Trust. It’s the bedrock of business and personal success. Yet we often find when we talk with people about trust, they say “of course it’s important and if only (fill in the name) would recognize it”. Well this Blog is not about someone else, it’s about you.
We have yet to talk with someone who said – “you know, I just can’t be trusted”. We all see ourselves as trustworthy. Our filters carefully sort out those we feel we can trust and those we feel we cannot. But remember, someone else is applying their filter on you. How do you measure up? Do you know?
What we call “trust events”, situations that create a trust violation, can range from small and easily resolved (i.e. your boss asked if you called a client, you say yes, then immediately call the client after the conversation ends). Or it can be large and non-recoverable (i.e. embezzling money from your employer). Large trust events tend to result in immediate and strong negative feedback. Small trust events don’t. But if they are a part of your behavior, they accumulate, and just like a boxer throwing body punches for nine rounds, they add up and will lead to major problems. For the boxer – a tenth round knockout.
We see partnerships dissolve, employees leave organizations because of trust violations, employees no longer interacting and cooperating in the workplace. Billions of dollars of lost productivity, lost opportunity, and suppressed growth can be attributed to trust issues.
We realize it’s difficult to self-reflect on an issue as sensitive as trust in the workplace and business. And it’s also unrealistic to assume that if someone has a trust issue with you, they will tell you. Some will, of course, but most won’t. So instead of asking you directly to assess your trust quotient, we suggest you derive it (or test it) based on a series of simple questions:
ü Are people you once interacted with on the job, spending less time with you? Maybe even avoiding you?
ü Are people who once shared personal stories and talked with you with animation and interest – not doing so any longer? Has the conversation turned and stayed matter of fact and business like?
ü Are you invited to fewer meetings and events?
ü Are you losing customers and having a hard time acquiring new ones?
ü Are calls that once were returned quickly not being returned?
ü Are emails that were once responded to quickly being responded to slower and with less information in the response?
ü Are you being passed over for key projects or a promotion?
If you answered these questions with a yes, you likely have a trust issue. Now, sure, this could stem from a temporary work overload or stress overload of the other person. However, a pattern of yeses with various people, and over some time presents a high likelihood that your trustworthiness is not coming through to others. And, this calls for attention on your part if you do not wish it to diminish your relationships and success.
In Thursday’s Quick Tips, we will provide examples of actions you can take to gain and keep trust.
Copyright 2010 Kubica and LaForest
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