Learnings from Kitzbühel - The Trust Equation

A few weeks back I was in a beautiful town in Austria, Kitzbühel, for a work training. Colleagues from around the world had come together to learn more about managing teams, leadership styles and many other things. There was a concept introduced during one of the sessions which I felt put into words something that is often hard to describe and left to chance, and I wanted to share it here.?

First though, some context. Working in consulting, you change teams, clients, leadership (the senior colleagues whom you work with), sectors and even industry every few weeks as you go from one study to the next. As someone who does mostly Private Equity Due Diligence work, for me that can be as often as every two weeks. That’s just 10 working days. Which is an incredibly short time to get to know a team, align on ways of working, actually get a ton of work done like a well oiled machine while collaborating with clients and your own leadership. Add into this mix a series of Zoom calls (check-ins, check-outs, SteerCos and hour long expert calls) that go into doing a due diligence study, and you can expect to have only a portion of those 10 days to get everything done. ?

In summary that is a lot of work to get done in a very short amount of time, and it's only going to be possible if you have a great team.?But how do you go from meeting a team member for the first time on day 1 kick off call (which is quite common) to coming together like a well oiled machine and working at pace for the next 10 days? Yet consulting teams do it over and over, mostly it works well, sometimes not so much. While it may seem like a gamble whether you and the team would ‘click’, there are best practices that make it a lot more likely for you to cultivate a team with a mutual spark from the get - go. One of those best practices is described in the concept.

Teams run on trust. Yet trust is something that if often viewed as binary, measured by a ‘gut feeling’, - either I trust you or I don’t. It’s commonly considered very subjective. There is little quantification on how to measure it, few concrete actionable steps on how to build it, and difficult to pin down what is it within a person that makes them (or yourself) ‘trust worthy’.?

Which brings us to the Trust equation. It ’s a model that attempts to breakdown a quality that seems illusory. Developed by Charles H. Green who does a lot of things with the word Trust in them, including having authored two books and running a consultancy.

A great sketch that shows the equation components and what they mean is:?

Image courtesy of Sketchplanations

Components in the numerator (that improve trustworthiness your trustworthiness) are:

Credibility: Being knowledgeable , having relevant credentials, having understanding of subject matter

Reliability: You can be trusted to do what you said you would do, are consistent and have a good track record?

Intimacy: You make people feel emotionally safe sharing information with you, are empathetic etc

The only one in the denominator (that reduces trustworthiness) is:

Self - Orientation: Selfishness, having your own agenda, making everything about yourself

The output of all these four variables can be thought of as your trustworthiness quotient. Credibility and reliability are the more logical, easier to measure components. Whereas intimacy and self-orientation are more subjective and emotional, with probably a large degree of cultural variations on what their right levels are.?

You can use the model to reflect on where your strengths and weaknesses are among each component. Unlike some other models which recommend you “play to your strengths”; in establishing trust it’s recommended that you improve on your weaknesses. Common example of?self - orientation as a weakness is if you always take credit for work the team has done collectively. Of reliability is missing deadlines or not being available when expected etc. The most common one to be side-lined is intimacy - when work is fast paced and stressful, investing time and effort into building a relationship is the first thing to go out the window. ?

In addition to the outwardly portrayal of your own trustworthiness, I felt the concept is particularly useful in understanding what is it that YOU value as an individual that helps you trust the other person. Which of the four components in what degree ‘float your boat’ while establishing trust.

Which brings us back to how teams click. After presenting this equation the facilitator asked the group which of the components they needed to see in others to be able to trust them. Everyone (as expectedly) had different answers.?For example, for me, reliability is a big one! Working in a fast paced environment with teams in multiple time zones, being able to count on individuals to deliver what was promised, on time and as expected, and be honest if that’s not going to happen is extremely important. Otherwise as a team leader I would be spending almost all my time checking up on or chasing people. Domain expert knowledge (credibility in the equation) I can always make up for either through my own experience or from senior leadership and internal experts. Whereas some colleagues were of the view that in the fast pace we work in, deadlines are flexible and credibility on content is most important.

The gist being that what we’re looking for in others in order to trust them is not the same for everyone. Knowing what components you need others to exhibit for you to trust them is the first part of getting there. The next is openly communicating that and providing examples of behaviours that demonstrate that quality that are non-negotiable for you to establish a relationship.?

Last important message to bring home is that just because you value something much, doesn’t mean others do too (*gasp*). Which is a fact we often tend to forget. I can be interpreting someone’s sending a document after an agreed timeframe as them being less reliable, whereas for that individual, getting it done to (almost) perfection is a worthwhile tradeoff for sending it an hour late because to them credibility is more important.?

Hence, communicating what is valuable to you, and understanding the same for others is probably the (not so) secret sauce to establishing trust worthy relationships. I now use a template at team kickoffs, that has a section where we discuss what values/components are important to you and that helps get everyone on the same page in terms of expectations.

If you're keen to hear more, further details on the equation can be found on Trusted Advisor Associates website.