“Trust Me.”
By Lexi Tuch
In October, Rockwood associates participated in a Trusted Advisor[1] workshop to learn more about our trust temperaments and develop new skills for creating trusted relationships with colleagues, clients, and personal contacts. Establishing trusted relationships enables individuals within an organization to:
Create true partnerships
Feel more comfortable taking risks
Reduce micromanagement
Exchange information freely
Provide feedback for better outcomes
The key to creating a trusted relationship is to listen. Listening to others encourages others to listen to you. People are more ready to build trusting relationships and share vulnerabilities when they feel listened to and feel like others care what they have to say. Masterful listening requires asking good questions and applying methods such as paraphrasing, showing empathy, taking audible pauses, using non-verbal cues, and practicing quietness. To assess your trustworthiness as a member of a group or organization, consider how you score across each variable of the “The Trust Equation”[2]: credibility, reliability, intimacy, and low self-orientation.
Credibility enables people to trust what you say. Credibility represents what you know, as well as how you present yourself. Being credible requires you to be transparent and honest regarding whether you know something. You can increase your credibility by becoming a subject matter expert, contributing your point of view, and expressing confidence in your abilities.
Reliability enables people to trust what you do. Reliability describes consistency in your actions. This means accomplishing what you promise and accomplishing it on time. Your level of reliability is tied to your dependability, in that others know you won't surprise them or let them down. You can increase your reliability by taking responsibility, practicing environmental norms, and being clear about expectations.
Intimacy enables people to trust you with information. Intimacy illustrates the comfort others feel when sharing sensitive information with you. Developing intimacy means more than relationship building, it refers to whether others can trust you to keep their secrets. You can increase intimacy by giving genuine compliments, expressing vulnerability, and taking the time to know people beyond their scope of work.
Low self-orientation assures others that you have their best interests in mind. Self-orientation refers to whether your focus and interest lies in yourself or in others. This can come out explicitly or subtly in your interactions. Sometimes, high self-orientation presents as competing for recognition, other times it might present as talking over another individual. You can lower your self-orientation by giving others credit, asking questions, and finding win-win solutions.
Trust doesn't necessarily take a long time to build. While reliability involves long-term patterns of behavior, credibility, intimacy, and low self-orientation, you can convey each with a single interaction. This can allow you to establish trust early on in a relationship. So, practice asking good questions and listening to others, and see how the trust you build impacts you and others in a positive way.
Resources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8047572/
Why Trust Matters at Work (shrm.org)
Active Listening: Definition, Skills, & Benefits (simplypsychology.org)