Trust is the Glue

*Note: The following text is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Trust is the glue of all relationships

Bill Berthel
Welcome to the Get Emergent podcast where we discuss leadership, team and organizational topics and best practices. We like to provide ideas, concepts and pragmatic experiments to help you develop your potential in your work and your leadership. I’m Bill Berthel.

Ralph Simone
And I’m Ralph Simone.

Bill Berthel
Ralph, today we’re going to talk about trust and how trust is the glue.

Ralph Simone
Trust me. Don’t you just love when somebody says trust me when you have no history? However, extending trust could be a part of teamwork, right?

Bill Berthel
Yeah, it can be. I think it’s every context is different. But you know, if someone is worthy of that trust and you sense that you can trust them, let’s extend that trust. Right? Trust is the glue of all relationships. Trust is that thing that keeps us bonded together.

Ralph Simone
And interestingly enough, trust is built with clarity. If we think about a triangle of a team with the top of the triangle being the goals that the team is challenged with.

Ralph Simone
And the bottom left point the roles, they clarity around roles and the bottom right of the triangle guidelines, then envision glue is what pulls all of those together. Trust is the glue. But one way trust is built is around clarity. Here is what we’re driving towards, here is our expectations of you and here are the guidelines or boundaries in which you are operating under. It makes trust easier to build. Some people think, oh, you’re giving me rules. Don’t you trust me? Quite the opposite. And I think that’s a little counterintuitive for people.

Bill Berthel
Well, I like that. So in that three part model, that triangle, the clarity of goals, the clarity of those guidelines or rules and the clarity of the roles all help establish and build trust.

Ralph Simone
Because now I can do my job and when I do my job consistently, you trust me, right? There’s a credibility, there’s an openness, and ultimately a trust.

Bill Berthel
Well, I think many of us would at least partially defined trust as kind know what to expect in the transaction or the relationship. As you speak about having the clarity in the goals, the guidelines and the roles, it’s really about I know what to expect. That’s the clarity. I know what to expect from what outputs are wanted, what the objectives are from a goal. I know where I can operate for that, what those guidelines look like. I have the guardrails, I know where to drive and the roles, who’s got what part of the project, who’s responsible for what is really all about making sure that our expectations are met, which is analogous to trust.

Ralph Simone
And when that happens, we spend a lot less time and Energy following up, worrying, expediting, complaining about someone who has not delivered well.

Bill Berthel
I think Stephen Covey likened it to an economy of trust. Right. when trust is high, waste is down. If things go faster, that costs less. When trust is low, there’s a higher cost. We either have to circle around, refigure things out, there’s waste. Yeah. There’s an economy to trust.

Ralph Simone
And so part of this is slowing down to go faster, to have enough clarity, to guide people’s behavior, but not too much. Right. I used to negotiate contracts in a previous lifetime to lower the trust, the thicker the contract.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. Right.

Ralph Simone
So I think when we have trust, we need key information. But it’s not unwieldy. It’s not unwieldy.

We were talking earlier about when we were preparing for this, the five waves of trust

We were talking earlier about when we were preparing for this, the five waves of trust. That would be an interesting thing for us to cover in this podcast.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. So I like the image, in my mind of five concentric rings. So the first inner, the smallest middle ring, the central ring, that first wave, is self trust. It’s having that trust in ourselves. And that could mean the promises or commitments we keep with ourselves are actually kept. I’m going to start a new exercise, routine, a habit of walking two miles a day. And not to be too polar or black and white about it, but I either keep it or I don’t. I keep that promise to myself or I don’t. So I get up early in the morning, walk my two miles wherever I’m going to fit it in and, or I don’t. There’s self trust. I’m walking my own talk. That’s that first ring. Why is that important? Because if we can’t trust ourself, we can’t start extending that trust with a great deal of integrity out to this next second wave or second ring of trust, Relationship trust. It’s how we trust in others and how we give and get trust in our relationships. We extend that trust to others and we are trustworthy with others in our relationships.

Ralph Simone
And I think that trustworthy piece has two components. It has the competency to be able to do what you say you’re going to do, but also the character.

Bill Berthel
Absolutely.

Ralph Simone
In the respect for others. you’ve heard this story, but I was, challenged. a doctor that did some work for my wife recently and he didn’t like it, but he missed his tele visit with her, which caused her disruption with a class she was teaching. And when he called, let me know how everything went, I said I was a little Concerned.

