Trust Before Trust Is Earned
Trust in a relationship, whether it is at work or at home, is the foundation to the success of that relationship. Without trust between individuals or on a team, mediocrity and failure are the most likely results.
I have worked for people who told me I had to earn their trust. I have worked in organizations that made the same thing clear, without someone verbalizing it. In both situations, the team was dysfunctional and selfishness prevailed.
I believe the first thing a leader needs to establish on a team is trust. The fastest way to establish trust is to be the first one to trust!
Trust First
“Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and let him know that you trust him.”
– Booker T. Washington
What You Never Hear Said About Trust
You never hear someone say, “I wish my boss didn’t trust me so much!” or “I hate it when people trust me!”
Most of us want to be trusted. Most of us want to have others believe we are reliable. In fact, most of us thrive in environments when we are trusted.
Trust Is Rare
Even though we all desire to be trusted, so many of us deny others this basic human desire. We tend to make people earn our trust.
We do this because trust involves risk. When we trust someone, we are exposing ourselves to the danger that they could let us down.
The fear of being let down by people at work or by people at home, makes us cynical about even the best people. We begin to treat everyone based on the lowest common denominator – the untrustworthy minority.
To trust takes courage. I have to make a choice to overcome my fears and trust someone. It is easy to let fear take over and rule my relationships. It is hard to make the choice to trust and overcome my fear.
Trust First
If something is highly desired yet hard to come by, the value of that item skyrockets! If everyone wants to be trusted, yet it is a rare commodity then the value of my trust is huge!
When I spend 2 plus hours discussing the topic of trust with leaders going through my leadership program, Trust First is a major topic.
When I give away something that someone has not earned, it is called a gift. Most people never experienced that in a work setting. If you decide to Trust First, watch the reactions of the people to whom you give this gift.
When I tell people on their first day, “I trust you. You don’t have to earn my trust. I am giving it to you freely.” I often get confused looks. They don’t know how to react. They are shocked by this gift.
The Trusted Become Trustworthy
When people who have rarely been trusted are given the gift of trust an interesting thing happens — they become trustworthy!
They all desire to be trusted. They all know it is a rare commodity. When they are given trust, they work extremely hard to keep it!
When trying to earn trust, people tend to worry about never getting it. Therefore, if they make a mistake they might try to fix it before I find out or even try to cover it up.
But, when they know they have my trust, they step forward and own their mistakes. They know I trust them and they do not want to lose that by covering up a mistake. As a result, we have a stronger relationship and we are more productive.
The Bottom Line:
Stephen Covey, Ken Blanchard and Patrick Lencioni have all written books that state that trust is the foundation for all successful teams. Whether the team is at work or at home, trust is essential.
The biggest key to trust is courage. It takes courage to ignore my fears and take the risk of being let down. It takes courage to trust again after someone has let me down in the past.
I am not telling anyone to be foolish and trust those who prove untrustworthy. I am asking all of us to Trust First before you distrust.
Trust comes easy to some and is hard for others. Whatever group you fall in to, trust is an essential element to any good and productive relationship.
Treat the majority – the trustworthy people – like they are trustworthy. Treat the minority – the untrustworthy people – like they are trustworthy until they prove differently. They may surprise you and themselves if you Trust First.
Question:
How does being trusted affect our desire to be trustworthy?
Dave,
Trust is the first step in love as well, if you are not willing to be vulnerable then love will pass you by.
It is one thing to extend trust to my team, but extending trust ‘up’ the ladder is important as well. I wonder if we are naturally cynical about ‘upper management’ and how that effects our workflow and productivity?
I hear these complaints when I teach our Creating Space in Email class that individuals needlessly CC colleagues (clogging up email)in order to CYA b/c there is a lack of trust. Workers attend endless meetings b/c they fear they are being cut out of a discussion or decision. Lack of trust is devastating to productivity.
Great point about extending trust upward. I do think we walk into too many situations questioning the people above us. Again, we may get burned, but it is more likely we will increase productivity by Trusting First!
Another Killer Blog Dave – thanks.
Been thinking a lot about Lencioni’s work recently. I’m really inspired by the way he separates “trust” from simple “reliability” and expands it to cover the need to be vulnerable.
You, like me cut your teeth in the corporate world, and I owe it loads: but reading your blog did remind me so vividly about the need for invulnerability and hiding mistakes, errors and shortfalls, wallpapering over the cracks, so no-one would ever know.
And I’ve just reminded myself about Chapter 1 of Levitt & Dubners “Freakanomics” too. When people don’t feel trusted, they’ll go out of their way to prove it!
Another great book for people to pick up and read. I do expose myself if I Trust First, but I reap more rewards than if I did not.
Great post Dave, but I would argue that extending trust does not necessarily make the receiver trustworthy! I would also add that keeping your word is the fastest route to earning trust.
Late in 2013, thirty experts from around North America came together to write a book called Trust Inc, Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset. Essays include advice from Stephen MR Covey, Kouzes & Posner, Ken Blanchard, Patricia Aburdene and many others. (I am the editor 🙂 It’s a wonderful book with a variety of perspectives on trustworthy leadership, teamwork, risk, governance, etc.
I 100% agree! Starting with trust does not make the receiver trustworthy. But, I do believe that by starting with trust, you are more likely to be trusting someone who will turn out to be trustworthy than someone who won’t.
I think that book sounds like a great resource! Congratulations on being the editor. I’d love to hear more about the process you went through. How can I contact you? My email is dave@alslead.com.