Do You Trust Me? A Guide to Gaining Trust

Gale Muller, who oversaw a team of global researchers at Gallup World Poll, has written extensively on his findings about trust, which he gained through his experience conducting sweeping surveys across the world. Not surprisingly, his findings show that trust is the linchpin in any good, collaborative relationship. Are you surprised?

Two of the most fascinating findings in his research on trust include:

• Brain imaging shows that once trust is created, your brain will anticipate your partner’s cooperative actions before they occur.
• If one person in a partnership is not trustworthy, it’s better that you never collaborate.

In other words, when you have trust in your relationship, the upside is ESP—or, the relationship becomes intuitive and so much easier to manage. But if you don’t trust each other, don’t even bother.

The benefits of trust in the workplace are equally as positive. According to one study published in the Harvard Business Review, “Compared with people at low-trust companies, people at high-trust companies report: 74 percent less stress, 106 percent more energy at work, 50 percent higher productivity, 13 percent fewer sick days, 76 percent more engagement, 29 percent more satisfaction with their lives, 40 percent less burnout.”

Trust has the ability to empower collaboration in your teams, lower stress, keep people engaged and satisfied, and even decrease absenteeism. So, the question remains: How can you create a model around trust and harness its power in your business?

An Intentional Trust-Building Process

Are you trustworthy? The best way to build trust in your organization is to start with you. As you are, the rest of the organization becomes.

Not sure if you’re trustworthy? You can get a better idea by giving yourself a letter grade in each of the following four key questions of trustworthiness.

• Are you genuine? In other words, are you projecting out who you really are?
• Can people count on you to do what you say you’re going to do? Do you honor your commitments?
• Do you follow a moral or ethical code? 
• Are you able to put your own interests aside to serve others?

How did you do? Not quite straight A’s? The first thing you should be doing to become more trustworthy is simply being intentional about working on developing these traits. It’s not about meaning to do all of these things, it’s really about doing these things. It’s beyond just “meaning well.” It’s about meaning well and living that out.

The next thing you can do is tell everybody how you’re working on strengthening your trustworthiness. As a leader, one of the most effective ways you can demonstrate that you’re trustworthy is to communicate openly with others. Let them know you’re on a personal development track and solicit their help and feedback.

Ask your team members if they trust you and encourage your team to let you know how they think you’re doing. It can be a lot like an informal 360-degree review process. This is something I like to call the “cycle of feedback.” By asking our teams to rate us, we open the dialog and encourage better relationships. It creates a culture that is more open, feedback-driven and ultimately, more trusting. The great thing about using a cycle of feedback in pursuit of trustworthiness is that you build trust from two different directions. While you’re intentionally working on becoming a more trustworthy leader, you are opening dialog to create a culture that’s more trusting.

A cycle of feedback is successful when those you’ve asked for feedback also start asking others for feedback themselves. Ask your teammates to embark on a trustworthiness journey with you by having them grade themselves on the four elements of trust. If you have a separate set of criteria that you hold as a foundation for trust, then include it in the process. And last but not least, create the opportunity for your team to share their intentions and progress with the entire group through periodic meetings.

Think of it like this scenario: Brian has a contentious relationship with a customer. The customer is constantly demanding Brian to provide all the service details all the time, which is unreasonable. Brian gets to the point of frustration with the customer’s demands and asks: “Why do you need all this so often? Don’t you trust me to do what I say I’m going to do?”

This kind of thing happens all the time. But most of the time, we avoid asking the question Brian asked because we are afraid of the answer or we don’t care.

After a beat, the customer tells Brian: “Actually, I’m not so sure, you haven’t provided me with timely information, and often the data is inconsistent.”

Taken aback, Brian apologizes, promising to deliver more reliable information in the future. He follows up by asking the customer if he can ask for feedback in the process so that he can continue to check in on his reliability and build trust in the relationship. From then on, when Brian’s in meetings with that customer, he is intentional about saying: “Here’s what you asked and here is what I’m delivering. Does that address your questions, or can I do something differently?”

Brian is genuine, he’s honoring his commitments and he is using the cycle of feedback to help build trust in his relationship with his customer. That requires him to be intentional! 

Here are the three steps you can embark on today to begin building trust in your workplace and reap the immense rewards of a team or a client relationship built on trust, like Brian did.

1. Be honest with yourself about your own trustworthiness. Make a plan to become more trustworthy.
2. Make it safe to step out and communicate about areas where you need to improve in becoming more trustworthy.
3. Communicate openly about your plan, encouraging a cycle of feedback.

To share your thoughts with us, please feel free to comment on my Facebook page or Twitter.

Yasser Youssef is the president of The Budd Group, one of the leading facility service companies in the country a North Carolina-based company that provides facility support services in the Southeast. Throughout his career, Youssef has met leaders from all backgrounds, and believes leadership is for everyone. Over the past few years, he has developed an affinity for writing and contributing thought leadership, and is often asked to speak to businesses throughout the country about authentic leadership.

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