Ralph Simone
Because you couldn’t keep your commitment of your appointment on the tele visit. So I was a little bit concerned with how well you would do the surgery. He wasn’t really happy about, but I use that example, and not to be wise guy, but his relationship trust was not high with me. And it was not high because he had broken a commitment, inconvenienced my wife. And so I think while he’s a very competent surgeon, there’s two pieces to trustworthiness. The character piece is also important.

Bill Berthel
And I think those two pieces then relate to this next third wave of trust as well, which is organizational trust. Organizational trust becomes this extension of the relationship trust that you have and you build. You need to show your commitment and your competency across all channels in your organization, whether that’s the business you’re working in, maybe maybe it’s a family, whatever you want to call your organization, the organization you’re in from a leadership perspective, you need to be showing, demonstrating on a consistent basis your commitment and your competency across the organization.

Ralph Simone
I like to say this, although it does come back to haunt me sometimes at home. No one is above the law.

Ralph Simone
Which my kids will challenge me. They say, well dad, you’re not following through on something that you said. Does this not apply to you? And I think, in an organization it applies to everyone.

Bill Berthel
Yah, absolutely. So that is following not just the rules and the policies, but it’s demonstrating the values, the vision and the mission of the organization. It’s operating in complete congruency no matter where you are. You can’t act one way with your team and differently with another. There has to be consistency in how you demonstrate that across the organization.

Ralph Simone
It’s interesting because when we allow toxicity or toxic employees, which often is somebody who is technically, technically brilliant but is allowed not to follow the values or the policies of the organization, that it creates a breakdown in organizational trust.

Bill Berthel
Absolutely. That fourth wave, this model comes from Covey’s work and The Speed of Trust, and he calls it market trust. I like to think about this next fourth level that might be outside of just the enterprise of our organization, but out into that next ring of other relationships that might be within our market. So it could be within your industry. If you touch out into that scale. Maybe you work for an organization that is part of a larger association in your industry. Maybe it’s about just that, a specific market or industry, that your brand is trustworthy, that you are a steward and an ambassador of your organization. And then Thus inside of that marketplace. This is really important for any leader who’s scaling their leadership just outside of the four walls of their organization. And I’d say that’s most. This might also go out into, who knows, your next job, your next promotion, those networks that are just outside of your four walls.

The fifth wave in the model is societal trust

Ralph Simone
What’s the fifth wave in the model?

Bill Berthel
Well, it is societal trust. Societal m so even bigger. These rings are getting bigger. And so now this is out past well into the community. Some models might suggest global trust, that it’s out into far beyond just that market that you work in or that you deal with on a regular basis. This is about your citizenship. This is about, I’d say you’re saying no one’s above the law is here as well. And now we’re talking about the whole community or society. We’re talking about being competent and committed in that larger space of your community, of the world. These are sequential, that’s why they’re numbered. We do start with self trust. If we have weak self trust, the rest isnt going to develop very well. If theres a starting point at starting at self, they all require doing what we say were doing, walking our talk and congruency in what we say in what we do. That competency and that commitment need to be aligned and that’s how we’re seen as trustworthy. That’s how we demonstrate that. And it’s I think how we judge others or deem others as trustworthy.

Ralph Simone
And I love where you had started because it does start with us. And it could be as simple as making and keeping commitments to yourself. You use the walking or the exercise example. That’s where it starts with ourselves making and keeping those commitments.

Building trust in your organization requires clear goals, guidelines and roles

Bill Berthel
I really like your three-part model of goals, guidelines and roles. I think we can apply that to ourselves in self trust I think we can answer, are we first clear with ourself? Am I clear with what my goals and my work and my leadership development, what I want to get accomplished? I think it’s on a daily basis, a weekly planning basis and a longer term basis. Am I clear with my values, the guidelines in which I’m going to operate? How am I showing up to be the best version of myself and am I clear on what my role is? Not from a just stay in my lane perspective I don’t really like that. But am I clear on how other people rely on me? Am I clear on what I need to be able to do to stay in high trust?

Ralph Simone
I love this. I think many people spend more time planning their vacation than being thoughtful about those pieces that you just talked about. Where are we going on this project? How do I want to show up? Which means what are my values and what behaviors are aligned with those values? Right. And what is my role? Maybe I’m not the leader. Maybe I’m just a member. Maybe I’m a subject matter expert in being agile enough to have different roles at different times. But being intentional, this is really slowing down to go faster because the trust is often broken inadvertently. I don’t think the doctor intentionally missed the tele visition call.

Bill Berthel
Right.

Ralph Simone
I think there was some breakdown in the system, in the roles and the goals and the guidelines that allowed it to happen. so rarely do I think this erosion of trust is intentional, but it’s often takes place because we don’t build that solid foundation. We’re not clear. We’re not clear, Ralph.

