Trust
November 2010

 

Trust is a critical component of every successful business relationship.  It is hard to earn, easy to lose, and difficult to recover.  Who is important to your success that you completely trust?  Have you let them know how grateful you are for your relationship with them lately?  They are treasured colleagues in a world where constant disappointment can feel like "the way it is."

How do we create and maintain trust with clients, employees, and colleagues? 

You begin with your highest intention.  You make a point of being totally trustworthy yourself and declare explicitly you are coachable if there are questions about your trustworthiness.  You openly acknowledge your mistakes and shortcomings so you can create a norm of transparency.  You also declare that you are only willing to work with people who can create honest, respectful, trusting relationships with you.  You decide in your heart that nothing less will do.

The second step is you never walk over the trash of distrust.  You never allow anything that could potentially damage trust to become "undiscussable."  If something occurs that causes you to pause and reconsider the value or viability of your relationship, you discuss it directly with that person.  You never say something is "not a big deal" if it will negatively impact how you work with someone.  You talk about it with compassion in the spirit of inquiry, not inquisition.  You allow for imperfection while holding an intention for continuous improvement.  You look for and acknowledge your own part of breakdowns and explore what both of you need from one another until you feel the trust deepening instead of eroding.  In short, you work it out.

The third step is to do what you say you will do.  Clearly negotiate what you can and can't do.  Take the time to listen for the details of what will satisfy your "customer."   Perform to your agreed upon expectations.  When schedule or quality slips on your end, let the person know what's happening and what they can expect as soon as you know your efforts are falling short.  Simply put, show up fully from the first conversation until you get the job done.  Trust depends on what you deliver, when you deliver it, and how your customer experiences your delivery.  Ultimately, you model what you want from others, and then ask for the same in return.

We can find hundreds of reasons not to trust people.  You've heard yourself say, "There will be consequences if I let go of something and they don't come through."  You may be right, so you need to build trust over time with many honest discussions and course corrections.  But if you never take the first step, you'll live in a very small world working in isolation.  There are countless people who feel like they are working alone in spite of being surrounded by many people.  They're not really alone, however, they've just stopped communicating about what matters to them.

Trust begins in our own hearts.  Trust begins when we know deep down that we will be okay in this crazy world if we open up and truthfully discuss what we really care about.  Trust occurs in our outer world when our inner reality is confident that we can stand in the truth of who we are through the experience of success and failure. 

When Einstein was asked to share his view of the most important question we should reflect upon, he answered with, "Is the universe friendly or not friendly?"  Do you trust your universe to be friendly? 

It can be brutally difficult at times.  Joe is a CEO whose company has lost money the past few years.  He also lost a brother unexpectedly, and has another one in surgery with a serious problem next week.  He's 63 years old and openly fearful of what happens to us when we die.  When we explored the issue that was really sapping his enthusiasm for coming to work we found this thought:  "I'm going to die before I do what I came here to do."

But Joe has access to his deep heart.  He practices remembrance and has had on ongoing dialogue with his voice of inner wisdom.  When he went inside and reflected on his life and current reality, he realized that he could trust whatever came.  He's been a successful entrepreneur adding real value to our society for over 30 years.  More importantly, he's known the experience of divine love throughout his life, from the time he was a small boy who did not feel he could make it in the world if he left his family's farm.  Again and again he found he could trust his divine connection by listening to his heart. 

While all of his humanly architected visions have not been realized, he really already has achieved what he came here to do - to live a life of divinely guided service.  And while we don't know about tomorrow, today his universe is friendly enough to put more opportunity out in front of him.