Misc
10 Proven Ways to Build Trust With Employees
Making progress towards ambitious and complex organizational objectives can be a tricky endeavor for even the most accomplished of teams.
But if there was ever a surefire recipe to make this undertaking more difficult, it’d be embarking on these kinds of goals with a team that doesn’t actually trust each other.
Not only does trust enable individuals to work outside of their silos and collaborate with other people on the team, but trust is also associated with improved communication, job satisfaction, and higher performance levels within organizations.
The Trust Imperative
Today’s infographic comes to us from The Business Backer, and it highlights 10 proven ways to build trust with employees in teams and organizations.
Many of the complex challenges that dot the modern business landscape cannot be solved by a myriad of solo efforts.
Teams are necessary, and working together cannot take place only at a superficial level. To tackle the big problems, teams must have deep-rooted commitments to each other, creating potential for collaboration, healthy conflict, and differences of opinion.
Managers need to trust employees and vice versa, but different types of teams need to trust each other across other business functions as well.
10 Ways to Build Trust
It’s not possible to build trust with employees overnight, but there are some easy ways to kickstart the process.
- Show them the big picture
Ensuring employees have a view of the big picture creates a space for communication and openness. - Set clear expectations
A lack of clarity of what to expect can lead to confusion, which erodes trust. - Listen actively
Asking open-ended questions like “How’s the project going?” builds trust and respect. - Delegate low-risk projects
A cycle of trust can be created, moving up to bigger and more important projects. - Schedule weekly catch-up meetings
Regular meetings create a trusting environment for people to give and receive feedback. - Be honest
Even when it is uncomfortable, being honest helps build trust and creates healthy conflict. - Commit to your word
Trust depends on integrity, and seemingly erratic behavior undermines this. - Recognize excellent work
This has the biggest effect on trust right after a goal has been met. - Share a bit about yourself
Oxytocin is released in the brain when we socialize and build trust. - Let employees work on projects they enjoy
This allows employees to focus on what they care about most, fostering trust.
Consequences of Inaction
It doesn’t matter how smart or experienced your team is.
Without the element of trust, they will not be able to work together in an effective fashion. For this reason, undertaking a mission to enable and build trust with employees is crucial for the success of any modern organization.
Maps
The Incredible Historical Map That Changed Cartography
Check out the Fra Mauro Mappa Mundi (c. 1450s), a historical map that formed a bridge between medieval and renaissance worldviews.

The Incredible Historical Map That Changed Cartography
This map is the latest in our Vintage Viz series, which presents historical visualizations along with the context needed to understand them.
In a one-paragraph story called On Exactitude in Science (Del Rigor en la Ciencia), Jorge Luis Borges imagined an empire where cartography had reached such an exact science that only a map on the same scale of the empire would suffice.
The Fra Mauro Mappa Mundi (c. 1450s), named for the lay Camaldolite monk and cartographer whose Venetian workshop created it, is not nearly as large, at a paltry 77 inches in diameter (196 cm). But its impact and significance as a bridge between Middle Age and Renaissance thought certainly rivaled Borges’ imagined map.
One of ‘the Wonders of Venice’
Venice was the undisputed commercial power in the Mediterranean, whose trade routes connected east and west, stretching to Flanders, London, Algeria, and beyond.
This network was protected by fleets of warships built at the famous Arsenale di Venezia, the largest production facility in the West, whose workforce of thousands of arsenalotti built ships on an assembly line, centuries before Henry Ford.
The lion of St Mark guards the land gate to the Arsenale di Venezia, except instead of the usual open bible in its hands offering peace, this book is closed, reflecting its martial purpose. Source: Wikipedia
The Mappa Mundi (literally “map of the world”) was considered one of the wonders of Venice with a reputation that reached the Holy Land. It is a circular planisphere drawn on four sheets of parchment, mounted onto three poplar panels and reinforced by vertical battens.
The map is painted in rich reds, golds, and blues; this last pigment was obtained from rare lapis lazuli, imported from mines in Afghanistan. At its corners are four spheres showing the celestial and sublunar worlds, the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water), and an illumination of the Garden of Eden by Leonardo Bellini (active 1443-1490).
Japan (on the left edge, called the Isola de Cimpagu) appears here for the first time in a Western map. And contradicting Ptolemaic tradition, it also shows that it was possible to circumnavigate Africa, presaging the first European journey around the Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias in 1488.
NASA called the historical map “stunning” in its accuracy.
A Historical Map Between Two Worlds
Medieval maps, like the Hereford Mappa Mundi (c. 1300), were usually oriented with east at the top, because that’s where the Garden of Eden was thought to be. Fra Mauro, however, chose to orient his to the south, perhaps following Muslim geographers such as Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Idrisi.
Significantly, the Garden of Eden is placed outside of geographic space and Jerusalem is no longer at the center, though it is still marked by a windrose. The nearly 3,000 place names and descriptions are written in the Venetian vernacular, rather than Latin.
At the same time, as much as Fra Mauro’s map is a departure from the past, it also retains traces of a medieval Christian worldview. For example, included on the map are the Kingdom of the Magi, the Kingdom of Prester John, and the Tomb of Adam.
Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae (c. 600–625). Source: Wikipedia
The circular planisphere also follows the medieval T-O schema, first described by Isidore of Seville, with Asia occupying the top half of the circle, and Europe and Africa each occupying the bottom two quarters (Fra Mauro turns the ‘T’ on its side, to reflect a southern orientation). Around the circle, are many islands, beyond which is the “dark sea” where only shipwreck and misfortune await.
Fra Mauro’s Legacy
Fra Mauro died some time before 20 October 1459, and unfortunately his contributions fell into obscurity soon thereafter; until 1748, it was believed that the Mappa Mundi was a copy of a lost map by Marco Polo.
In 1811, the original was moved from Fra Mauro’s monastery of San Michele to the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, following the suppression of religious orders in the Napoleonic era, where it can be viewed today.
Two digital editions have also been produced by the Museo Galileo and the Engineering Historical Memory project, where readers can get a glimpse into a fascinating piece of cartographic history.
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