Building Trust: How To Get It! How To Keep It!

by Hyler Bracey

As grown-ups, we might slightly rephrase the same flawed theory: In resolving conflict—or getting your way—always come from a place of power and force.

Whenever I use power to manage others, what I usually get in return is a lot of resistance.

THE TIGHT FIST EXPERIMENT At some of my speeches, I often do a simple experiment with the audience. I ask them to stand up and face one other person. One agrees to be Person A, the other Person B. I tell each Person A, “Make a tight fist with your hand.” Then I tell each Person B, “Get that fist open, and get it open now.” Almost every Person B starts trying to pry Person A’s fist open using all their physical power. After a few moments, when I notice that a few succeed in forcing their partner’s fist open and most fail, I say, “Stop! Let’s try this again.” I begin, “Please follow my instructions. Person A make a fist again. Person B, do not touch your partner physically. Rather, establish eye contact and politely ask, ‘Would you please open your fist for me?’“ Guess what happens? Almost everyone responds positively to this simple request and opens their fist. Then, we compare the two situations. In the first case, people report they applied force and they got resistance in return. They applied more force, and got more resistance. In the second case, people making the polite request made themselves vulnerable to the other. They didn’t get resistance, they got cooperation. The other benefit is that, while in the first situation there was one winner and one loser, in the second situation both people won.

The way to take care of yourself and the other person is not through force but through vulnerability.

In fact, I notice that whenever I am getting resistance, it’s a sign I am not making a request from a place of vulnerability or I am not hearing the other person’s request. The use of power to get people to do things for me will almost always evoke resistance.

Perfect vulnerability equals perfect protection. Who would ever have thought that something easier and less stressful like vulnerability is so much more powerful than force?

Vulnerability reflects a specific kind of behavior and attitude in trust-building. It differs from both being easily readable and openness. Being easily readable is primarily about my emotions and behavior. Being open is primarily about my thoughts and intentions. Being vulnerable is about the consequences to me when you do not honor my request. In vulnerability, I need to learn to make requests in such a way that the employee knows what the adverse consequences are for me—as well as the positive ones—if they do not honor my request. I’m talking about adverse consequences that happen to me, not to the employee.

The primary behavior associated with responsiveness is giving and receiving feedback spontaneously, consciously and with care. The R skills to be learned include (1) how to welcome and respect honest feedback from others, as well as (2) how to offer the same to them. Learning both skills is essential in trust-building.

A more healthy theory about feedback’s purpose, at least in the workplace, is: The purpose of feedback is always to help build a trusting relationship in working toward a shared goal.

I define giving feedback as my willingness and ability to respond to what you have said or done in a specific area, expressing thoughts and feelings that I personally own.

“lightweight feedback.”

How much employees will trust me depends, in part, on my willingness and ability to solicit, sponsor, welcome and take in feedback from them, whether negative or positive.

The six feedback steps are: 1. Knock on the Door. 2. Describe the Specific Action, Event or Behavior at Issue. 3. Spell Out Its Impact on You. 4. Specify the Likely Positive and Negative Consequences and Make a Request. 5. Get a Firm Agreement. 6. Share Appreciation.

You’d have to know that I care about you, and I care about our relationship.

We’re talking about the kind of caring that, if I had an issue with you, you believe that I would come and talk to you about it in a way that you would know I care about you and our relationship. That’s not soft caring but tough caring. It says that, no matter what negative criticism or strong emotion you bring to me, I will deal with it in a way that respects and protects you and our relationship. In speeches, before I discuss caring as a key element in trust-building, I ask people in the audience, “Identify one person, besides your parents, who had a positive effect on you and whom you consider as an ideal leader, teacher, coach or boss.” I ask them to clearly picture a scene with that person and “watch how they related to you, because that person has the qualities that you will need if you want to build strong, trusting, supportive and productive relationships with others.”

If you want people to trust you and follow you, you must be a master of your craft (competent). Likewise, the healthy self-esteem you have about yourself (confident) influences your human actions more than anything else I know.

Caring is a key component of interpersonal trust.

Five Unspoken Requests

These five requests form the acronym HEART: H stands for “Hear and understand me.” E stands for “Even if you disagree, please don’t make me wrong.” A stands for “Acknowledge the greatness within me.” R stands for “Remember to look for my loving intentions.” T stands for “Tell me the truth with compassion.”

Here’s how I know the time to begin a listening check about something you’ve said: • Whenever you interrupt me. (When you interrupt, I know that I’m missing something or I’ve got it wrong.) • Whenever you lose eye contact with me while I’m talking. (Loss of eye contact tells me we are not together.) • Whenever you say to me, “Yes, but…” (The “but” tells me I’ve missed something important and need to go back and bring it in.) • Whenever you repeat exactly what you said before. (I missed what you said, so you say it again, hoping I’ll get it this time.) • Whenever I notice strong emotions beginning to well up in you. (I’d better make sure I get this part of your thought correctly because it’s important to you.) At any of these signals, I would go into paraphrasing until the other person grows quiet because he or she has been heard and understood.

