E026 Cultivating a Culture of Trust with Zachary Jones (Pt 1)

Trust is the foundation of team success and a vital asset for any leader. In this episode, Zachary Jones Security Advisory Director at CNA, a Financial Corporation based in Chicago explains why trust is so crucial and how its absence can hinder productivity and progress.
 
Zach highlights the key differences between low-trust and high-trust cultures, offers insights on identifying where your organisation stands, and shares his strategies for building what he calls his "dream team"

He also discusses how leaders can foster a culture of trust and suggests alternative approaches to handling common issues that might otherwise undermine trust. For example, instead of micromanaging a team member struggling with time management and thereby stifling creativity and innovation, equip them with the tools to improve, which will not only improve their productivity but build trust with them.

Tune in now to discover practical strategies for enhancing your leadership and elevating your team to new heights.

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Zach Jones is the Security Advisory Director at CNA, a Financial Corporation based in Chicago. Zach kicked off his journey studying Applied Physics at Indiana University and working in the field for a few years as an Undergraduate Researcher. He then joined cybersecurity consulting firm based in indianapolis called The Mako Group, where his cybersecurity career began. 

He went on to spend about 2 years living abroad and worked in about 30 different countries across 6 continents. His experience at The Mako Group set Zach up for success with the right mix of skills and experience to take on the Airport and Operational Technology Cybersecurity program at United Airlines. 

Between coordinating new hire/intern programs, guest speaking at Indiana University, and helping recruit for the TechWomen program, Zach and his wife try and spend at least 2 months each year traveling. 

