Build Trust

“Our distrust is very expensive.”

Ralph Aldo Emerson

Trust is the glue that holds relationships and organizations together.

Low trust puts marriages and romantic relationships are at high risk for conflict and failure. In high trust relationships there is room for missteps with mutual forgiveness and a high desire to strengthen the bonds.

In order to have a great therapeutic alliance between a physician (or any clinician) and their patient, mutual high trust significantly bolsters healing and recovery.

In teams and organizations of every kind, high trust relationships between leaders and followers will improve the culture and increase productivity.

Deposits and withdrawals

We already saw that effective communication is the currency of social capital.  The net balance of our communication deposits and withdrawals, when sufficiently in the “black,” builds social capital with high trust. 

The Emotional Bank Account concept was first described by the late Stephen R. Covey (Sr.) in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. You can find a two page summary of the concept here.

Stephen M.R. Covey (Jr.) has followed his father’s work with a great book entirely on the topic of trust, The Speed of Trust. Here he intorduced the concept of a “low-trust tax,’ which he says many people and leaders are totally unaware of:

“The serious practical impact of the economics of trust is that in many relationships, in many interactions, we are paying a hidden low-trust tax right off the top–and we don’t even know it”

Stephen M.R. Covey

He describes how organizations with “nonexistent trust” marked by a toxic culture and dysfunctional relationships suffer an 80% tax where organizations marked by “exceptional trust” enjoy a 40% dividend.

Harvard Business Review did a 2016 global survey on trust in the marketplace.  They found that more than half of employees between ages 19 and 68 in 8 countries had a little or no trust in their employers.  

A recent IPSOS poll (US data only) compared different professional groups:

Professions that scored better than 50 percent were healthcare professionals, teachers, the military and scientists.  Those that scored below 50% were police, clergy, judges and bankers.

How to build trust

Covey describes trust as 5 waves, like the ripple from a pebble in a lake. It has to start with self trust, go outward to relationship trust, organizational trust and then out into the marketplace and society.

Self-trust

The first wave of building trust is self-trust. To build trust with others, we must first start with ourselves. Are we credible or believable.

Covey describes 4 cores of credibility that we should master:

1. Integrity, or integratedness; walking your talk; being congruent, inside and out; walking in accordance with your values and beliefs.
2. Intent. What is your agenda? Your motives? Trust grows when our motives are straightforward and based on mutual benefit, genuinely caring not only for ourselves but for other people. 
3. Capabilities, or capacity; Are you relevant?  Do we inspire confidence and use our gifts and talents?
4. Results.  What is our track record? Performance, or getting the right things done?

Relationship trust

Covey suggests 13 relationship trust behaviours that he says are known “deposits” in another’s Emotional Bank Account:

1. Talk straight – tell the truth and leave the right impression.
2. Demonstrate respect – genuinely care for others.
3. Create transparency – be open, authentic and vulnerable.
4. Right wrongs – apologizing and making restitution when possible.
5. Show loyalty – give credit to others and speak about people as though they were present.
6. Deliver results – clarify and agree to expectations; don’t overpromise and underdeliver.
7. Get better – be open to feedback, learn from mistakes; be a lifelong learner.
8. Confront reality – don’t bury your head in the sand; the “Stockdale Paradox” as taught by Jim Collins in Good to Great.
9. Clarify expectations – disclose and reveal expectations; renegotiate them if needed.
10. Practice accountability – hold yourself and others accountable; don’t blame others when things go wrong.
11. Listen first – seek first to understand.
12. Keep commitments – do what you say you will do.
13. Extend trust – extend trust abundantly to those who have earned your trust.

Organizational trust

High trust teams and organizations reap the following benefits:

• Healthy work culture
• Innovation and “out of the box” thinking
• Transparency and vulnerability, starting at the top of the org chart
• Increased productivity and profitability
• Unified mission and vision
• “Joy” at work

“You build trust with others each time you choose integrity over image, truth over convenience, or honor over personal gain.”

John C. Maxwell

Further reading

The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey

Intentional Living by John C. Maxwell

---

Compassionately,