I recently attended a webinar on how to build trust in five easy steps. The presenter provided a very entertaining and convincing presentation. The five steps did in fact seem easy and should provide a very good framework for establishing trust-filled relationships.
He defined trust as behaving in such a way that causes others to feel comfort dealing with you. He stated that others don’t care about titles or position, they care about the person in them. This is a good statement since it describes trust in terms of behavior and since behavior can be learned then trust can be learned. The presenter states that a critical component of establishing trust is ego suspension. So when attempting to establish trust, it cannot be about yourself, it must be about the other person. The presentation then began explaining how to get someone to trust you in a somewhat specific situation. I was a little disappointed because it was advice for a one-time encounter, however here are the five steps.
In the first step, you determine what it is that you want the other person to do or tell you and why they should do it or tell you. It establishes your goal for the encounter. Once you know what you want from the other person, the rest of the encounter is about the other person. By the way, these are all preparatory steps to be performed prior to the encounter.
The next step is to ascertain the individual’s priorities. What drives them and gets them up in the morning. This allows you to frame your proposal in terms of their desires.
Then, ascertain the individual’s context. This is how they view the world through their particular wants and needs so you can build trust the way they prefer.
Step four is to make sure that they feel better for having met you so they feel that they have achieved a win-win situation.
The final step is to “craft the engagement.” This means that you put all of this knowledge and research to work in your proposal. Make sure to use phraseology that supports their goals and that it is all about them.
Done. Do the above steps and people will more readily tell you what you want or do what you want them to do. He does point out that you must genuinely like people or it will show. He also states that without trust, there can only be manipulation.
All the above was for a one-time, or each-time, encounter where you are in need of something from the other person. What about trust in general? Here are my two pennies worth of wisdom.
Trust is a very personal concept. By this I mean that what trust means to me, is not the same as the meaning that you or anyone else applies to that word. So, the best way to describe trust is to speak on the degrees of trust. This way we can take into account the personal bias and modifications applied by individuals.
Trust is a belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. Being a belief, trust then must be based on experience. So if trust is a belief usually tempered by the personal experiences of the individual having that belief, the trust may not be well-founded. (Google “Ladder of Inference” to see why beliefs may be all wrong.) You often hear of people betraying someone’s trust in them. Why were they trusted in the first place?
Our experiences, and the emotional tags we attach to these experiences, may lead us to trust someone merely because they look like someone we do trust. “She looks like my Aunt Josie. Aunt Josie was always good to me and kept her promises. I could trust her.” This is an emotional bonding type of trust.
There are many types of trust. There is unconditional trust, such as a child may have in a parent. As the child grows, that trust begins to diminish as their bonding and influence world expands. If you have teenagers, you know exactly what I mean. Their friends get smarter and you get dumber, right?
There is conditional trust such as when your boss tells you that if you get this project done right and on time you will get a promotion. These conditions, and his authority, cause you to trust his bold promise. He then squashes you like a grape by finding a reason not to promote you. “I’m sorry, but all promotions have been frozen for the next 37 years.”
There is situational trust such as trust in a health care provider. He has a diploma on the wall from the University of Trust Your Doctor so you trust in him to make decisions in your best health interest. We don’t want to change the situation by a second opinion because we won’t know who to trust then.
There is the misled by information trust (I couldn’t come up with a cute title). This is where that commercial tells you that if you drink this brand of beer and eat this brand of pizza, you will be surrounded by great looking happy and adoring people. Trust them. They have videos.
There is necessity trust which happens when your car breaks down on I-15 on your way to Las Vegas. You are stranded on the side of the road in the desert. A funny looking 1960s hippie guy stops and offers to take you to the nearest gas station. You trustingly get into his Volkswagen bus for the 200-mile ride to Primm, Nevada.
So why am I telling you all this? Well, I am recommending that before you go blindly trusting anyone or anything in the future you determine a couple of things. First, determine why you feel that this is a situation where trust is needed. Determine the type of trust that is needed. Establish the degree of needed trust and what your belief system says about this particular situation.
Be a little more cognizant of the trust you give and you will have less anxiety knowing that you did your homework. They will still betray your trust, but you will feel less anxiety. You can trust me on this one.