Transcript

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Whenever you find yourself in a situation where you've maybe written up some copy and said I need  to push this out as part of a marketing pitch or send this out to the organization because  we're doing an it change as soon as three or four different people all say well we have to approve  this it's a pretty good indicator you're in a low trust environment well why do so many individuals  feel they need to approve what one person is trying to get done that we've directly asked them  to do that's a part of furthering the vision of the organization or whatever project is going on  maybe the conversation wasn't about getting this particular copy or change approved it was whether  or not you know individual a who's just doing the they've been asked to do is actually on the same  page or aligned with those other four teams who all feel they need to play a role there so to to  state it a different way were we all operating on the same premise before the decision Point came  up you're listening to the life and Leadership podcast where leaders from across the globe share  openly about the trials triumphs and Lessons Learned along the leadership Journey whether  you're a seasoned new or aspiring leader get ready to receive powerful insights and practical  takeaways to help you grow in your leadership and now here is your host Mary [Music] Eniolu welcome  to the life on leadership podcast my guest today is Zach Jones currently the security advisory  director at CNA a Financial corporation based in Chicago where he has been for the past three years  building out his team of Engineers Architects and technologist Zach kicked off his journey  studying Applied Physics at Indiana University and working in the field for a few years as an  undergraduate researcher he then joined cyber security consulting firm based in Indianapolis  called the Maco group where his cyber security career began he went on to spend about 2 years  living abroad and worked from about 30 different countries across six continents his experience at  the Marco group set him up for success with a right mix of skills and experience to take on  the airport and operational technology cyber security program at United Airlines outside of  work Zach's passion for travel and his desire to help others enter the cyber security field keeps  him busy between coordinating new hire and intern programs guests speaking at Indiana University and  helping recruit for the tech Women program Zach and his wife spend at least two months traveling  each year Zach it's wonderful to have you on the life and Leadership podcast absolutely  thanks for having me I'm excited to have a chat today I've been looking forward to our chat  myself I'm just going to ask you to start us off by telling us a little bit about yourself your  journey and how you got to where you are today yeah absolutely happy to chat about it so right  now I'm working at a company called CNA it's a big Insurance conglomerate I lead the security  advisory function I've got a team of about 10 people under me so I'm I'm going to say kind  of still in the early stages of my career but I've gotten to try on this leadership role I definitely  have a lot of lessons learned from it um and I'm excited to chat a little bit about the about that  but how I've gotten to this point has been kind of an interesting Journey so cyber security is  a unique field and that there's not really a a direct straightforward path to getting into the  industry so my background is actually an applied physics and my first three years on the job were  in a particle physics group turns out that's not the lifestyle I was interested in but really cool  opportunity at Indiana University uh which was my alma matter and that kind of kicked me off on this  life of a a technology Journey that was the the piece of the work I I connected to the most and  through that I ended up at a cyber security consulting firm just doing basic like audits  for one person dental practices and as boring as that may sound that's what I kind of came alive  as oh this is a really big challenge this is a big um opportunity at an industry level to get  into cyber security as it's still on the upswing and since then I spent a lot of time self-learning  self-training um taking every opportunity I could to grab grab different projects to join  different teams associations um and then I've kind of ridden that out so I worked at United  Airlines for a little bit as well in their airport and operational technology cyber security team and  now I'm kind of in the security advisory program so it's been a it's been a bit of a wild ride I'm  also working on my Master's Degree right now at Indianapolis University uh to be formally trained in  cyber security finally so so that's a lot and and and you mentioned about the self-development there  I mean how important is continued development do you think to success it's absolutely essential  uh I think it's really easy when you maybe exit a certain job field graduate college what whatever  that big decision point is when you then enter another field and you think okay I have all of the  knowledge and equipment and skills I need to start this job that's why I've gotten it but then like  day two on the job you're behind on something so it's about fostering in building that intentional  continuous learning uh and I think everybody might do that a little bit differently like for me it  involves certifications in grad school for others it might be fostering maybe a side project a side  habit trying to build an application in your free time some of the I I'm going to say the simplest  but most pivotal self-development and training opportunities I've taken advantage of there's a  podcast I listen to that's two hours long and released once a week I have listened to every  single episode for like the last eight years and that has really helped me keep this consistent at  least two hours every week or devoted to training mentality as long as I can find time to listen to  that podcast yeah and there's certainly a lot more than just that but again it's that it's  that consistency and repetition where you have to find what what type of media what type of format  is actually entertaining or valuable to you and every every person in any career should have that  that one thing that they can say this isn't really work right but it's keeping me up to speed it's  keeping me learning yeah I think in the world we're living at the moment it's there's really  no excuse I heard Rachel Hollis I don't know if you've heard of her say once if you're ignorant  about something that is your choice because there is just so much information everywhere um that's  the podcast there's YouTube videos there's just so much information but like you say it's finding  the one that works for you and maybe fits into your schedule as well I love podcasts because  I can listen on the go while I'm running I'm in the shower so there's just lots of ways we can  keep growing and and learning in especially in the world we live in where things are moving so  fast like you say two day two days if into the job you find that you need to learn something because  things are changing and developing so rapidly so I think that's really really important but coming  to talk about leadership so tell us