Trust is like a muscle
Trust has become an overused and trivial word. « I trust you » and « We trust each other » are sentences we hear and read about constantly in organizations. But we rarely stop to look into what Trust means and how it shows up in our organizational life.
Trust is what binds us together.
Inherently, we are socially trusting beings. It starts when we are born and allows us to run our complex societies. Roderick M. Kramer argues that we are naturally predisposed to trust, a consequence of our genetics and childhood. Yuval Noah Harari also elaborates on the argument of Trust. He states that Trust is a critical factor of human civilization. The ability of humans to trust one another and cooperate in large groups allowed us to build societies and leaning on abstract concepts such as money: a 100 euros bill per see does not have any value. It has value because we trust each other when exchanging money.
The Trust Challenge
Yet it also appears that it's the root cause of many organizational challenges, such as our ability to have open and candid conversations, decision-making processes, corporate setups, etc.
Maybe it is also because we rarely stop and ask ourselves what Trust means to us?
A metaphor: Trust is like a muscle…
Like a muscle, Trust needs the practice to strengthen. And for that matter, it needs to be pushed to its limits to develop. It requires the right exercises in frequency and weight to grow. It also needs to be stretched, given time to recuperate. And when the muscle is soar, or there is an injury, it is essential to learn and seek to improve for the next time. As for any muscle, for instance, the Trust muscle-building process requires several elements:
Evaluate the base level: what is your history with Trust? Seek to understand your behavioural patterns. Where are the gaps between the intent and the reality? What life and professional experiences shaped your understanding of Trust so far?
Deliberate practice: how often do you practice Trust intentionally and consciously? When interacting with « the other,» can you feel your Trust muscle at work?
Pushing the limits: when practicing Trust, how uncomfortable does it feel, and how long can you stay with this feeling? Can you hold the tension as you would when building up strength for muscle?
Trust muscle soreness: what attention do you give to your Trust muscle when it undergoes a tense moment and then hurts? Have you practiced too little ultimately or made "unusual moves"? Maybe just a new move?
Injury recovery: as with a muscle, when the Trust muscle suffers an injury, what are you doing to get back on track? How do you expose yourself with confidence again and avoid fear of injury?
Habit development: to what extent is your practice of Trust-Building strengthening the Trust Muscle? Are your habits weakening or increasing the probability of improving?
How can you improve your Trust muscle practice?
We can look into many manifestations of Trust at organizational levels, such as how easily employees can make decisions in their daily jobs, how mistakes are handled, time to decision, signature rights, semantics, where people work from, and more.
Considering this, it could be tempting to blame the organization. So what we can do rather than what the company does or doesn't. It is easy to see the others as "the problem." Here are ideas to build and strengthen the Trust muscle:
Spot your patterns: what are your red buttons, your triggers, and most importantly, when are they activated? Dig deeper and seek to understand where those behaviours come from?
Raise awareness: as you prepare for a difficult encounter, put yourself into a different mode. As the meeting starts, give more attention to your Trust muscle. What emotions surface?
Check assumptions: how do I know I can't trust this person? How do I know that my belief is true?
Make a small gesture: what small gesture could you try out that will show Trust towards the other? Start small but do it more often.
Assume positive intent: what if you assume that whoever is in front of you has a positive intent? By doing this, you might be surprised about how powerful this can be.
Resist the Need to Know: when you feel you need to know, ask yourself where the need comes from. Is it genuine care, a real risk of failure, or just the need to know because you lack Trust?
Say « yes and » more often: the word but comes across as a « no .» So what if you say « yes» more often in a conversation instead of " no "? Build on your counterpart's idea?
What position are you acting from? Is fear or courage guiding your behaviour? Fear is a protection mechanism, sometimes a useful one. When trying to build Trust, fear is a blocker. So ask yourself, what am I trying to defend right now?
It starts with you - no need to wait for « the company.»
While we recognize that Trust is also a social process, let's focus on our circle of influence rather than our circle of concerns.
Viktor Frankl's quote takes all its meaning here.
« Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.»
How we react, respond and interact with others sets the tone for Trust. We must admit that others also bear responsibility for how they answer. Yet, as individuals, we can improve at honoring this space, the space between stimulus and response. That is what we can do.
Because if Trust is something we are born with and develop over time (or diminish), we need to acknowledge that we have agency. We can strengthen the Trust muscle every day. And paradoxically it requires us to show vulnerability.
