Building a Culture of Trust
A Conversation with Colombe Mandula.
Colombe is the co-founder and COO of Simundia, a leading platform providing online coaching services and a forerunner in democratizing coaching in organisations. A former career development counsellor in a tier 1 management consulting firm, Colombe has experienced HR challenges first-hand. At Simundia, she positions herself as HR Directors’ right-hand, helping them manage teams of hundreds without losing touch with individual challenges. Simundia also facilitates upward feedback by aggregating quantitative and qualitative data on teams’ challenges to improve organisational processes. A psychologist by training, Colombe is transforming organisations one coachee at a time.
Tusker Club - You work with many thriving businesses. What are HR departments looking for in their employees and how has their perspective evolved over the past few years?
Colombe Mandula - We have seen a real shift from hard skills to soft skills. HR departments have realised that many hard skills become outdated very fast. They prefer to hire people with strong soft skills, which demonstrate an ability to adapt in increasingly uncertain contexts.
The focus on emotional intelligence, agility, leadership, and resilience is one of the reasons behind the need for more accessible coaching services. Soft skills also need to be put in context and sharpened over time. That is why we have decided to focus our service offering on ‘situational coaching’, helping talents leverage their soft skills in response to an identified need.
TC - On the other hand, what are the main challenges and expectations from the team members that are being coached through the Simundia platform?
CM - Many HR departments, and indeed business leaders, are aware that talent attraction and retention is a strategic topic. However, they sometimes fail to appreciate that the impact of organisational change is heightened at the individual level. Hence, our services are often used to help employees go through company transformations smoothly and increase their well-being at work and the perception of their own agency in the context of rapidly changing markets. Concretely, employees have high expectations regarding stress management, how to deal with emotions and prevent burnout.
Although not a new topic, another up-and-coming issue is the importance of diversity and inclusion, especially regarding women’s empowerment. In general, societal debates have permeated organisations and many managers need support in addressing them thoughtfully.
TC - In the past years, two seemingly opposite trends have been commented on abundantly: the Great Resignation and the passion/purpose economy. In a world where teams show disaffection for their employers and express a strong desire to belong to purposeful communities, what constructive role can HR play to reconcile those aspirations?
CM - It is true that there are great expectations – and great talk! – about passion and purpose at work. However, purpose and passion have a different meaning for each one of us. And I don’t believe we can design a one-size-fits-all model to address this issue nor that organisations would be legitimate to do so.
I truly believe that what matters is to build a “culture of trust” in organisations.
Rather, I truly believe that what matters is to build a “culture of trust” in organisations. Scientific studies have shown that the more you trust your employees, the more they will be engaged at work and perform. Trust gives employees the space they need to define their own sense of purpose within their role.
From a management standpoint, building a culture of trust implies communicating with teams about the organisation’s mission and strategy, as well as the behaviours that are
expected from everyone. This is a conversation managers can’t avoid if they want teams to feel they are important whatever their daily tasks.
Indeed, more than on the what, it is on the how that teams judge their leaders. Hence, managers are expected to embody the company’s culture, which can be a tough injunction at times.
TC - On the other hand, what role can HR play in helping transform established manager expectations from the traditional pyramid/rigid structure to the more autonomous world that employees are demanding?
CM - Managers need to realise that they are part of the team they lead, and not a separate entity. Hence, they also benefit from the culture of trust they instil, as their subordinates are more likely to trust their direction.
Going beyond pyramidal management also requires understanding and valuing the specific contribution of each team member to the group and allowing them autonomy in that specific area. Autonomy is not the opposite of accountability – on the contrary! Making your team feel seen and valuing everyone’s input regardless of their rank drives greater individual responsibility.
At Simundia, we consider managers as the first coaches of their teams. Managers need support in adopting this new posture. For example, since 2019 we have been working with the CIC bank, giving 500 line managers access to Simundia coaching. As a result, HR has seen a notable difference in managers’ perception of their own agency, and in return, in their ability to provide their team with more autonomy.
TC - You yourself have grown your organisation from a start-up to a scale-up. In your own experience, how do functions of HR (need to) change with the evolution of company identity? What excites you the most about your HR challenges going forward?
CM - Indeed, we have grown significantly in the past couple of years, and it has brought a notable change in the organisation. Mostly, it has required that we structure our processes more and more. Not only to be able to cope with the volume of information we need to process, but because structure and processes – if well designed – help people understand what the organisation is seeking to achieve and protect them from arbitrary decisions.
So, we strengthened our recruitment process and set up office rituals,
A human organisation is like a human being, it has its mood, its ups and down, and it’s important to listen to that and respond in the right way.
performance reviews, salary grids, pulse surveys, etc. It’s a big investment, at least timewise, but we don’t regret putting in the effort.
However, we also learned that how we did it mattered just as much. We organise cultural sessions during our office outings and used one of those to define our values together. Since then, it has become a common reference for 360° performance assessments.
Personally, I don’t see growth as a challenge to build individual relationships. It is indeed more difficult to know everyone on a personal level, but it is also an opportunity
to develop our teams and give them management responsibilities. Perhaps because of my training as a psychologist, seeing employees rise through the ranks is my biggest reward.
Whatever the size of your company, the key is to listen and tune in to its needs. A human organisation is like a human being, it has its mood, its ups and down, and it’s important to listen to that and respond in the right way.
Interview by Baptiste Raymond - 03/2023.