about how you stepped into your first leadership role and how  did that feel did you feel excited were you were you nervous tell us about that yeah so I think  I want to answer this in two different ways the first is there are many leadership roles people  step into that are not like the the LinkedIn ready resume building leadership role and I think those  are important to recognize and understand so some of the first leadership roles I ever stepped into  is like way back when I was a kid with the Boy Scouts and a fraternity and stuff like that and  I think it's important to recognize that the the start of a leadership journey is normally before  it's the job so I would say my first few roles I mean I absolutely bombed them when I was doing it  with friends and family and you know non-profit organizations as I was growing up but once I  stepped into my leadership role here at CNA I think that's when a a distinct change happened  where it was all day every day I'm now responsible for uh not just coordinating a group but building  a team so I was the first person on this team um and then I've now grown it up to 10 so I've  gotten to basically handpick my dream team and that's been a really cool experience but I think  some of the biggest challenges along the way are as as an organization grows together so CNA went  from like 20 full-time people in security to over 120 everybody else is growing just as quickly as I  was and I got to impart my own Vision not just on my team but on the organization and when I say my  vision it's my vision for what the department culture would be what I want my team culture  to feel like the flexibilities the freedoms the focuses and with that I've gotten to flex a lot of  muscles and kind kind of I'm going to say discover things that I didn't realize from all of those  kind of I'll say low impact leadership roles that I started out in now that I'm in a high impact one  and Concepts like trust have come up and culture have come up repeatedly and I think those are some  of the most important skills you're never taught but they're definitely technical skills that can  be trained developed learned built and I think the book is called the Speed Of Trust by Steven  that book um is one I've discovered in just the last few years and I think it's an incredible  way to look at especially a corporate environment and think through how how do we get better right  like what's going wrong at an organizational level people will call it playing politics in  an organization but it's it's really more relationship building and relationships are  foundational have their foundations in trust in the culture of the department how people  interact with one another so by looking at it and thinking about uh trust as the underpinning for  how a department culture a team a leadership is created I think those are some of the most  important things to think about and you know trust can trust can kind of be at a lot of different  levels first is self trust like do I trust myself to kind of put my ideas out there to know that I  think I'm right or at least I'm ready to be wrong and fail and I can trust that everything's going  to be okay at the end of the day and without that self trust you're kind of not willing to  participate in the organization and I think that's where you kind of get the get the root of how do I  as a leader enable my team to all have that first and second degree levels of self- trust relational  trust organizational trust so that they can show up be their true authentic selves but also fail  and know that that's a good thing it's encouraged right the fail fast mentality is a real driver  in the world where as you said before everything moves so fast all the time if you're not ready to  put yourself out there fail get some potentially harsh feedback but move forward knowing everyone  agrees that that was a good attempt right it's no it's nothing against you as an individual if you  fail it's part of the process and that that I think comes back to trust because you can  treat trust as a almost like a a marketplace where you can talk about a high trust organization kind  of dividends right things are going to move more quickly decisions are going to be made  um more rapidly you'll have a lot more freedom and autonomy versus a low trust environment that  kind of pays a tax every time you try and get anything done because it means you have  to maybe convince five different people to say I approve or convince a bunch of different uh teams  to all get on board with your plan because they don't really trust that your plan's a good idea  out of the gate and with that that mentality it's really helped me structure how to develop a team  and lead the team um without Maybe knowing all the answers if that makes sense no it does if  you're enjoying this conversation don't forget to hit the Subscribe button that will help us bring  more inspiring conversations to you and reach more people and if you know of a leader that should be  featured on the life and Leadership podcast please reach out to us with their details we would love  to hear from you and we're going to talk about a little bit more about how you cultivate that trust  how you build that culture of trust but before we get into that just what's your definition  of leadership so you've talked about the Boy Scout and I absolutely agree with you there's leadership  beyond the title you don't need to to have a title to lead but if if you were to describe your idea  of leadership how would you describe it yeah I might have a little bit different take than some  others in my opinion leadership and management you have to think about us two different things  everybody that's paid to do what I say I'm their manager I'm not their leader leadership is about  everybody who's not paid or directly incentivized to follow you like deciding to or agree to or  deferring to you and I think especially in in Co corporations it's really hard to separate the two  so I would say to my direct team I'm not a leader I'm never a leader I'm their manager right if I  Inspire them great right like that's a bonus but it's about making sure we can forge a vision that  somebody on another team is ready to get behind that we can forge a relationship between two  teams that we're willing to work together without that direct um kind of system of feedback without  that direct incentive structure I I understand what you mean when you say um about those who  are incentivized to follow you or follow your instructions because they're directly onto you you  see yourself as a manager to them not necessarily necessarily as a leader however you can be a  manager and a leader can't you at the same oh I totally think you can yeah yeah yeah I'm just  trying to draw this parallel because if you're a manager and a leader at the same time that's  a bonus right that's great for the team it's great for the organization but I think the true  test of if you're successfully leading is whether whether maybe your boss says Hey I want to follow  the idea you just pitched right somebody out of your direct sphere of influence is starting to get  behind your Notions and ideas and that I'm going to keep saying trust because I think that's really  important building that trust where somebody else can say hey I'm going to stake the future of my  project the future my financial