Bill Berthel
I think that’s really important. The vast majority of us are well intended and very trustworthy individuals. The intention of this podcast is not to suggest malice or ill thought, but when we’re not proactive, when we’re not clear in either that preparation or planning, sometimes when we’re not as open as we can be in that the analogy here of glue, you know, I’m a woodworker and I love creating out of the material of wood. Really good joinery is actually just a little loose. It’s not interface perfect wood to wood because you want room for the glue. The glue is what holds the pieces together. There’s a space that’s intentional there. And when that glue interface. Right. Is problematic. Right. That’s the trust. Things fall apart.

Ralph Simone
I love that.

Bill Berthel
Right. And so it’s being proactive with the plan, but leaving just the right amount of space for that glue, which is the trust.

Ralph Simone
It’s one of the reasons in that goals rolels in guidelines model. I like guidelines over boundaries rules because guidelines provides enough clarity, but it allows enough room and that’s powerful.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. I love it. I love it.

Ralph Simone
What would we suggest to people? You know, how do you. We talked about starting with yourself, no question. But how do you begin to build more trust, create more glue which will then help teamwork in your organization.

Bill Berthel
So I think this is going to resonate with many. At least in my coaching. I find that there is a lack of clarity in many organizations considering roles, goals and guidelines. I not throwing rocks than anybody, but I think this will resonate that Start there. Start with how can you get more clarity considering your role, the goals in which youre working. If goals is too Big go with objectives and the guidelines for you and your team. Start there, start that process.

Ralph Simone
Then where might you go once, say youve established that and youve gotten that clarity? Where else would you go for building this trust?

Bill Berthel
So I like to look at the relationships that are around me and kind of assess them on am, I extending trust as much as I would not just like to do, but that’really needed to be more effective with that person. And are they able to trust me at that level? I think with many relationships we can have that conversation, but I would assess those. I’d go out to that next ring and assess those relationships that are closest and most important. Let’s just leave this in the space of work and leadership. How well are you extending trust to your teammates, to your coworkers? Where are the opportunities to do that? A little bit more, a little bit better. And then how trustworthy are you with them? Where would they ask for either some small adjustments or changes?

Ralph Simone
I love this idea of extending trust. Too often I’ve heard people who either’re done with somebody because they didn’t support them or they didn’t follow through. And I think one and done, just unless it’s so egregious. But one and done really is not a way in which teamwork and trust is developed. We need to give people another chance to redeem themselves.

Bill Berthel
I know you and I subscribe to that where, I think more than a second, sometimes third or fourth chance kind of people, sometimes that’s not easy, right? Depending upon what occurred in that space. But gosh, if we’re just one and done, we’re gonna be looking for new places and new people all too often. We’re apt to make mistakes with one another. We’re apt to make mistakes. We’re human. So I think that’s another place we can look at how can I rebuild trust or restore trust with others.

Make deposits into others’ emotional bank accounts.

Ralph Simone
Nice and I think one of the things m you mentioned Covey on this broadcast, one of the things we can do is make deposits into the emotional bank accounts of others, other key stakeholder groups, whether they’re key relationships, other people in the organization, part of the market or part of the society. We can make deposits into their emotional bank account, which will build the trust for future interaction.

Bill Berthel
Absolutely. And I think we’ve talked in a previous podcast about that important ratio of 5 to 1:5 deposits for every one time we might need to provide feedback that’s either a little bit more corrective or ask somebody to do something a little bit differently. So keep building up those emotional bank accounts with others.

Ralph Simone
something that we may want 10 end with. And I remember I was actually in the audience. Covey was asked the question, Stephen Covey, the author of the Seven Habits the Effective People. How do you fix Congress?

Bill Berthel
it’s a big question.

Ralph Simone
Be a timely question today.

Bill Berthel
Sure.

Ralph Simone
And his response, I thought was a great example of extending trust. And just this deposit that we’ve talked about, he said, go home and treat your spouse and children well first. Treat them with love and respect, in generosity. And, I thought that was really the essence of what we can do. Right. We start where we’re at ourselves first and then with those closest to us.

Bill Berthel
I love that started that central first wave ring. And, start at home. Ralph, thank you.

Ralph Simone
Thanks, Bill.

Bill Berthel
And folks, thanks for listening. You can listen to a new podcast two times every month here at GetEmergent or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is where we bring you contemporary leadership topics and ideas balanced with what we hope you find are better practices that you can apply to your work and your leadership. Thank you.