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Trust is the currency in all relationships, whether in office or at home. If you do not have enough of this currency, you will realise that whatever you do, you will need more time, energy and money to perform a task. However, you will realise that the reverse is true as well.

Imagine how things can be done faster if people had their trust in you?

Imagine that business deals are done simply with a handshake rather than countless pages of contract?

Imagine how you can align people to a common objective because they trust that you will deliver?

Before we carry on further talking about Trust, let’s define what it is in the first place.

Trust is basically summed up in one work “Confidence “. We do place our trust (or confidence) in people and objects every single day of our lives. We trust what people say (or similarly, we distrust what some people might say), or we trust objects to fulfill their functions (eg, our car will work well and take us to the intended destination).

I will just focus on one of the most challenging areas and that is how do we get people to consistently trust you in what you ALL that you say.

First of all, Trust building is a function of 2 things, namely: Character and Competence.

Character:
If a person has a great character or good intent in all he does, you will tend to believe him. If he is congruent in his speech and actions, there is absolutely no reason to even doubt anything he does. Character is important because most people have values and if these values are in conflict with what they believe in, they will leave your organisation.

When I was younger, I kept asking people to trust what I have to say. To my dismay, there were quite a few times people didn’t believe in me. This was because my character has not matured to the point where I ‘walk my talk’ or am clear on my values. I realised that when you have strong values, people actually respect you in what you do and will be drawn to what you say or share.

This is indispensible especially when you need to organise groups quickly or even make difficult decisions. Although what you do might be painful for certain individuals, they will still trust you because you act in good character and intent.

I am absolutely convinced that most politics stem out of distrust and ill-intent. The only way to combat such issues is to demonstrate good character and intent.

Tips on developing good character and intent:

• Be clear on your values and stand up for them.
• Honour everything you say (this includes your commitments to family and kids).
• Be careful of making rash commitments that you cannot keep.
• Trust others so that they can trust you. Trust is a reciprocal relationship.

Competence:
While character is important in developing trust, I strongly believe that competence is the other element. I mean, are you able to trust a person who does not have the capability to do what he said he will do? Will you trust an inexperienced surgeon to perform a major surgery on you? Trust seems to be developed when you consistently deliver what you promised. You simply cannot trust someone who regularly shows poor performance at work. Therefore, in my opinion, competence inspires trust.

One of the fastest ways I learnt about building credibility and trustworthiness is when I have a track record. Being able to show for results do matter to a lot of people. When I first started out in business and talked about my inspirational teambuilding programs, it took a lot of convincing for decision makers to use my programs.

In recent years after running so many mindset change teambuilding programs and giving keynote speeches for government and corporate clients, it was so much easier to get the buy-in from them! I realised that I was actually spending a bit of time sharing about my experiences with the different types of clients and what kind of results that I had achieved with them. Most of them wanted to hear them and know whether I could deliver it for them as well.

That is why competence is important in establishing your trust currency. You have to show that you are capable to perform a task well and it will automatically inspire confidence within people. That is why to convince people quickly is to show them results and that you are competent in doing what you said you can do.

Tips on developing competence:

• Constantly read and attend seminars to be an expert in your field.
• Achieve mastery in what you do for a living.
• What kind of results am I currently displaying in my work? Is it helping me display credibility in my work?
• Take responsibility for your results and make a decision to constantly improve it.

Conclusion
Character and competence sums up what you need to get people to constantly trust what you have to say. Since trust is developed over time, therefore character and competence also takes time to build. Where do you think you are in your character and competence level?I hope to hear from you.

Related Articles:

What’s Your Trust Meter Like?

How To Develop TRUST Within Teams

Teambuilding Lessons From Growing Orchids

Popularity: 17% [?]

Another one of my articles appeared in the Straits Times on 22 Mar 2010, Recruit Section.

Trust is one of the biggest issues that faces any team and everyone says that you need it but how many of them actually teach you how to establish trust step by step?

This article will teach you how you can consistently get people to trust your every word.

You can download this article.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Let’s start with a little analogy of teamwork. Have you observed how a flock of geese fly? They usually fly in V formation and those at the back will usually honk at the one in front. This is to encourage the lead geese who puts in most of the work to overcome wind resistance. Once the leader tires, he moves to the back and another geese moves in to take his place. This form of support helps the entire flock of geese to fly about 71% further than if each geese were to fly on its own. In addition, if a geese were sick or got injured, two of them will slow down to help or protect him.

Isn’t it a wonder how birds know the essentials of teamwork? We humans can do far better with the brain that we’ve got. Explained below are the 10 ways how leaders can inspire team members to consistently give their best for the entire team.