outcome on what Zach and his team are saying that's when that  leadership principle really starts to emerge in my mind it's something that's a little harder to  Define but it is it's about when somebody just steps up and says I I like what you're saying  let's do that it's an influence isn't it I think I think for me that's a big word I I identify with  leadership being able to influence people and you don't need a title to influence you don't need a  position to influence and but when you influence people follow you they buy into what you're saying  so yeah I I quite agree with that but let's let's talk about trust now like you said trust trust is  a currency of every leader you know you people need to buy into you and they're not going to  buy into you they don't trust you and not just trusting the leader but trusting each other within  the team and I love that you saided to talk about self trust as well I never I never saw  it like that but that's really really important being able to trust yourself to even pitch the  idea and trust that if it doesn't work out it's still okay and create a growth environment where  everyone is valuing the the the lessons being learned Beyond just the outcomes right but how  do you cultivate that within a corporation I mean your organization is is a massive one how do you  cultivate that sort of culture yeah so maybe maybe show you some examples on on what is contrary to a  high trust environment whenever you find yourself in a situation where you've you've maybe written  up some copy and said I need to push this out as part of a marketing pitch or send this out to the  organization because we're doing an it change as soon as three or four different people all  say well we have to approve this it's a pretty good indicator you're in a low trust environment  so how you cultivate trust in the organization is saying well why do so many many individuals feel  they need to approve what one person is trying to get done that we've directly asked them to  do that's a part of furthering the vision of the organization or whatever project is going on and I  think by asking the question why do so many people feel they need to double check the work of another  person that can be a really helpful exercise in saying well in order to cultivate trust  maybe the conversation wasn't about getting this particular copy or change approved it was whether  or not you know individual a who's just doing the they've been asked to do is actually on the same  page or aligned with those other four teams who all feel they need to play a role there so to to  state it a different way were we all operating on the same premise before the decision Point  came up I think that's one of the key ways you cultivate trust because if if I said hey I'm  going to go stop the bad guys because that's what cyber secur is all about there's not a  single person in the company that's going to say no we're pro bad guy like let's them win but what  can be a gap or a challenge along the way is saying I want to do it in this very specific  way that might disrupt a few people or maybe I don't think it'll disrupt anybody but without  saying I'm G to have a conversation with my leader explain my my system of thinking my methodology  on how I'm going to go through this process and then I need my leader on the other side because  trust is a two-way street to say okay I'm going to trust you I'm going to see my decision Mak  making authority to you and say what you say goes in this circumstance that would be a high trust  organization as an example where we can say there aren't limiting factors in the decision points we  don't need two hours of discussion every time we need to make a a small little tweaker change  are people really questioning the competency of the person trying to do work or are they  questioning the true objective right and those are both conversations that are important and  you break that down if you see those High trust or low trust scenarios coming up and say what  was the root cause right was it because we're operating off different premises is it because  we don't know the person making the change and maybe that's where some informal team networking  or cultural building or just idea exchange needs to occur before the decision Point comes up right  so I mean I talk about Vision a lot I talk about the power of vision and why organizations have to  have a clear vision and be able to communicate that Vision to their um to their employees and  I think that's what I hear you saying that if the vision is clear as to what we're trying to achieve  as a team as an organization then it's easier to trust people in terms of how they leave that out  or how they Flex um or flesh out the the way that that vision is is achieved if we're all on the  same page to start off with to say this is what we want to achieve then it's easier to allow some  people some control and creativity in how they achieve that without feeling like you have to in  a sense it's m maybe not directly micromanaging but having to supervise closely you better way  of putting it exactly what they're doing so the vision having a Clear Vision and communicating  that vision is clear but you're also talking about having trust in the person's competence as well  so it begs the question surely if they've been employed to do that role then that trust should  be there shouldn't it oh that's a great question I would say no because if we are leading correctly  we are trying to push every single person out of their comfort zone to grow so we are by definition  trying to put people in new situations and in new context they've never been in before so an  inherent belief that because we've hired somebody means they're competent to do whatever the task  is like sure we trust them to figure it out but that doesn't necessarily mean this isn't the first  time they've done a thing and in fact I would say in most of these decision decision points the the  moment where trust matters the most it's probably because we have deliberately asked someone to go  outside of their comfort zone without maybe putting together the right infrastructure in  place to say we also trust them with wherever it takes them so what would what would you say to  someone who says Zach I hear exactly what you're saying but surely there needs to be checks and  balances you can't just let people get on and do stuff yeah so I think there's I think it's  Bayer right now is leading the pharmaceutical company is leading the charge in like debossing  I think is what the term is right now removing the middle management layers in organizations  with this exact mindset of if you have a small team again I'm a director of a team of 10 right  I'm the first line of management should I just get my direction from the CEO or the CIO and just run  around and do whatever I'm supposed to do without really any checks and balances I think that's a  school of thought might see more of which is hire the right first tier line of management  to interpret the executive Vision but I think to a point you made earlier vision is a key part of  this trust relationship to say are we actually all all targeting the same you know big picture  of increase the quarterly profits or keep the attackers out I think that's where there's this  middle management layer which are some of the most key Arbiters of