I love this way of thinking about how you can measure the level of trust evident in any relationship – whether it’s work or personal there are 4 factors that impact the level of “trustworthiness” according to David Maister.
Credibility– which is about how credible we sound, can others trust what we say? Do we have the appropriate skills & capabilities to do what we promise for example?
Reliability– do we do what we say, can we be relied upon?
Intimacy– the extent to which we make people feel safe, secure and valued.
These three factors all increase our level of trustworthiness – but all of them are undermined and diminished by our level of Self Orientation or the extent to which we hold our own agenda, or what’s important to us.
We can do all of the first three things really well – but if we aren’t prepared to hold our own views lightly and to consider others’ point of view….trust evaporates! Trust takes time to build but can be lost in a split second. In this equation, no matter how well we do each of the other things, if our self orientation is high our trust quotient will be low!
Why not get some feedback from some colleagues and work out your own trust quotient? What’s it telling you?
What can you do to develop greater intimacy skills and reduce your self orientation? Here’s a few ideas;
- Be prepared to accommodate other peoples ideas
- Listen more speak less
- REALLY seek to explore their point of view
- Practice DEEP listening to understand what’s really important to them
- Ask more than you tell.
Why not give it a go…and see what happens!!!