SCOPE of Trust

One of the key pillars of successful relations is TRUST. Be it at personal level or at professional level, TRUST plays a significant role.

When it comes to Agility, TRUST is of paramount importance and is a one of the key success criteria.

As Agility believes in Human Values... At a Human level as well, TRUST plays a significant role in controlling our emotions and reactions.

Most of us have found ourselves in a situation where it was difficult to gain trust of another person or a group of people. I would like to share with you 5 stages of gaining trust. Trust me "There is always a SCOPE of TRUST" ??

S- Social

C-Credentials

O-Openness

P-Personal

E-Empathy

Social - This is Stage1: The first impression. Word of mouth. Our social identity.

Its about how we are socially perceived. How we reflect ourselves in the social networking platforms. It is important to make sure that we are socially known for what we are. There is no point of faking at this stage as our lies will be caught in next stages. We cannot run far with dishonesty. Let's take an example: Say we are trying to establish ourselves as photographer and want our clients to trust us. So at this stage, we will be posting our photo work on various social platforms. We work with our client network to spread our good work and endorse.

Credibility - This is Stage2: The certificates. The awards. Proof of our achievements. Concrete Facts. Testimonies. Patents.

Its about a confirmation about our capabilities to perform something that we are trusted with. If we take the previous example of being a photographer, at this stage we will be promoting our achievements by making our clients aware of the various Awards, Certificates, Recognition from established institution. This is to make the world aware that we have Been there and Done that.

Another aspect of this stage is "Walk the Talk". By now the first impression phase is over. As we start to interact more, we will be observed closely. Before vesting his/her trust on us, it is key for anyone to match our social identity, our achievement stories with what they observe up close in our interactions. This is also a key factor to established credibility.

Openness - This is Stage3: Being honest. Being Transparent. Being Open to different ideas, Being curious, Being respectful to other's views and perspectives. Being human.

By this time Stage1 and Stage2 have already established our impression. This stage is all about establishing an environment of honesty, transparency, equality where we open ourselves not just with our strengths but also our vulnerabilities. This helps to bring down the communication barriers like Ego, Pride, Success, Being judged, Overconfidence... At the end of this stage we will have a safe environment for communication flow.

Personal - This is the Stage4: Know the person at a human level. Not at the role that the person is playing at this point of time.

Know the likes and dislikes, interests, hobbies. Not just the skill. Not just the strengths and weaknesses in a opinionated way.

With the communication channel established in the previous stage, at this stage we try to know the person at a human level. We all have various triggers to our emotions. Triggers that make us happy or sad or irritated or uncomfortable or angry, or elated or frustrated etc.. When we try to build the personal connect we get familiar to these triggers and create a more meaningful communication.

The second aspect of this stage is that as a human when we share our personal stories with someone, we share a part of our past, our life, our memories. This is a very strong glue that binds a relationship. It helps us to open to each other.

Empathy - This is the last and final stage of building trust.

By now we know the person in depth, we know about the person's past and what's happening in his/her life now. This enables us to feel much more emphatically about that person. We feel their pain or happiness equally just like the way we feel for our child's success or failure. Without any biases. So we are able to stand by them when they are correct and equally correct them when they are wrong. We can speak on their behalf because we know what they would have felt or said in this situation.

For e.g. when we are selecting a restaurant to dine, we not just think about the cuisine we prefer but also be fully considerate of the cuisine the other person prefers. When a decision is to be taken in a professional world, we not just decide on the basis of what is best for the situation, we also be fully considerate of what is best for the Team. And we try our best to strike a balance.?

This is where we gain the ultimate trust.