Building Trust

I have an old Army buddy that has been a good friend for nearly 30 years. He’s a great guy and I always enjoy spending time with him when we get a chance. It wasn’t always like that. For several months after we first met, he didn’t like me very much. In fact, there were times when he was borderline hostile. I couldn’t figure out why that was, and chalked it up to a character flaw.

I’m not really sure how we ended up having a conversation about it, but it probably happened when we got signed up to travel together for a couple of weeks. I suppose we had to figure out why we weren’t getting along so well. After a bit of back and forth we realized that the entire nature of our relationship hinged on an almost comical misunderstanding about some smart-ass comment I’d made months before when we first met. He had misheard me and concluded that I was a jerk not worth getting to know. He figured, based on that comment, that he just couldn’t trust me.

Trust is likely the most critical component of any relationship. Whether it is a transactional relationship between a business and its clients or the relationship between a leader and a follower, the components of trust are the same. According to Strategic Leader Academy’s Chris Kolenda, every relationship of trust relies on character, competence, and reciprocity. Any breakdown in these ingredients leads to an erosion of trust. If one party lacks character, the other is frequently disappointed or even offended. “He does great work, when he bothers showing up.” Or a lack of competence leads to lousy performance. “He shows up but doesn’t add value.” Missing reciprocity means one of the parties is taking advantage of the other.

Building relationships of trust takes all three components.

Diagnosing a lack of trust: “I just can’t trust that person!”

I often hear statements like that. Sometimes your spidey sense about someone tells you not to trust them and you can’t quite put your finger on why. “I can’t explain it, but I just can’t trust them.” Other times it is quite obvious to you.

When you feel like you can’t trust someone but you still need the relationship to work, it is useful to figure out exactly why. Is it because of Character? Competence? Reciprocity? What is it about this person or company that you don’t trust? Once you pinpoint that, you can take steps to learn if your position is justified. Are they really unreliable? Or is it possible there is a misunderstanding about expectations? Are they incompetent? Or are the standards ambiguous or misunderstood, or are they under-trained? Do you feel taken advantage of, or do you not fully understand the other party’s position, effort, expectations, and challenges? Is there some character flaw you simply can’t get past?

In the case of my Army buddy, he believed I had a serious character flaw because of something he thought I had said. His assessment of me was that I was not worth trusting because of that. In fairness, if I had actually said what he thought I said, he would have been right to mistrust me. Had he refused to later discuss the matter we never would have gotten past that. Once we determined that the character aspect of trust was the problem, we could figure out why that was. Once we narrowed it down to a single moment in time, we could discuss exactly why his impression of me was different than my intention. Lucky for me we were able to air that out, and we have been friends ever since.

A proper diagnosis of the lack of trust led us to establish trust on a new footing.

A strategy for trust: Observe, communicate, and give it time.

A lack of trust often develops from misunderstanding. As in the case of my misunderstood comments, sometimes people perceive words or actions differently than they were intended. This comes from a variety of sources including our expectations, biases, assumptions, or just poor listening. If we are truly interested in building a trusting relationship with this person, we should take the time to determine if we actually understood their intent. We should objectively observe if their actions are consistent with their words.

Objective observation means that we need to suspend judgement long enough to truly understand. Confirmation bias (the tendency to search for and interpret information that confirms prior beliefs and to ignore evidence to the contrary) will often keep us from really giving someone a chance to earn our trust.

When we think we have a good reason not to trust someone, now is the time to communicate candidly about it. If it is a shortcoming in character, a conversation that starts with, “I think you said this, which doesn’t appear completely honest. Is that what you meant?” could confirm your impression, or it might dispel a misunderstanding. An honest conversation about reliability and consistency can reveal reasons this person isn’t living up to expectations.

Communicating about competence can lead to breakthroughs. If both people have a different understanding of the standards, responsibilities, and requirements trust will be all but impossible to build.?Making sure both parties clearly communicate and understand things from the same perspective is key here. Assuming the others understand what you do and how you do it is a recipe for disaster.

When there is an asymmetry in a relationship, a lack of communication practically ensures that the party who feels disadvantaged will grow increasingly resentful. If you feel like you’re being taken advantage of, you are likely to start looking to leave that situation. If you feel underpaid or underappreciated, you will often look for another job. If you are overpaying a supplier, you will shop for a better deal. ?Again, communication can be key here. Explaining to the other party why you feel the lack of reciprocity gives them an opportunity to explain or adjust their position or behavior.

The final component of the trust strategy is time. Few people achieve real trust at first sight. It takes time to appreciate someone’s competence and character. How much time is needed is subjective: it is a product of our own character and experiences. If we’ve been deceived in the past it will certainly take longer. It also matters what’s at stake. Will you trust a new employee with an essential part of your business before they have proven their competency and reliability? These things take time.

Taking the time to observe and communicate will help you determine if the other party is trustworthy. This process will help alleviate mistrust based on misunderstanding and will expose the potential real reasons a trust gap can’t be bridged.

Build trust intentionally

Great leaders are intentional. Given the importance of trust, they must intentionally build trust. They learn to trust employees by hiring good people, training and resourcing them, and then giving them increasing levels of autonomy. They earn the trust of their employees by being consistent, fair, and taking care of their workforce, and clearly communicating when a breach of trust is in play. They build trust with their business partners, stakeholders, and clients by showing character and competence consistently over time, and communicating when there are trust shortfalls. Employees build trust through consistent performance and character over time, and clearly communicating when either side perceives a shift in that trust. This must be done with purpose and on purpose.

Trust is the essential ingredient of business and society, and building it intentionally makes us far better contributors to both.

Bob Dixon is a?leadership coach,?a strategic consultant, a?trusted advisor, and Certified High Performance Coach at Arete Strategic Consulting. He is a combat veteran with over thirty years of military service and a passion for helping people be more awesome.

He is the author of?Leadership Insight: Challenging What We Think We Know?and dozens of articles on leadership and national security