Assess Trust and Improve "Trustworthiness"
By: Grande Lum
A necessary key to success at work is solidifying your business relationships. Trust is a two-way street. Over the long-term, business success is dependent upon a network of positive relationships. Whether it's working on team projects, getting a promotion, gathering support for a new idea or just enjoying being at work, the better your relationships with your colleagues and clients, the better your chance of success.
Trust is invariably the critical component in enhancing business relationships. The moment a person is not trusted by an individual or team, their chances for success within that group are diminished dramatically. The more your manager or team trusts you, the more authority and flexibility you are often given.
An important thing to remember is that trust is a belief in the honesty, reliability and integrity of another person. Whether fair or unfair, trust is a perception of one person by another. While you may not be able to control the level of trust someone has in you, you can influence it by being as trustworthy as possible. Step back from your relationships to evaluate the level of trust others have in you.
Then take steps to improve your trustworthiness in those relationships. The following is a step-by-step approach for increasing trust in your business relationships.
A caveat: This is not meant to be a Machiavellian exercise. This is meant to enhance long-term relationships and assumes that if you ever broke the trust, there would be long-term negative consequences.
Step 1: Write down the people you interact with on a regular basis. Include people who manage you and those you manage. Include external parties like clients and consultants. For each person, evaluate the level of trust that exists between you and that person in this general manner: a) high, b) neutral and c) low.
Step 2: Start with those that you circled who are in the "high trust" category. Ask yourself, "How can trust be enhanced with these individuals?" Sometimes, when we have good relationships, we do not spend enough time improving or expanding them.
It may be appropriate to move those relationships to an even higher level. Can any of them become a coach or mentor to you? Can you coach or mentor any of them? Are there individuals that might prosper by initiating a more "social" activity like lunch, going for a run, etc.?
Step 3: For those in the "low" level, ask yourself, is it that a) you don't trust the other person, b) the person doesn't trust you or c) both? This is clearly the toughest situation. In my work, people continually tell me get back at them or refuse to work with them. Yet there are times when one or both parties may prefer to work it out, but really don't know what to do.
Consider some of the following ideas to build trust in difficult situations: Request to sit down with the person and discuss the situation. Ask the other person what you can do to improve the working relationship. Share with the person what you did, what you regret and what you wish you had done differently.
Apologize if it makes sense to do so. Whenever you are about to interact with that person put yourself into that person's shoes. This will allow you to act in a way that may not feed the other person's negative perceptions of you.
Step 4: Focus more on your own trustworthiness. This will be useful for those you evaluated as neutral and for the others as well. It is easy to get caught in what other people are doing. It's usually more comforting to see others as the problem and yourself as the innocent victim.
Consider the following to enhance your trustworthiness: Think about what you promise. You may have heard the saying. "Under promise and over deliver."That makes sense for excellent business service mentality, but also because you maintain trust. At the same time, you may not always be able to deliver. In these cases it is crucial to quickly and straightforwardly explain what happened and what you will do to rectify the situation. Understand how others view trust.
One thing that makes this difficult is that people may define trust differently. Learning more about this issue from others will help you build it. Trust others more. It often becomes easier in life to not believe in others. Yet this has negative consequences.
A good place to start with people you view as trustworthy is to seek their help and guidance. Often that person will then trust you more. When you face difficult decisions, put yourself into the other person's shoes and reflect on how they will see and react to the choices you are considering.
Be more proactive. If trust is at all in question, approach the other person rather than waiting for them to approach you.