1. Develop trust

Trust is the principle by which the team functions. If the leaders and members have the trust of every person in a team, everyone will be motivated to give their best without inhibitions or fear of being exploited.

2. Involve everybody

When the leaders share information with team members and ask for opinions, a feeling of camaraderie is created and members feel motivated to perform better. Important note: People want their opinions to be heard and know that it considered and acted upon if reasonable.

3. Be a good leader

As a leader, you must be 100 percent clear and confident of what you are doing and what you are getting done from the team. Faith in the leader boosts motivation among the team members. I have been consulted many times by leaders on how to improve their teams and the first place I always look at is the leader. Great Leadership = Great Teams.

4. Give feedback

Everybody needs a feedback on his or her work. Everyone needs to know how they have performed and what they need to do better. Nothing can be more motivating than a constructive feedback. Be sure to start with the positives though.

5. Active Listening

Actively listen to the team members. Listen to their ideas, complaints, grudges, suggestions… anything they may want to share. Just listening to them will give them will help them know that you care and support them.

6. Perform periodic assessments

Periodically assess the progress of the team as a whole and each individual in particular. If any team member is complacent, he or she will wake up and start performing to the best of his or her abilities.

7. Allow team members to give feedback to you

Let the team members give feedback to the leader at regular intervals. This builds mutual respect, mutual trust and confidence. Give them an avenue to tell you what needs to be changed.

8. Hold a weekly interactive session

Let each member of the team have his or her chance to address the team from the front. As a leader, it is always good to show how well the team has performed. If you consistently concentrate on the positives, you will tend to see a more positive behavior in the group.

9. Hold one-on-one meetings

With one-on-one meetings the leaders get a chance to know about personal difficulties of each member. Those who need extra help or extra training should be given so most gladly. Think of the goodwill it will generate.

10. Celebrate success of the team

If you constantly celebrate the successes of your team, both great and small wins, you will find that people will constantly want to share their successes and win even more! Success always breeds more success, and you need to keep the momentum up and running.

Conclusion:
If you want to multiply your efforts and receive exponential results, you definitely need a great team. For every successful person, there is always a successful team behind him/her.

PS: If you have other ideas that you want to share, please leave it down. Click on the “Leave your comment” on the top right hand of this post.

Popularity: 30% [?]

Trust IS the most fundamental element in all relationships. It is essential to business performance, sales, managing people or even just relating and sharing with loved ones. To build your trust-worthiness, here are some things that you really need to keep in mind.

1. Trust starts from a perspective

It starts from the very perspective that you have of other people. If you view people with suspicion most of the time, the chances are that you had a very bad experience in your past with people. You tend to treat most people with suspicion, whether they are trust-worthy or not. However if you have a perspective that most people are trustworthy, you will tend find them and people will reciprocate your view points. Ralph Waldo Emerson, a great poet, shares “Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.”

2. Trust means to say what you mean and mean what you say

Trust basically starts from yourself. If you want people to trust whatever you say, you have to first start with being consistent with your words and then honouring them at every moment. Our personal character is the first place to start before we start on our relationships. Here are some questions that have to be answered: Is my character solid? Do I follow through in what I say? Am I honest with the way I live my live?

3. Trust knows no boundaries in the different areas of your life

Cheryl Biehl once said that if you can’t trust people at all points, you can’t truly trust him or her at any point. There are many times in my life where I find it a struggle to be consistent. One of the earliest problems I had was being late every time I meet people and it became a trust issue to other people. They could not believe that I could ever come early. It was only after a long struggle, that I learn to honour peoples’ time and strived to always arrive early. My take on this is that if I cannot even honour my punctuality in meeting with people, they will find it difficult to trust me in other areas of my life.

4. Trust is like an emotional bank account

Trust is like a currency that we deposit with other people’s emotional bank account. Everytime we honour our words, we make a deposit. Every time we dishonour our words, we withdraw with (with interest) from them. The problem is that deposits are usually very small, while every withdrawal tends to be very large. Therefore, strive to make frequent deposits every day, while avoiding withdrawals.

Let me leave you with a quote:

“You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough.” Frank Crane

Popularity: 19% [?]

Trust is one of the most important things in the world that all of us need before we can ever start any relationship or build any team. However, most people fail in this area. Allow me to ask you a few questions to see how trustworthy you are:

1.    For the past month, have you ever promised to do things and not fulfil it?

2.    Do you come late for meetings/appointments (yes, even 1 minute late is still considered late!)

3.    Does your family member or spouse doubt your words?

4.    Are there times when you have behaved inconsistently in your life?

If you have answered “YES” to any of the above statements, you really need to work on your trust level. I know that it has very high standards, but hey, people do judge you by what you say or do. Sometimes they will also judge you by what you DO NOT say or DON’T DO.

