Today’s blog is a bit long, but it’s about an important topic – trust! So grab yourself a cup of your favorite beverage and read on…
We generally understand the importance of trust in relationships, personal or work-related. But is trust something we can measure or do we need to rely on our feelings or gut instinct to judge whether there’s trust?
Building trust is key to building and maintaining relationships at work with all our stakeholders – colleagues, employees, managers, and clients. The quality of our relationships is a key factor in determining our successes.
In a world where you have many options – what to buy, which restaurant to eat at, who to work with – the business or person that has earned your trust will most likely earn your business as well. When companies are praised for being reliable, innovative, or service-oriented, it typically has to do with the trustworthiness of the individuals within the business, since people trust people over institutions.
So how do we measure trust?
Charles H. Green (author of The Trusted Advisor) defined the trust equation which is a great way to break down trust into specific components and give us a way to measure trust.
It provides building blocks for focusing on building our own trustworthiness and measuring the trustworthiness of people around you.
Let’s examine each factor, in turn:
Credibility
Credibility is about knowledge, experience and skill.
Are you perceived as an expert in your field?
When you give over information, do people trust that it’s correct because it comes from you? Can you back up what you are saying with experience or underlying knowledge?
Think about your leadership brand and how you’re perceived at work. Does this need some attention?
Credibility is an important factor but the fact that someone knows a whole lot of stuff doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll trust them. It’s a starting point because you know you can trust the information and advice they provide.
What really builds credibility (and trust) is generously sharing your knowledge and continually growing your area of expertise. Also, always be honest about how much you truly know about a topic.
If you remain open to continuously learning from your managers, peers or employees, they will be eager to share their knowledge with you too. Maintaining a growth mindset and being open to learning is key for credibility.
Reliability
Reliability is based on actions.
This has to do with your dependability to deliver on promises and agreements.
Do you do what you say you will do?
Think about adjusting your commitment level to a level at which you can deliver, rather than overpromising and under-delivering. This builds reliability. While overpromising may sound good to your boss or employees in the short run, it will cause you to come up short if you don’t meet your promises, causing a major loss of trust.
Reliability is a key factor in the trust equation and one that often breaks trust after repeated transgressions.
Intimacy
Intimacy refers to the safety we feel sharing personal information, making mistakes, speaking up, bringing new ideas to the table and voicing a critical point of view.
How secure do you feel in sharing a view that is different to other people’s?
How often do you entrust others with sensitive personal details?
Is there room within your business to speak up and take risks?
You can only do this when there’s a level of psychological safety where you know it’s safe to be vulnerable, risk sounding “stupid” or get things wrong.
Building relationships with your coworkers helps to build intimacy and trust.
Self-Orientation
Self-orientation is about where you tend to put your attention and focus.
Are you more interested in getting what you need so you can look good?
Or do you genuinely care about others and make sure to collaborate so that you can achieve business goals?
Self-orientation works the opposite way when assessing trustworthiness. The more highly you rate in self-interest, the lower your trustworthiness.
When you know that the person you’re working with holds your deal, business, or personal goals at heart, you are more willing to trust them.
It’s easy to spot a person who is highly self-oriented. This is when their personal goals take the highest level of importance. They don’t seem to care about their impact on others and they tend to show little empathy. Highly self-oriented people often play political games to get ahead and you don’t feel that they really have your back.
You can see from the trust equation that self-orientation carries the most weight. It’s the only factor below the line while there are 3 factors above the line.
How to build trust
There’s an opportunity here to build trustworthiness by focusing on others, broader company goals and collaborating towards a shared desired outcome.
With these factors of self-orientation, intimacy, reliability, and credibility, it’s clear to see how trust is made up of 4 components that can be easily assessed. When there is a breakdown in trust, you can look to the trust equation to see which factors need attention.
Where there’s trust, there’s a culture that provides opportunities for delegation, taking more personal time and enjoying work-life balance, strengthening relationships and business performance and results.
“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication.
It’s his foundational principle that holds all relationships.”
– Stephen Covey
Do you think you could work with the trust equation to build an environment of trust and collaboration?
Do you have any questions about building trust? Comment below, I’d love to hear them.
If you’d like to talk about building trust within your culture and team, feel free to reach out. You know where to find me!
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