trust where they need to translate  that executive Vision into something my team can actually execute on because that's that's like  a big picture item and we need to turn it into something more actionable so to get to your your  question can we just let people run run around with no checks and balances of course not right  a a high trust organization still has checks and balances they still have decision points  but they're going to look a lot different right so if I'm if I'm trying to do something specific  and I'll use an example I I wanted to change how we Define one of our account structures at at CNA  because I felt it didn't really represent what we needed from a security standpoint  it it wasn't really true to what our objective was to stop a particular threat now I pushed this out  there not being an expert in the field and said I think we need to change this thing that resulted  in almost 20 hours of debates and Engineering discussions and whiteboarding where my leaders  and my leaders leaders all got involved in it now that's an example I would say of an important  decision being made but in a low trust context where so many different people felt they needed  to spend hours working on it that it really it it made me feel like I wasn't trusted to make that  call not that I felt that I should have made it without anybody else's influence or alignment but  what could have been a a 10-minute like explain your thinking to me and we'll approve it turned  into multiple days multiple weeks multiple hours of debating the same little decision  and I again For Better or For Worse it's not like organizations are fundamentally High trust or low  trust it's super situational it shifts a lot and in that case I was making a decision on a field  I wasn't an expert in and a lot of other people didn't trust me to make that decision that's not a  bad thing that's just the reality of the situation that's the context it's all about risk as well  isn't it it's assessing the risk uh involved and then I suppose on that basis deciding how  much you're going to get involved or how much uh leeway you're going to give the person to express  whatever they trying to achieve but if I was to ask you to say maybe name a few things maybe four  things that people can do you know high level stuff if I am a leader and I want to I I really  want to cultivate this culture of trust within my team what are some things I can start to do to  achieve that I I strongly believe that the number one thing is being uh accessible and exposed to  teams in the non high high U impact scenarios so what I mean by that is if the only interaction I  ever have with my boss or if the only interaction one of my team members has with me is when  something's gone wrong and that's the only time we ever interact we never interact when it's just  a good day and we're chitchatting in the office and especially in this remote work environment  those are really tough kind of informal things to make happen on a regular basis but if my only  interactions or somebody's only interactions with me are when something's gone wrong I want  to reject something I want to say absolutely not we're out of alignment that really erodes trust  right because that means we don't have any we don't have any context we don't have any cultural  background with one another we don't understand that maybe you did this for 25 years at an old  company and I didn't know that right so without that additional context I say what the hell do  you think you're doing making this call absolutely not like you need to have a conversation with me  let's set up time let's set up a meeting and what what could have been maybe a f minute like quick  conversation for us to say check and balance like this sounds good I trust you to be making  this call because I understand your background might turn into schedule a meeting the first time  I have is two weeks from now and now something's delayed now the organization is paying the cost of  it they're paying the tax on that decision Point all because I didn't have that that background  that context that relationship going in so that's maybe number one item number two is being super  intentional whenever we do put in a system that requires checks and balances it's really easy for  us to build an IT system that might even require five different people to click a little approve  button the problem is when you create a system like that no matter how well-intentioned that's  five different points at which something could go wrong some trust relationship could break  down so I think you have to be intentional at an organizational leadership level to say is that  actually what I want is there value being added is there true alignment or Improvement or value or  gaining every single time somebody is is stating they're on board with an idea and vice versa and  I think this kind of gets to maybe my third Point without structuring it it's really easy to stifle  Innovation and I think that's maybe one of the other problems is if you only allow certain work  to be done based on explicit instruction from leaders or managers you say you should only  be doing the work I give you or you're already behind you can't really expand beyond that and  then somebody wants to come up with an idea and Innovative solution bring something to the table  if the organization if the leader has set the expectation that they only do the work they're  assigned you're stifling Innovation because you're not trusting your employees your team  members to manage their time appropriately so I I think all of those kind of play a role there it's  it's putting trust in the individual to manage their time properly to your point we didn't we  hired somebody we trust to show up and get the job done and be able to do basic corporate faculties  like time management right maybe somebody's not properly managing their schedule that's an  opportunity to fix the schedule management problem not to say I trust you less only do this type of  work because that's where that's where you kind of create these negative feedback loops and you  stifle Innovation you make things move slower you really make people feel untrusted to to bring new  ideas to the table or to raise concerns along the way yeah no that's that's really good I I really  love the first one you mentioned as well about the the accessibility you know talking about  how you get to know people and it's not just like you mentioned knowing their backgrounds and what  they've done that might not even be on their CV or you may have missed but it's also knowing their  values as well knowing what's important to them and all of that goes into play in terms of how we  relate to people isn't it and and that trust you know because if I really know who you are and what  makes you you take and what what matters to you it enables me to trust you to some to some degree so  I really really like that the life and Leadership podcast is brought to you by can do Academy where  we help organizations develop High performing teams and extraordinary leaders to find out  more about our work visit can do academy.net and do join us for part two of this episode  thank you for listening to the life and Leadership podcast if you enjoyed the ation hit the Subscribe  button that will help us reach more people and Inspire more leaders see you on the next episode