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November 5, 2013 - January 12, 2014
So Listen First means to listen with more than your ears; it means to also listen with your eyes and your heart.
Listen before you speak. Understand. Diagnose. Listen with your ears—and your eyes and heart. Find out what the most important behaviors are to the people you’re working with. Don’t assume you know what matters most to others. Don’t presume you have all the answers—or all the questions.
making and keeping commitments was the number one behavior to either build or destroy trust.
The next time you make a commitment to someone at work, be sure the commitment is realistic. Even if you have to disappoint someone, it’s far better to do it up front than to overpromise and under deliver.
Say what you’re going to do, then do what you say you’re going to do. Make commitments carefully and keep them. Make keeping commitments the symbol of your honor. Don’t break confidences. Don’t attempt to “PR” your way out of a commitment you’ve broken.
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great. —RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Leadership without mutual trust is a contradiction in terms. WARREN BENNIS, AUTHOR OF ON BECOMING A LEADER
most of the time, extending trust will have an extraordinary impact on building trust in relationships and in the culture.
Extend Trust is based on the principles of empowerment, reciprocity, and a fundamental belief that most people are capable of being trusted, want to be trusted, and will run with trust when it is extended to them.
there is nothing that motivates, or inspires, people like having trust extended to them.
Demonstrate a propensity to trust. Extend trust abundantly to those who have earned your trust. Extend conditionally to those who are earning your trust. Learn how to appropriately extend trust to others based on the situation, risk, and credibility (character and competence) of the people involved. But have a propensity to trust. Don’t withhold trust because there is risk involved.
Organizations are no longer built on force, but on trust. —PETER DRUCKER
How would you describe a low-trust organization? How would you describe a high-trust organization?
Participants say that in a high-trust organization, they typically see different behaviors, such as these:
Information is shared openly Mistakes are tolerated and encouraged as a way of learning
People talk straight and confront real issues There is real communication and real collaboration
There are few “meetings after the meetings
There is a high degree of accountability
happens when people—particularly leaders—blame the behaviors of people in the organization on a low-trust environment without understanding their own responsibility to create, deploy, and maintain systems that promote an environment of high trust.
When leaders fundamentally don’t believe people can be trusted, they create systems and structures that reflect that belief, such as hierarchy, multiple layers of management, and cumbersome processes.
Laurence Peter has said, “Bureaucracy defends the status quo, long past the time when the quo has lost its status.
Low trust breeds bureaucracy, and bureaucracy breeds low trust. In low-trust organizations, bureaucracy is everywhere.
Office politics thrive in low-trust environments. In fact, in many ways, “politics” is an antonym for trust.
Low trust creates disengagement, which leads to turnover—particularly of the people you least want to lose.
another term for “reputation” is “brand,” and another term for “brand” is “trust with the marketplace.” And trust affects people’s behavior.
Create Transparency.
Listen First.
Whatever trust we are able to create in our organizations and in the marketplace is a result of the credibility we first create in ourselves.
“Fish discover water last.
we as human beings discover trust last. Trust is an integral part of the fabric of our society. We depend on it. We take it for granted—unless it becomes polluted or destroyed.
As Gandhi said, “One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in another department. Life is one indivisible whole.
we don’t urge our employees to give incredible service to our “paying” customers, toss a few corporate dollars to charity, and ignore an “unpaying” neighbor in need.
The main principle of establishing Organizational Trust is alignment —ensuring that all structures and systems within the organization are in harmony with the cores and behaviors.
The main principle of establishing Market Trust is reputation or brand.
The main principle of establishing Societal Trust is contribution.
The first job of a leader is to inspire trust. The ability to do so, in fact, is a prime differentiator between a manager and a leader.
In extending trust, the general guideline is to extend trust conditionally to those who are earning it and abundantly to those who have already done so.
First, you inspire trust by starting with yourself and your own credibility (the 4 Cores). Second, you inspire trust by consistently behaving in trust-building ways with other people (the 13 Behaviors), including purposefully and wisely extending trust to others (Smart Trust).
You can’t force people to trust you. You can’t make them have confidence in you.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. —MAHATMA GANDHI
we garner strength to forgive those who have wronged us not by what they do, but by what we do. And we don’t forgive to abdicate the “offender”; as Mandela modeled, we forgive to bring clarity and peace to ourselves.
bring you the gift of these four words: I believe in you. —BLAISE PASCAL, FRENCH PHYSICIST AND MATHEMATICIAN
While it is true that a few abuse this trust, the vast, vast majority of people do not abuse it, but respond amazingly well to it. And when they do, they don’t need external supervision, control, or the “carrot and stick” approach to motivation. They are inspired. They run with the trust they were extended. They want to live up to it. They want to give back.
we can choose to retain or restore our propensity to trust.
Albert Schweitzer said it best: In everybody’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
