Number two, integrity. Number three, what he calls benevolence or caring.

Beneath those, there are habits that leaders can demonstrate, like, do we deliver results? Do we coach well? Are we consistent? Do we admit our mistakes? Do we listen on the surface, or do we really go into deep listening? Do our employees feel like we hear them? Do we show genuine concern? All of these things, all of these behaviors then create the feel of trust on your teams, within your one-on-one direct report relationships, and then ultimately in your organization.

So the bottom line is trust isn't mystical. It's grounded in very observable behaviors.

Fourth takeaway, why we fail to measure it. Well, Blakely, the author, identifies a few reasons. Belief that trust is intangible or too subjective. That's one. Absence of agreed metrics, so we can't decide on how to measure it. And then survey fatigue. Everybody is tired of surveys. And then finally, organizational inertia. Easy to track hard, you know, performance data, like, you know, how many doctors or how many customers did the sales rep visit last week?

Or, you know, what's the number of tons that you laid in your paving crews last week? Those are easy. Trust, not so easy. And so you get this organizational inertia. It's kind of hard. It's a little harder than most of our metrics. Plus, Many organizations use proxies like engagement or turnover data that may capture some elements of trust, but don't isolate trust as a independent variable. And so without explicit measurement, trust risks being ignored until it just breaks.

Okay, so here's some actionable things that we can do as managers to help ourselves here with this very important skill. Number one, start with a baseline survey on trust. So ask your managers and teams key questions aligned to these three elements, ability, integrity, and benevolence. For example, I believe my manager keeps their promises. You know, maybe rate that on a scale from one to five. I feel comfortable raising concerns without fear of reprimand.

Or I believe my manager genuinely cares about my development. Use the results then as a baseline so you can benchmark the data and then make sure you communicate the purpose. This is about improving trust, not just ticking a box, fulfilling some sort of obligation. This is really about improving how we do business. The second thing we can do here is define trust metrics and how it's going to be governed. So as the author suggests, pick a measurement tool and commit to monitoring

it at a regular interval. So like, you know, every six months or so. Include trust metrics in your dashboards. So how we measure managers and their effectiveness. Let's actually put it in their dashboards, just like we track safety incidents or turnover rates. and then assign clear ownership.

So someone like a regional HR person or someone that's on a talent committee or a person, a people committee, whatever you call it in OHI engagement committee, those people can report on trust scores and progress as you go along. And then the third thing is to translate those survey findings into behavioral change where scores are low, identify which of the three domains, whether it's ability, integrity, or benevolence are weak, and then develop action plans.

So for instance, if it's ability, you know, maybe do some training or coaching for managers on how to deliver commitments. If it's on integrity, maybe workshops on transparency or how to admit mistakes or how to demonstrate consistency. If it's benevolence, maybe encourage genuine check-ins with your one-on-ones, more opportunities to recognize people doing something right, and then just having more development conversations in general.

The fourth thing is to embed trust building in leadership routines. So what this means is make trust discussions part of your manager forums and keep asking the questions, what commitments have we broken? Where have we over-promised? How are we supporting our people? Where are we not supporting our people? Just ask those questions constantly. Encourage peer reviews of trust behaviors. So have managers ask, does my team believe that I deliver? Do they feel safe speaking up?

And then tie trust behaviors into performance reviews for managers. Not just output metrics, but how you lead, how you keep your word, and how you support your team. The fifth and final actionable tip here is to communicate transparently and follow up. The article talks about after each measurement cycle, sharing your results broadly at an aggregated level, and then outline actions that the organization or that

your team specifically is going to take. This reinforces that measuring is not just lip service. We actually do something about when we hear from you, we actually act on it. You can also use quick, some pulse check-ins between the full surveys to keep your momentum, maybe isolating on one of those domains or another, and then ensuring visible improvement. When people see that trust measurement leads to change, they engage more fully.

So to wrap up, trust is not just something nice to talk about. It's a very strategic asset that affects performance, innovation. Retention, and culture, all of it. But too many organizations treat it as invisible.

But by measuring it, making it visible and driving behavioral change that's grounded in those three domains, ability, integrity, and benevolence, we can really elevate trust in our organizations, on our teams, and between you as a manager and your direct reports from rhetoric to operational reality. Well, thanks for listening today. Hope you got a lot out of that. And until next time we meet in the Manager Lab. Do good work.