From “Blitz the Ladder” by Todd Rhoad

Trust in organizations has several major benefits. It has the ability to influence problem solving and creativity. It can also improve the organization's efficiency and effectiveness by allowing the company to alleviate control mechanisms designed to monitor employees and to utilize this energy in other areas. In moving up the corporate ladder of an organization, it is likely that the amount of trust increases as you reach the top. This is because the managers at the highest levels are responsible for establishing the desired level of trust in the company.

They set the desired level of trust by creating and maintaining the organization's culture. So, they will attempt to support the preferred attitudes, norms, values, and behaviors through formal and informal policies that establish the culture. This trust is extremely important to managers, because, to some extent, it defines how employees will respond to a given situation. In this sense, trust is “primarily guided by their potential use for the realization of material benefits or the avoidance of material losses.” However, you may also see it as simply attaching emotion to your relationship with others. In our quest to move up the ladder, the most useful definition is a combination of both. This is not to imply that the highest level of trust will be with management; you will most likely want to evaluate the trust network from the bottom up, structurally speaking.

As you carefully monitor social interactions throughout the organization, note the connections employees have with each other. More importantly, observe the quantity of connections and where most of those ties exist within the network. Because we are most interested in befriending the central member of the trust network, we should look for individuals with numerous direct connections with other employees, because they will, presumably, possess high levels of trust.

For organizations, central members of the trust network pose a couple of risks, if they are moved or removed. First, a loss of this connector could result in a significant reduction of trust in the organization's strategy, direction, or purpose, especially if the removal is viewed as unfair. Secondly, organizations will incur more difficulty bringing new employees into their trust network. Other important members of the trust network are commonly referred to as brokers. These members occupy positions that bridge sub-networks such as marketing and finance departments. They maintain key relationships between sub-groups. Brokers have the ability to bring together support from various groups within an organization. Removal of these brokers from the network can result in an inability to muster unified support across the organization or even between groups with differing values and perspectives, such as production and management.

Lastly, you should be able to quickly identify peripheral members, as they appear disengaged and loosely connected to the network. This could be due to insufficient social skills, poor attitude, or dissatisfaction. Their presence is not highly visible from within the network and is normally not considered in decision making. While these members do not have significant connectivity to the internal network, they may be highly connected to external networks—so care should be taken not to avoid their support until carefully evaluating their position.

Identifying a complete social network in an organization is quite time consuming and challenging from a logistics point of view. Most likely, you won't be able to develop and perform surveys to find out everything you'll want to know about each person in the company. If you desire to briefly define your company's network, try following these steps:

1. Select the particular group you think will provide the most strategic benefit, such as upper-level management if you desire to move up, or another group if you desire a lateral move. Make sure the group you choose suits your goals. Don't waste a lot of time plotting the whole organization's network.
2. Look at each individual in terms of information flow; consider where they get information and to whom they give it. Another observation to consider is the impact of the interactions. Maybe, interactions with a highly-connected individual seem to always be pleasant and motivational. This may explain why they are so well-connected.
3. Note the behaviors and feelings shared between employees during their interactions. Remember the actions that create a good exchange of information with each individual, because it will aid you in establishing your connection to them.