Careers and Advice
Our latest 'Developing You' session...
A few weeks ago we talked about the importance of building trust within teams. Now let’s take a closer look at some trust models to deepen our understanding.
Firstly, we have the Trifecta of Trust by Joseph Folkman.
“Leaders can be driven, agile, strategic, and experts in their field, but without trust, it won’t count for much. The data shows that trust is the one leadership behavior that can positively or negatively affect everything else you do.”
– Joe Folkman
• Displaying Expertise and Good Judgment - the extent to which you are well-informed and knowledgeable
• Demonstrating Consistency - role model to others, you keep your promises
• Building Relationships - empathetic, you balance results with concern for others
These three pillars support the foundation of trust regardless of culture, industry, race, or gender.
Folkman’s extensive research shows that out of hundreds of behaviors that influence trust, only three can account for the vast difference in the impact of individuals with high levels of trust and those not trusted at all.
Then we have Don Peppers and Martha Rogers’ theory of ‘Extreme Trust’. The authors focus more on the client side of trust and promote the proposition that quantifying the benefits of establishing “extreme trust” requires a robust customer analytics capability, as well as a financial perspective that fairly balances short-term and long-term results. Their view is that this includes the value of increased customer loyalty, referrals and additional sales.
Do things right - be competent, focus on experience as well as performance. This is about proficiency and capability.
Do the right thing - align your interests to those of your customers, short-term actions inform long-term value. This is about honesty and alignment of interests.
Finally, we have David Maister’s trust equation.
Of the three trust models we've looked at, this is my preferred one to use, because it not only includes some of the features we’ve already discussed - like competence and capability, but it also brings in elements of personal interactions & self awareness that other models don’t consider.
Let’s look at credibility first. You don’t have this from the get-go, you don’t go into a meeting with a new client or a new colleague and you're immediately viewed as credible, it has to be developed and cultivated over a series of meetings or interactions. It’s all about your words and how believable you are. You need to come across as competent and capable in order for someone to believe that you are credible in your role.
To build credibility you need the other person to believe you know what you’re talking about. You need to inspire confidence in them.
So how do you cultivate this?
Be prepared - be confident in what you’re talking about. Be honest and transparent when you don’t know something. You can say something like ‘I’m not sure on that and I want to give you an accurate answer so let me go away and speak to the right person.’
Although you can build credibility quickly, you can also erode it very quickly too! Not being prepared for a client meeting, showing uncertainty in your offering, not reviewing notes from your last session with someone, these are all things that make you less believable and if you haven’t already banked credibility, this can be hard to get back.
Reliability is about doing what you say you will.
An easy and quick way to demonstrate your reliability is by making and keeping small promises. “I’ll share this presentation after the call”, “we’ve got a webinar and can share that gives you more info.” “I’ll have some costs over to you by the end of the week.” Then ensure that you do it on the timeline you promised. Even if those things feel tiny - you are banking reliability each time.
Don’t over promise and under deliver - bear this in mind when you are committing to something.
Intimacy is about how you express your emotions and how safe people feel around you. Although it sounds strange to talk about intimacy in terms of working relationships, however, in the research around this trust model, intimacy was found to be more impactful than both credibility and reliability, despite being less tangible and measurable.
It’s about how you express your emotions to others - if you’re frequently showing frustration or anger to those you want to build trust with, they won’t feel safe with you so the trust will be impossible to build. If you’re showing curiosity or understanding, exhibiting calm or happiness - you’ll be able to build trust as they will feel safe in your presence.
To create a safe environment you can model intimacy by admitting mistakes / when you’re wrong, showing vulnerability. This will encourage others to do the same. Not sharing personal information or being someone’s best friend - but sharing true experience and the emotion behind it (when I was learning this, a mistake I made was ….)
Intimacy can be built through curiosity, genuine care and attention - having the courage to ask questions - How do you feel about that? What’s your view? Seeking to understand the other person’s emotional state is really important for intimacy.
Self-orientation, like intimacy, was one of the most important parts of the trust equation. Those people who have high self orientation - who put their own needs first - are perceived as selfish and it is very difficult to build trust from that perspective.
In comparison those who are present for the needs of others, seek to understand what others need from interactions - those who ‘sponsor’ others in the sense that enable their success ahead of their own (push credit to the right people) - are more likely to build trusting relationships, rather than those people who feel like they are always out for themselves.
