Different ways and approaches to building trust

What is trust?

Trust is a word that is so often used in our days, in a variety of contexts, but still remains
quite hard to grasp or define as a concept. Everyone can agree that it is much easier to
feel trust or the lack of it than to define and explain what it is. And so there are are quite
a number of classifications and attempts to explain it. The definition that I appreciated
most was the one given by Charles Feltman: “trust is choosing to risk making something
you value vulnerable to another person’s action”. I think this describes quite well the
various aspects of trust:

- It is a choice, and one that always involves a degree of risking

- It has to do with the interaction between two beings (though people speak about
trusting a car or a machine as well)
- It has to do with something one values
- It involves making something exposed or vulnerable

I believe that either if we speak about trust in a team, trust in God or trust in relationships,
it always involves a certain degree of these characteristics.

Besides that, some people such as Erin Meyer distinguish between affective and cognitive
trust – which play a part in the decision to trust or not. Each of these is considered more
important in different cultures. Or, as someone else explains it, there is emotional trust,
which has to do with believing in the good intentions of a person and assuming that they
will not take advantage of your vulnerability and logical trust, which has to do with
assesing the possibilities of gain and loss and the predictability of the behavior of the
other person and then choosing to open to them. Again, both of these play a certain part
in deciding to offer trust or not.

Another interesting point that can be raised is that often we fail to make the difference
between trust and trusworthiness. And if trust is a feeling or a choice that cannot be
influenced (I cannot force you to choose to trust me), trustworthiness is a personal
character trait that can be built – which raises the question if we should speak so much
about raising the level of trust, or rather increasing trustworthiness in our teams, and
making them the safe space where people’s trust can thrive?

Coming from a country that has the lowest level of trust in Europe (only 7% of people
believe that other people can be trusted), I have been really interested to see what can be
done to build or to rebuild trust.
Anatomy of trust
An interesting research is that of Brene Brown, who has tried to nail down some
compoenents of building trust. And while her findings are not very different from the
general opinion, I think she manages to put them together really nicely in the acronym
BRAVING (because to trust you need to be brave). So, says she, the ingredients of trust
are:

- Boundaries – be clear about your boundaries and respect mine

- Reliability – do what you say you do, and not only once but many times. Know
your limitations and accept them.
- Accountability – be ready to own your mistakes and apologize for them, also make
me aware of my mistakes and give me the chance to apologize and do better
- Vault – keep what I share with you safe. And also keep what others share with
you safe.
- Integrity – choose to live without compromise and be ready to pay the cost for it.
- Non-judgement – accept that others can struggle and fail without judging them.
- Generosity – being ready to assume best intent and being generous in assumptions
about others.

This might be just some parts of what trust means, but I believe that living them out in
personal and proffessional life is a great tool in order to increase trustworthiness.

One other thing that Brene Brown says, quoting John Gottmann who has studied trust
for many years as well, is that trust is always built in the smallest of moments. Looking
through people’s stories both researchers realized that what builds trust is not that one is
with you in a very deep crisis of life (although that is important as well) but rather the
fact that someone is a constant presence in small moments of life (amongst the most
important that dr. Brown mentions are: remembering birthdays, attending funerals,
remembering names of parents / grandchildren etc.). As Gottmann says, each of these
small moments offers a choice to build trust or to betray. And if trust is seen as a bank
account, each of these choices either represents a small addition or withdrawal to this
account.

Lastly, what I found really interesting in the research from dr. Brown was that she found
that the the most important factor for building trust is asking for help. Not offering help,
but asking for it when you need it – because this makes one vulnerable, this shows that
one trusts the other and lets them know that when they need help, it is okay to ask for it.
Building Trust on a Team

Trust is a vital ingredient of a successful team – as it tends to deeply influence all work
and personal relationships. Or, as Stephen Covey puts it, trust influences both the speed
and the cost with which things happen in a certain organization or company.
See from the other perspective, Charles Feltman says that “The disaster of distrust in the
workplace is that the strategies people use to protect themselves inevitably get in the way
of their ability to effectively work with others.”

