1. Chaz Knauft
MBA 507 F14
In Moon Shots for Management, Gary Hamel makes the case for management
reinvention. He argues that modern management has reached its limits of improvement.
Along with a group of scholars and CEOs, he proposes twenty five challenges in order
to reinvent management to cope with the volatile business world of the future. One of
the moon shots cited is the challenge to reduce fear and increase trust. As Hamel
states, "Organizational adaptability, innovation, and employee engagement can only
thrive in a high-trust, low-fear culture." Far too often, fear and a lack of trust in
employees via a command-and-control system only creates anxious employees who fail
to trust their own judgment. As a result, employees are instead focused on avoiding
mistakes and trying to stay on the "good" side of management. Often, this creates
distracted employees that are hindered from helping the organization achieve increased
growth and profits. In order to help an organization achieve its absolute best, reducing
fear and increase trust is a moon shot that should be strived toward.
A major aspect of reducing fear and increasing trust is a change or adjustment in
organizational culture. Almost everyone has a story, or knows of an individual who has
a story, about an organization that is stifled by a lack of trust, and as a result, is
paralyzed by fear to make any type of meaningful decision.
Dr. Edward Deming is considered one of the preeminent management
academics of the last 50 years. His Fourteen Points for the Transformation of
Management continue to be used and taught today. Point eight in his list is as follows:
“Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively…” (Neave). While some
managers can use fear as a motivation tactic to drive the business, it can often have

2. Chaz Knauft
MBA 507 F14
many downsides. For instance, in a culture of fear, employees are afraid of making
mistakes; as such, they are wary of taking responsibility when a mistake is made,
preferring instead to blame others (Kuyatt). This makes it virtually impossible to get to
the root cause of why the mistake was made in the first place, so it can be learned from
and prevented in the future, which should be the end goal when a mistake is made
(Broughton). Further, working in fear of a supervisor or manager is a recipe for disaster.
Those employees working in fear will never be working in true cooperation; instead, the
best that can be hoped for is a type of “resentful acquiescence” (Neave). By avoiding
the gaze of their superior, they are hoping to avoid being noticed, as attention from a
supervisor usually comes in the form of a stern scolding. By driving out fear and
increasing trust, which will engender successful working relationships, rather than the
resentful acquiescence previously mentioned, so much more can be accomplished than
the single, solitary effort of one individual (Neave).
In order to help change a culture, there seem to a few key elements that most
business consultants seem to agree upon when attempting to reduce fear and increase
trust. More often than not, it’s how management reacts to failure that determines
whether fear will be a part of the organization (Kuyatt). According to Jan Austin,
President of Potential at Work, four things can be done to reduce fear and increase
trust: establish rapport, improve listening, ask questions, and promote dialogue.
Similarly, Robert Broughton suggests encouraging employee feedback, and teaching,
rather than punishing, from mistakes. In these few examples, both consultants are
encouraging the pursuit of positive communication throughout an organization, and a

3. Chaz Knauft
MBA 507 F14
process of increasing the potential for learning behavior within an organization, rather
than a stifling through fear based management.
Reducing fear and increasing trust in the workplace environment have a lot of
potential positives for management. One improvement management can hope to see is
an increase in calculated risk taking to help the organization grow. In an organization
filled with fear, an employee may well have a brilliant idea for innovation, but will not
share the idea with management, for fear of having the idea stifled and ridiculed
(Kuyatt). As stated previously, it’s how management reacts to failure, especially a failure
with regards to a calculated risk that an employee takes, that determines how fear is
used within an organization. Management should have a well-defined process for
dealing with risk failures that includes training on why the risk failed, and how
employees can learn from it, in order to foster a culture of trust, while reducing a culture
of fear (Kuyatt). More often than not, this increased risk will lead to increased
innovation. When management has created an environment where there is little fear,
the sharing of ideas and collaboration of groups can create innovation that can, in turn,
assist management in fulfilling their vision for the organization. Another potential
positive attribute when increasing trust while reducing fear is increased information
sharing. In an organization lacking in trust, many employees will choose to keep
information to themselves. Doing so allows them currency in the organization; by having
information that no one else has, or they are unwilling to share, they are trying to
improve their standing, while reducing that of others. By increasing trust and information
sharing, studies have found that organizations in which employees share information

4. Chaz Knauft
MBA 507 F14
with one another can have substantive increases in both “individual and joint payoffs”
within the organization (Kramer).
From a more personal perspective, I, myself, have experienced organizations
that were high in fear, while lacking in trust. The employees, including myself, were
hesitant to make meaningful decisions for fear of being reprimanded were something to
fail, and were quick to point the finger at each other should a failure be discovered by
the management. In one example, an employee was hesitant to provide a discount to a
regular, high volume customer on a product that was not selling especially well. The
fear that a providing any type of discount without management’s approval would lead to
a reprimanding stopped the employee for making a decision to provide the customer
with a well-deserved discount on a product that was not having a high number of sales.
When the discount could not be approved, or even discussed for that matter, the
customer left to purchase a similar product from a competitor, and left a negative online
review. The lack of trust between employees and superiors led to only more fear within
the organizations. In these companies, the employee morale was very low; even with a
vision from management to strive towards, fear prohibited any actual innovation towards
those goals.
Gary Hamel introduced his Moon Shots for Management with the hope that the
challenges he presented would help lead management into the next century. Far too
often, organizations today attempt to lead through a command-and-control system that
reduces trust in employees, and harbors fear throughout the work community. Almost
everyone who has ever held a job has experienced an organization or a culture that

5. Chaz Knauft
MBA 507 F14
made them feel fearful and distrustful; in many people’s experience, this is “par for the
course.” If management hopes to continue to create organizations that are resilient,
focused, and efficient, they must reduce fear and increase trust. This is a moon shot
that management can achieve, and would have an everlasting impact upon the
organization; it would improve innovation, improve morale, increase information sharing,
and empower employees to take calculated risks to grow and help the organization
thrive. Reducing fear and increasing trust is a moon shot that management should, and
can, achieve.

6. Chaz Knauft
MBA 507 F14
Bibliography
Austin, Jan. "THE SYMPTOMS OF FEAR." Potential At Work, Inc. 1 Jan. 2000. Web.
14 Nov. 2014. <http://www.potentialatwork.com/articles/fear.html>.
Broughton, Robert. "Dr Deming Point 8, Drive out Fear." Dr Deming Point 8, Drive out
Fear. Web. 14 Nov. 2014. <http://www.quality-assurance-solutions.com/Deming-Point-
8.html>.
Kramer, Roderick M. "TRUST AND DISTRUST IN ORGANIZATIONS: Emerging
Perspectives, Enduring Questions." Annual Review of Psychology: 569-98. Web. 15
Nov. 2014.
<http://portal.psychology.uoguelph.ca/faculty/gill/7140/WEEK_3_Jan.25/Kramer_ARP19
99.pdf>.
Kuyatt, Alan. "Managing for Innovation: Reducing the Fear of Failure." Journal of
Strategic Leadership 3.2: 31-40. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/jsl/vol3iss2/JSL_V3Is2_Kuyatt_pp31-
40.pdf>.
Neave, Henry. "Deming's 14 Points for Management: Framework for Success." Journal
of the Royal Statistical Society. Series D (The Statistician) 36.5 (1987): 561-70. Web. 13
Nov. 2014. <http://www2.fiu.edu/~revellk/pad3003/Neave.pdf>.