Trust means confidence. The opposite of trust—distrust—is
suspicion. When you trust people, you have confidence in them, in their
integrity (character), and in their abilities (competence). When you distrust
people, you are suspicious of them—of their integrity, agenda, capabilities,
or track record. You have likely had experiences that validate the dramatic difference
between relationships built on trust those built on distrust.
Think of a person with whom you have a high-trust relationship—perhaps
a boss, co-worker, customer, spouse, parent, child, or friend. Describe this relationship.
What’s it like? How does it feel? How well do you communicate? How quickly
can you get things done? How much do you enjoy this relationship?
Now think of a person with whom you have a low-trust relationship.
Again, this person could be anyone at work or at home. Describe this relationship.
What’s it like? How does it feel? How is the communication—does it
flow quickly and freely, or do you feel like you’re constantly walking on
land mines and being misunderstood? Do you work together to get things done quickly,
or does it take disproportionate time and energy to reach agreement and execution?
Do you find this relationship tedious, cumbersome, and draining?
Here’s a simple formula that will enable you to make trust
an indispensable factor that is both tangible and quantifiable. The formula is
based on this critical insight: Trust always affects two outcomes—speed
and cost. When trust goes down, speed will also go down and costs will go up.
Whether it’s high or low, trust is the hidden variable in the formula for
success. The traditional formula says that strategy times execution equals results:
S x E = R.
But the hidden variable, trust, is either the low-trust tax that
discounts the output, or the high-trust dividend that multiplies it: (S x E) T
= R.
You could have good strategy and execution, but still get derailed
by low trust. Or high trust could serve as a performance multiplier, creating
synergy.
Five Waves of Trust
The key is in learning how to navigate in the Five Waves of Trust.
1. Self-trust: This deals with the confidence you have in yourself—in your ability to set and achieve goals, to keep commitments, to walk your talk,
and also with your ability to inspire trust in others. The idea is to become,
both to yourself and to others, a person who is worthy of trust. The key principle
underlying this wave is credibility, which comes from the Latin root
credere—to believe. The end result of high character and competence
is credibility, judgment, and influence.
Self-trust is about developing the integrity, intent, capabilities,
and results that make you believable to yourself and others. It boils down to
two simple questions: 1) Do I trust myself? 2) Am I someone others can trust?
Many of us don’t follow through on the goals we set. Repeated failure to
make and keep promises to ourselves hacks away at our self-confidence. Not only
do we lose trust in our ability to make and keep commitments; we fail to project
the personal strength of character that inspires trust. We may try to borrow strength
from position or association. But it’s not ours—and people know it.
The lack of self-trust also undermines our ability to trust others.
In the words of Cardinal de Retz, “A man who doesn’t trust himself
can never really trust anyone else.”
The good news is that every time we make and keep a commitment to
ourselves or set and achieve a meaningful goal, we become more credible. The more
we do it, the more confidence we have that we can do it and will do it—the
more we trust ourselves.
2. Relationship trust: This is about how to establish and increase the trust accounts we have with others. The key principle underlying this wave
is consistent behavior. The net result is a significantly increased ability
to generate trust with all involved in order to enhance relationships and achieve
better results.
3. Organizational trust: This deals with how you as a leader can generate trust in your family, team, or organization. If you’ve ever worked
with people you trusted—but in an organization you didn’t—or
in a situation where the organization’s systems and structures promote distrust,
you recognize the critical nature of the third wave. The key principle, alignment,
helps you create structures, systems, and symbols of trust that decrease costly
trust taxes and create huge trust dividends.
4. Market trust. The principle behind this wave is reputation. It’s about your brand, which reflects the trust customers, investors, and
others have in you. Brands powerfully affect customer behavior and loyalty. When
there is a high-trust brand, customers buy more, refer more, give the benefit
of the doubt, and stay with you longer.
5. Societal trust. This is about creating value for others and for society. The principle is contribution. By contributing or giving back,
you counteract the suspicion, cynicism, and low trust within society. You also
inspire others to create value and contribute as well.
Depending on your roles and responsibilities, you may have more or
less influence as you move through each wave. However, you can always have extraordinary
influence on the first two waves, and this is where you need to begin. As you
move through each wave, you see that trust at the organizational level can be
traced back to the individual level. This puts a premium on always starting at
the first wave.
You inspire trust by learning how to extend smart trust—how
to avoid gullibility (blind trust) on one hand and suspicion (distrust) on the
other, in order to find that sweet spot where extending trust creates big dividends
for everyone. It also involves restoring trust and in-creasing your propensity
to trust. While you risk in trusting other people, you run a far greater risk
in not trusting them. Knowing when and how to extend smart trust enables you to
create incredible leverage, so that you get things done with greater speed and
lower cost.
You can not only build trust, you can also restore it. There are
some circumstances in which trust has truly been damaged beyond repair, or where
others may not give you a chance to restore it. But these circumstances are few.
Your ability to build and restore trust is greater than you think. PE