In the book “Speed of Trust”, Stephen Covey speaks about four core elements that form
the basis of trust – and these are Integrity, Intent, Capability and Results (Charles Feltman
calls them Distinctions, and identifies approximately the same four: Sincerity, Reliability,
Competence and Care). Regardless of how they are called, the essence is that both of these
relate very deeply with character on the one hand and with competence or
proffesionalism on the other hand. And what is encouraging about that is that both of
these can be worked on and can be grown in – which makes me think that being a
trustworthy person is actually a matter of wanting to and being willing to work on that.
Even more, if we look at the cores of trust, we can see that God also requires the same
from us as followers of Jesus – to be people of integrity (or blameless – e.g. 2 Timothy
2:15) and to do things well (for His glory or worthy of Him).

There are different smaller areas which compose each of these, and different ways in
which they can be worked on, but I believe that the start of establishing trust in a team is
being honest with oneself and seeing how trustworthy I am. Too often we tend to blame
others for not trusting, or to find external factors of why trust is low (such as culture, past,
background – which are all important), but I feel that we as leaders fail to ask ourselves
enough the question “How trustworthy am I actually?”. And this is what I consider to be
the number one step of building trust in a team.

Both Stephen Covey and Brene Brown underline the often neglected aspect of self-trust
and show how inspiring trust to others starts from trusting yourself. Which for me means
applying the BRAVING principles to myself and seeing how do I perform or present each
of these in my own life, and only then starting to promote them into the team and to
create the atmoshpere where trust can exist.

Covey actually speaks of Waves of Trust – that start from self-trust and go to trust in
relationships, organizational trust, market trust and finally societal trust. But each of
these builds on the previous and the cores are just the same – going then to different levels
of being refined.

I also believe that we sould not forget that trust is something given and it is a choice – so
that often with all efforts from a leader or a team, there will be some who make this choice
of not trusting – and that we should accept it. And here is where I find the distinction
between trust and trustworthiness to be important – as we can influence the second in
order to create an environment that fosters the first, but we cannot require or force the
first.
There is also an interesting debate on whether trust is earned or given. I remember us
discussing this in a team meeting and seeing how interesting it is to see where people
place themselves. There are on the one hand those who give their trust instantly, and then
you have the chance to honor it or to betray it, and on the other hand there are these
whose trust you have to earn by proving yourself trustworthy. This is influenced both by
culture, but also by environment and background, but I believe is a personality factor that
needs to be taken into account when we look at the trust situation in our team.

Henri L. Stimson has said that “The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him;
and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your
distrust.” I like this because again it brings in the idea of taking a risk, somehow the idea
of faith. And just as in a way we are called to trust a God whom we do not see, offering
trust to our fellow workers is for me a reflection of God’s character, and also a major
factor into building teams with strong trust.
The triangle model
One last model I encountered when speaking about building and especiall rebuilding
trust is the triangle. This comes from Frances Frei, business professor at Harvard Business
School, who was asked to help rebuilding market trust in Uber as the company was facing
some challenges. I liked her model because it is very easy and straightforward. She speaks
about 3 elements that help being trusted by people in your team:

- Empathy – showing people that you care about them genuinely (which starts with
offering attention that is not distracted, especially by the smartphone)
- Authenticity – being yourself and having the courage to show who you are even
if this means being different. Also allowing people to be themselves instead of
coacing them into the mentality of fitting in
- Logic – which means both having logic in what you do and in your decisions, and
being able to clearly communicate and share this with the rest of the team.

All these three put together can do a great deal in terms of increasing the level of trust
that is present in a team.
Culture and Trust

In her article about Building Trust Across Cultures, Erin Meyer also speaks about how
different cultures build trust in different ways (see above). Thus another important part
of being proactive in building trust on a team would be to study and be aware of all these
cultural implications and dimensions and to try to approach the whole process in the
right way.
Coming from a culture that is somewhere in between cognitive and affective trust, I have
seen and felt the effects of both approaches upon teams, but also the frustrations that they
can produce, which also doctor E. Meyer speaks about.

To sum up, I believe that no one would deny the high importance that trust plays in
making a team efficient and productive. Even more, it is a vital part of living together as
members of the body of Christ. Still we see that it is more and more and issue and a
challenge for the people around us, both Christians and non-Christians. So the call for us
as leaders is that we get ourselves at work, first by becoming persons worthy of the trust
of others and then by cultivating a team atmosphere where trust can develop.

Bibliography

1. Charles Feltman – The Thin Book of Trust

2. Stephen Covey – Speed of Trust
3. Erin Meyer – Building Trust across Cultures
4. “Anatomy of Trust” – TED Talk by Brene Brown
5. “How to build and re-build trust” – TED Talk by Frances Frei
6. “What we don’t understand about trust” – TED Talk by Onora O’Neil