Rethinking Trust

When I am doing work with teams or between professionals, the same statement comes up regularly: “I’ve lost all trust in you.” We tell the other person how their actions have taken every shred of trust we may have had and thrown it out the window. There’s nothing there now. You might also hear them say, “I can’t trust you,” as if they have lost the ability to trust. 

It’s a vivid and powerful picture. Like those videos of the controlled demolition of buildings where they stand silent and unwavering only to have puffs of dust and smoke emerge rapidly at their base as we watch the once impressive structure fall in onto itself. The trust which once stood as an icon of your professional or personal relationship is now completely unrecognizable. It is gone and what takes its place is a mess of rubble. 

However poetic this may seem, it’s actually a bit inaccurate. This image makes trust seem like a Likert scale of 1-5; 1 being no trust, and 5 being complete confidence. When in actuality trust is more like a spectrum. Instead of thinking, we can have or not have trust, think of it more like where is your trust? 

What do you have confidence in them doing? 

I submit the concept of positive and negative trust. Here’s how it works

Negative Trust------------------------------Neutral------------------------------Positive Trust

When you first meet someone, they might start at the neutral point. In actuality, no one will be at true neutral. Rather, we use our worldview and previous experiences to build a general “expectation of human behavior.” But, for our example, let’s say we start right smack dab in the center. 

As we get to know the person - seeing their work ethic, follow-through, confidence, interpersonal abilities, etc - that needle will move to the left or to the right. Ultimately, the consistent behavior will win out and they will end up on one side or the other. Not all the way to one side or the other, because we just can’t know anyone that well. But, they will start to mark their space where you can have faith their behaviors will most likely land. 

Think about it. There are people you can rely on to have your back during a particularly tense meeting. You also know people you can rely on to always flub their portion of the project. I trust the first person to support me. I trust the second to leave me in a lurch. Their behavior places within me a confidence in how they will behave.

This trust difference can also be subtle and complex. Have you ever asked someone to call in a reservation for something, only to follow up and check in on if they had done it or not? Here you had enough positive trust in them to give them the responsibility, but enough negative trust that it outweighed the confidence they would do it without your additional prompting. 

Culturally speaking, you can look at mansplaining as another example of this positive/negative trust spectrum. Men unconsciously or consciously maintaining a negative trust that their female colleagues will need them to further explain something due to their struggle at picking up the concept. The reason you feel motivated to further explain the subject is that you have more negative trust than positive trust. In this situation, you have some significant work to do in order to shift your worldview.

So, the question is not do I trust you, but how do I trust you?

A note about positive/negative trust. While the terms positive and negative are generally seen as “good” and “bad,” and many things falling into each category may seem to prove that point, the deeper meaning behind positive and negative trust is the ultimate determination if the trust is building equity, inclusivity, diversity, empowerment, cooperation, healthy conflict, appropriate delegation, and innovation. Negative trust motivates behaviors that inhibit these cultural characteristics while positive trust attempts to amplify them.

This is so important to understand because of our consistent attempt to use explanations as excuses for our behavior. “No, I wasn’t mansplaining. I was making sure we were on the same page so I was telling you about how the project will help us in the long run.” Sure, you thought you were helpful, but the ultimate outcome of your behavior is the perpetuation of a perspective that it’s okay to have more confidence in women needing additional explanations than in their ability to ask follow-up questions if they need additional information. 

Now,  if we realize we need to move our needle from negative to positive trust, the crumbling building isn’t far off from the image I’d give. I would want you to think of those folks who buy that house that just needs some TLC. After they buy that crumbling mess on the cheap, they go in to see what needs to change. They take out the fraying shag carpet, peel off the fake wood paneling, and pry off the hollow-core doors. Then, once they make a big mess of all the junk they need to get rid of, they go to task to remove that garbage, one trash bag at a time. Have they finished now that they got the ugly stuff out? Well, unless you like exposed wiring and leaky pipes as an aesthetic, I would have to say no. In fact, the demo is usually the quickest part. Then the real work begins. These new homeowners need to decide what they want the house to look like when all is said and done. They need to invest time, effort, and patience in remodeling that old trash heap of a house into their forever home. 

It’s the same with building positive trust. We can’t just say, “Hey folks, I know I was a bit of a jerk before, but I turned over a new leaf! So… you can start trusting that I’m going to do the right thing now.” No, after you acknowledge your mistake, you need to put in the effort of dismantling the negative trust and confidence people have in you and remodel in its place the trust you want your colleagues to have.

Building positive trust, especially if starting in negative territory, is immensely hard work that is only possible when fueled by a fervent desire to improve as a leader and a human being. Once you expand your awareness to include how your staff and colleagues trust you, you will be better equipped to send positive ripples into the world.