“However little you may value what I have said, done or thought, please don’t attack my personhood. My opinion or position on this issue may be wrong, but it doesn’t mean there is something radically useless about me. The fact that I have ideas you disagree with doesn’t mean that I, as a person, am incapable or incompetent, that I am unloving or unlovable, that I am neither responsible nor responsive, or that I have no value or worth to you. If you disagree with what I said, then focus on what I said, not on me.”

there are times when I may disagree with your opinion or idea, or I may disapprove of a way you have behaved. Yet I still want to show that I value you and our relationship.

when I respond, I must do so using “I-statements” about the position you took, not “You-statements.”

An I-statement can never be a judgment about the inherent worth of a person, because it is precisely about my emotional reaction to the content of the person’s opinion.

I think the flawed belief our culture promotes is: The way to get people to do better on the job is to tell them what they are doing wrong and how to improve. This belief breeds only discouragement and a loss of self-worth.

acknowledge people’s greatness is that by doing it I make a positive significant difference in a person’s life. I feel very strongly about this. I think people build up a kind of emotional reservoir around their sense of self-esteem to rely on in times of stress, weakness and failure. If that reservoir is filled with specific affirmations, they can call upon those reserves in difficult times.

Since it takes thirty days to build a habit of giving specific positive affirmations, here’s a trick that I learned when I was first developing that habit. Each morning, I put five Checkers pieces in my left-hand pocket. After I gave someone a specific positive affirmation, I would transfer one checker to my right-hand pocket. Soon, I began habitually to notice nice things to say, and I said them.

I have discovered that, over 90 percent of the time, I can support an employee’s purpose or intentions—the what he or she wants to accomplish. When we get involved in struggling over the how, I tend to forget the employee’s loving intentions. I have learned that if I support their what, they are more often willing to explore alternative hows.

want to hear and understand you. I want to give you negative feedback without making you wrong. I want to acknowledge your greatness. I want to keep clear in my mind your loving intentions. Now, I need to tell you the truth with compassion. This means that I tell you the truth about what you have done in such a way that you have no doubt that I care about you and our relationship.

Before I tell the other person the truth, I need to get three green lights, a green light in answer to each of the following questions. First, “Do I need or want this relationship?” If I get a red light, meaning “no,” I don’t tell the person anything. If I get a green light, I proceed to the next question. Second, “Is my intention at this time to be helpful to this person and not to punish them?” If I get a red light, I don’t tell the person anything. If I get a green light, I proceed to the last question. Third, “Can I handle the worst realistic outcome of this confrontation?” If I get a red light, then I don’t confront. I do not want to take an inordinate risk of breaking the trust bond. If I get three green lights, then I use the skills I have learned, especially those in the letter R of TRUST, in terms of giving negative feedback responsibly and responsively.

To be sincere means to act without deceit or pretense. It is to be genuine and straightforward in relationships. It is to match my actions with my words.

To be congruent means that what goes on inside me matches what I say and do. In other words, my thoughts and feelings match my words and actions.

If I want to be a trusted person, I need to check to see if I am gossiping. It’s a simple two-question check. First, when I discuss with person B something person A has said or done, am I sure that person A would be comfortable with me saying it to person B? Second, would I be comfortable going back to person A and telling them I had said this to person B? If I can’t say “yes” to both questions, then I am gossiping. For example, if A had told me a fact in confidence, or had even hinted that this was confidential information, then I cannot even answer the first question with a yes.

A trusting relationship at least requires a level of sincerity where I acknowledge my honest feelings.

I have found people habitually have become loose with their word by making: • Agreements out of politeness – “We will call you next time we are in town.” • Vague and ambiguous agreements – “I’ll look into that and get back with you.” • Agreements they enter into with enthusiasm, forget and never bring up again – I agree to be home by 6 PM. I arrive at 6:30 and hope my wife doesn’t notice or mention it. • Agreements they don’t intend to keep and hope the other person will forget – Promising to take the kids camping next summer and hoping they will forget. If they mention it, I deny making such a promise.

WORKING BY AGREEMENT Make only those agreements you intend to keep. Avoid making or accepting “fuzzy” agreements. Give earliest notice when agreements must be broken. Clean up broken agreements.

A fuzzy agreement is one whose words do not specify what is to be done, how it is to be done, or when it will be done.

The final T in TRUST is Trustworthiness, which goes one step beyond the S of Sincerity. While sincerity calls for congruence between my words and my actions, trustworthiness asks me to accept responsibility for the consequences of my words and actions. Trustworthiness asks me to be true to my word. Whenever I give my word that I will do something, I will do it.

• Make only those agreements you intend to keep. • Avoid making or accepting “fuzzy” agreements. • Give earliest notice when agreements must be broken. • Clean up broken agreements.

Interpersonal trust lies at the heart of all organizational trust.

1. Provide Economic and Financial Education for All Employees.

The Accounting Game

2. Develop a New Employee Paradigm.

In the old employee paradigm, employees might describe themselves like this: “If you hire me, I’ll show up. I’ll put up with all the red tape, bureaucracy and organizational silliness you lay on me in return for routine pay raises and the promise of long-term employment.”

The old employee paradigm is dead and buried, or at least fractured and crushed.

As a result, in order to build employee trust in the corporation employers and managers must learn to support the three things new employees want.

First, they want meaningful work.

Second, they want an opportunity to impact decisions that affect them.

Third, employees want good relationships at work.

3. Train Yourself and Others How to Build Interpersonal Trust.