Today we get into the second question that employees are asking themselves when speaking to to leadership. Do I trust you?
That is a huge question that if answered No, can stop engagement in its tracks. If the employees do not trust the leadership then the organization is just going to be stagnant. Now if you have ever walked by a stagnant pool or water, what did you notice? There was likely a not so pleasant smell and algae growing on the top of the water. Would we want our organizations to become stagnant?
I have spent the majority of my career studying why people buy products and services as well as why people buy into leadership. Being that I was an engineer there had to be an equation to the solution. Magic was also not going to be the answer. What I found is that when people use humor, are upfront, and show empathy towards others. That is when people really start to open up and trust.
I’ve had a manager that had issues gaining trust. This manager would openly tell anyone he first met within the first few minutes about his Christianity, but his actions would contradict what he would say he stands for. He was explosive to be around and would demand you follow his view points. If you challenged his view points, watch out!
This kind of behavior erodes trust the same as lying to others. Trust is crucial for any kind of growth individuals
So how can we grow trust fast? Here are four principals that will help us grow trust with individuals.
1. Social Proof
2. Heart of a teacher
3. Open and honest communication
4. Encourage others to hold the microscope
Social proof is using a mutual connection between the someone else and yourself. So many people like Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, music artists, etc would see huge followings after being on the Oprah show. Once they leveraged that connection, they were considered the go to expert. Now we can’t all get on the Oprah channel, but we can leverage anyone that we know who knows us well that could reach out on our behalf.
Having a heart of a teacher is offering help to the others get to a better place even if it does not benefit ourselves initially. Teaching to give free knowledge for the heart of helping others is something that is lacking in today’s culture. People tend to only want to help if they will receive something in return in that transaction. If we want to gain trust, we have to have a heart of a teacher to help others. Not for what we will gain, but to help. Zig Ziglar stated, that we will get all we want out of life, if we help enough other people get what they want. I love that concept!
Open and honest communication means reaching out when we see something bad coming, but also making sure that others are aware and that we have their back. Making sure that they are communicated to in a personal level is key. Pick up the phone when we can instead of just sending an email. This is something that I still struggle with sometimes when I am busy, but what I have learned is making sure I communicate is key. Keep in mind the written word it taken negative most times when someone reads it. Most of communication is nonverbal, posture, tone of voice, etc. An email does not have the same impact as a verbal, or in person conversation.
The last key thing to do is encouraging others to hold the microscope. No one is perfect so we should stop thinking we are. We should stop judging others by their actions and want ourselves to be judged by our intent. We should give others the opportunity to speak life into areas that we may have blind spots to.
There you have it. Four ways to grow trust fast. SHOE… We need to have our shoes on if we plan to walk the talk :)
Have a great day!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”