# C-Suite, Careers, CIO, Employee Experience, Enterprise Architecture, IT Leadership, IT Management, I

Published articles for C-Suite, Careers, CIO, Employee Experience, Enterprise Architecture, IT Leadership, IT Management, I.

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## Building a trust architecture for your new team

DevFeed: [Building a trust architecture for your new team](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/building-a-trust-architecture-for-your-new-team-92564.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.cio.com/article/4235921/building-a-trust-architecture-for-your-new-team.html>)

Author: Martha Heller

Published: 2026-10-21T10:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [CIO](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/cio.md>)

Topics: [engineering-leadership](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/engineering-leadership.md>), [trust](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/trust.md>)

Tags: [advice](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/advice.md>), [approach](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/approach.md>), [architecture](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/architecture.md>), [benefit](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/benefit.md>), [board](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/board.md>), [building-trust](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/building-trust.md>), [button](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/button.md>), [c-suite](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/c-suite.md>), [c-suite-careers-cio-employee-experience-enterprise-architecture-it-leadership-it-management-i](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/c-suite-careers-cio-employee-experience-enterprise-architecture-it-leadership-it-management-i.md>), [cadence](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cadence.md>), [careers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/careers.md>), [challenge](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/challenge.md>), [cio](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cio.md>), [confidence](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/confidence.md>), [connect](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/connect.md>), [conversations](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/conversations.md>), [customers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/customers.md>), [edition-us](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/edition-us.md>), [employee-experience](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/employee-experience.md>), [enterprise-architecture](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/enterprise-architecture.md>), [investment](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/investment.md>), [it-leadership](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/it-leadership.md>), [it-management](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/it-management.md>), [it-strategy](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/it-strategy.md>), [language-en](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/language-en.md>), [roi](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/roi.md>), [storytype-interview](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/storytype-interview.md>), [team](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/team.md>), [technical](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/technical.md>), [technical-debt](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/technical-debt.md>), [trust](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/trust.md>)

### AI overview

Cengage CIO Ken Grady argues that a new leader must earn trust through shared experience, regardless of résumé. His trust architecture uses three currencies: technical respect and useful expertise, investment judgment grounded in ROI or NPV, and attention to employees' human concerns. He builds these through steady conversations and monthly forums: an open Enterprise Architecture Review, a Steps-to-Green portfolio review focused on helping at-risk projects, and anonymous Q&A with senior leaders. The aim is a safe environment where staff can raise problems, challenge norms, and suggest improvements--including stopping a release over quality concerns--while the CIO remains responsible for leading. Grady advises adapting to what each person needs: learning and connection with the team, practical help for stakeholders, and precise confidence for the board. Trust takes time and requires empathy across all three relationships.

### Source excerpt

CIOs bring a lot to their new jobs: decades of leadership, transformation, pattern-recognition, and outcomes. But none of that matters in your new job. During a time of generalized uncertainty, your team -- and every stakeholder -- needs to trust you more than anything. But how do you build that trust in a new environment, and as quickly as possible? For Cengage CIO Ken Grady, the best approach is an architectural one. What is a trust architecture, and why did you develop it? I've been a CIO for almost 20 years, and when I joined Cengage six months ago, while I had roughly 7,300 days of evidence that I knew how to do this job, not one person in that building had ever seen any of it. The proof existed on my résumé. The trust did not. On day one as a new CIO, you have no shared experience with your team, so you have no trust. Your team might have respect for your background, and hope you'll succeed, but personal trust is something you must build from scratch. So how do you do that when the currency of trust for your team can shift depending on the situation? Establishing trust with the people in your new business requires an intentional approach, an architecture. What are the different currencies of trust? The first is technical currency. My team needs to know that as a new CIO, I'll respect their technical expertise, have enough of my own to be helpful, and engage in healthy technology discussions. To solve for that, I sat down and led an open conversation early on about whatever was on their minds, and I showed them that their technical expertise is valued. The second is investment currency. Can I, a technology leader, speak to ROI or NPV? Can I explain why we should invest in this technology, or address this technical debt, or move from this version to that one? My team needs to respect my ability to guide our investments. The third is human currency, which addresses the questions people are afraid to ask. Why did we move our offices? Why are we incentivized this way