To ever build trust in the team or with people you love, it boils down to just this word.

Before any teams can actually reach their peak potential, they must first be consistent in how they approach each other and do things. This means that if I were to tell you that we will meet at 3pm, let’s start the meeting at 3pm. If we ever start late and it happens quite a few times, you will start to doubt my words. A few more times, you will start to doubt the entire team in just doing one small thing. When you cannot even have faith in the small things, how can we ever talk about the bigger things?

Therefore, to build Trust in the team, we have to be always mindful of making small agreements and keeping to them. Be faithful in the little things, before we can do the bigger things. I strongly feel that we need to work on our characters and ALWAYS say what we mean and mean what we say! This creates consistency and people know that they can always trust us to be consistent with what we say or do (or don’t do as well).

This is very important especially when we have made promises, eg. rewarding the team when they achieve their targets, letting people go home early because we said they can when they have worked hard or even sending a quotation to a client on time, just because you said so!

So… in conclusion, can I trust you?

If you like this article, please subscribe to our blog by getting the Free Report on “7 Transformational Secrets to creating a Dynamic and Cohesive Team”. If you have comments, I would love to hear them. Please write your comments on the top right of this post.

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I recently went to Malacca, Malaysia to conduct a recce on a particular hotel for a huge convention slated in end 2009. The experience of being able to visit all the suites and rooms was rather pleasant and it gave me a good impression of the quality and services offered by the hotel.

At the end of the recce, I sat down with my companions to discuss our observations. Just before we left the hotel, I realised that my parking coupon was not validated yet. I approached the front desk staff and asked them to help me with it and this is how the conversation went:

“Excuse me, I was with your Sales Manager Azizah, just now (pointing to the front lobby) and after such a wonderful conversation, I forgot to ask her to validate my parking coupon. Is there any way you could do that for me?” I asked politely.

“I’m sorry Sir, but this is only for our hotel guests only.” The frontdesk lady replied… surprised by my request.

“I understand, but its only a small ticket and I’m sure that Azizah will it be able to handle it.” I retorted.

“I see, but still….. it is strictly reserved for our hotel guests.” The frontdesk lady stood unwavering.

“Ok, then can you please call Azizah and tell her its me. I request for her to do this… “. I was feeling a little frustrated because it was going no where and we just discussed a deal that is worth over hundreds of thousands of ringgit (Malayisan Dollars). A parking coupon was not a big deal at all, compared to what the negotiations we discussed earlier.

While I stood there waiting for Azizah to respond, I was wondering why the frontdesk personnel were so rigid in their policies. Imagine how things will be if they were just empowered to make decisions that will make their guests (or potential clients like me) happy? What if their managers told them that they could do anything to please a guest as long as it does not cost more than $50? I am very sure that decision making will be really quick and people like me will be impressed by how their management trust them to do things.

Isn’t great if staff are empowered to make decisions? Wouldn’t a lot of unneccessary distractions be reduced for their managers? However, when I look some managers or employers , particularly entrepreneurs, this is still not the case. There is still a lot micro-managing; which unfortunately demands time and attention.

The role of a good boss is to give their staff a good framework of the desired results, empower them to make decisions and tell them that he/she trusts them. Once this is achieved, people tend to take a more pro-active approach in their work because they now know that they are responsible for the decisions they make. They will also feel a sense of empowerment that their boss really trust them to do what it takes to make their clients happy.

Back to my situation, I finally got my ticket validated by Azizah… I smiled knowing that a small thing like this made a customer happy.

If you like this article, please subscribe to our blog by getting the Free Report on “7 Deadly Secrets to creating a Dynamic and Cohesive Team”.

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This is really a tough question. There are many incidents when leaders are always tempted to show their followers that they are the best in what they do and they can never fail. We all like to support people who are always decisive and confident in what they do. However, when leaders fail in certain areas of their lives, should they reveal it?

In one of the leadership seminars given by the no. 1 Leadership Guru, John Maxwelll was asked the above question. One of the participants was concerned that if leaders are not placed in a good light, they will lose their respect and authority in the organisation.

John asked back a question, “You mean to say that your followers already do not know that you have these flaws? Every single day they are in contact with you and yet they cannot see it?” How gullible am I if I still think that my team members do not know my short-comings.

One of lessons that I have learnt as a Leader in my organisation is to be quick in acknowledging my flaws. I must admit that pride and ego do occassionally scream out loud telling me that I should not do it. Despite of this, I went ahead and shared with the rest of my team. It made a BIG difference. They saw that I was transparent and am willing to make amends. Not only that, they knew that I was humble enough to acknowledge my mistakes. This resulted in creating trust and accountability on my part to the team.

So the next time you make a mistake, what will you do?

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