Trusting Your Decided Heart:

On a scale of 1 -10, how trustworthy are you?

On a scale of 1 -10, how easy is it for you to extend trust?

How closely aligned are these two numbers?

When we work with companies on trust and belonging, we always start with the individual. Most of the time people are very generous in how they rate themselves – until we start to really breakdown what it means to be trustworthy. In fact, we always tell companies, they will see the individual trust metrics go down after our work initially because people are ready to live in truth. You can’t improve something that isn’t honest. 

So, what are the behaviors to practice on the way to being trustworthy? Here is a quick overview from The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey. We just finished a 6-part Lunch and Learn on this very topic for a software company. 

1. Talk straight – Don’t sugarcoat. You can use tact, while speaking truth.

    

2. Demonstrate respect – If you want it, you have to show it. We recommend having open discussions on your team about what respect looks like to each individual. You might be surprised. 

    

3. Create transparency – Don’t hide mistakes or hoard knowledge. We are better together and can learn from one another. 

    

4. Right wrongs – Make it a practice on your team to discuss and celebrate lessons learned when things don’t go right. How will you improve?

    

5. Show loyalty – What you say about someone when they are not present is even more important than what you say when they are.

    

6. Deliver results – Done or not done? Motion or action? ‘Nuff said.

    

7. Get better – If you think you know it all, you have stopped growing. Read. Take classes. Listen to podcasts. Seek a mentor. However smart you are, there is always someone out there who can teach you something more. 

    

8. Confront reality – It is easy for us to fool even ourselves when the truth is hard. If we truly name it and claim it, we will move through it faster. 

    

9. Clarify expectations – We see this as being one of the fuzziest and most complicated areas at workplaces. When the expectations – roles and responsibilities – are not clearly communicated and acknowledged, teams dissolve into fear, distrust, blaming, uncertainty and anxiety. Yuck! Make it your mission to get everyone on the same page. Clarify exactly what you mean. Set a timeline. Make sure everyone knows what success looks like. Whew – we are breathing easier just reading this.  

    

10. Practice accountability – Closely tied to confronting reality, getting better and righting wrongs. What methods of accountability do you have set up so that you are holding yourself to task for doing what you say? Who in your life is your accountability partner?

     

11. Listen first – When we listen to others to understand versus to just get to our turn, magical things happen. We usually can get to resolution faster. 

     

12. Keep commitments – Especially to yourself. Yep, this is the one that usually gets people. If you break promises to yourself (when you wake up, workouts, etc.), there is an underlying dis-ease that we feel that will bring our own trustworthiness into question. When people have a really hard time trusting and don’t have obvious trauma – this is the first place we look.

     

13. Extend trust – Not blindly. Smart trust. Create scaffolding to give trust and assess how well people respond to it. Learn, adjust and try it again. 

If you are interested in working on your own trustworthiness, reach out to us about our masterclass this month.  If your team could use some work on trust-building in a meaningful and sustainable way, let’s set up a discovery call. There really is nothing faster than the speed of trust.

93. The Basics of Trust

Trust is the foundation of every strong relationship. It is also a muscle that can be developed. How? It starts by truly becoming self-aware and then working on the Four Cores of Credibility according to Stephen M.R. Covey. It starts with us. Are we living in integrity? Do we have positive intent? Are we growing in our capabilities? Are we producing results? When we can answer a strong yes to all four of these questions, we have high credibility, leading to high trust.