Three psychological conditions for trusting someone.

“Trust is generous. It shares the responsibility of success” – Gertrud Höhler 

A ‘High Trust Organisation’ has developed a culture where ‘trust’ as a competence and attitude is strongly present at all levels and in all parts of the organisation. The first element of a ‘High Trust Organisation’ is ‘Building Bridges of Trust’.

Imagine the following situation:

You communicate to Christa. Christa is an MT member and head of HR. You are managing director of your SME with 450 employees. In the drawing below, you are facing each other and between you there is a ditch.

That ditch symbolises nothing but the fact that you are different. Each of you has your own perspective on reality, with infinite elements, variations, possibilities, thoughts, questions, dreams and fears. So, you are totally unique!

We will assume for now that you and Christa get along well and are quite similar in terms of your values and ideas. And that there is also no conflict between you. In short, a relaxed and positive working relationship.

Now you start talking to Christa. And of everything you say, she understands 50%. The other 50% she understands something different than what you meant. This applies to relatively tension-free relationship between two people from the same cultural background. If you come from two distinctly different cultures, the percentage of misunderstanding easily goes up to 60-70%. And in the case that there is an unresolved conflict between you, the percentage of misunderstanding goes up to 80-90%.

Other than the element of ‘understanding’, you also have to deal with ‘remembering’. If you just talk to Christa, she is going to remember about 10%.

What happens when Christa remembers 10% of the wrong 50%? After two weeks, you meet in the corridor, and you ask Christa “Did you initiate that job satisfaction survey now?” and immediately Christa thinks “but that was not what we agreed on at all! I remember something completely different!” And within 10 seconds, you and Christa have an irritating misunderstanding. Because you are quite sure what you asked her 2 weeks ago. And now she acts like her nose is bleeding. How can that be?

So, communication is a craft. But the good news is: it is a profession, and you can learn it. Get better and better at it. The goal is to build a bridge between you and Christa that bridges the trench between you, and that is strong enough that you both walk onto that bridge to better de-emphasise each other. Because strong communication lives on the will and commitment of both parties. In her book ‘Presence’, psychologist Amy Cuddy describes how this bridge functions. She describes what happens when someone enters a space, and you perceive this person. Your brain has 3 essential questions:

  1. Can I trust this person?
  2. Does this person respect me?
  3. What is the point of getting to know this person?

If your brain finds a positive answer to all three of these questions (and emotions play a big role in this, too), all the filters in your brain open to this person. And when the filters in your brain open, you hear, see, experience and understand the other person faster and deeper. Those wonderful filters in your brain are very necessary to protect you from danger, nonsense, manipulation or even abuse of power from others.

Annoyingly, though, your filters do that job within 1-3 seconds. So, if you want to build and preserve the bridge to Christa, your job is to do everything that helps that these three filters open and stay open with Christa.

  1. How do you make Christa trust you?
  2. How do you make Christa feel respected by you?
  3. How do you offer useful information for Christa that she can do something with, and that she needs?

Today, let’s focus on filter number 1: Confidence

If you want to win Christa’s trust, you will have to meet the three basic psychological conditions of trust. They are authenticity, empathy and logic.

How do you tackle that?

In our work with executive and management teams, we often work in three steps to build trust between individual members of the team and in the team as a whole.

  1. Self-confidence is the foundation

If you want to win the trust of others, you will still have to grow in healthy self-confidence. How can you expect others to trust you if you don’t trust yourself?

Professor Gertrud Höhler describes in her book ‘Warum Vertrauen siegt’ that one of the best ways to build self-trust is the following:

  • Practice a sport that you enjoy and get a little bit better at all the time. Then your whole system of head, heart and hands will experience that you can trust yourself.
  • Alternatively, you can play music or sing in a choir. This has almost as strong an effect as sport.

Basically, the three basic conditions of confidence also apply to your self-confidence.

  1. Authenticity: Do you dare to be yourself and not wear a mask?
  2. Empathy: Are you taking care of yourself, your well-being and success with consideration?
  3. Logic: Are you willing to develop discipline as a lifestyle so that you learn to do what you promise to do in small steps? 

So, self-confidence is real work. But it is not magic! It is a step-by-step building of a growing process of healthy handling of yourself.

“Resilient people believe in their own competences. They have the ability to perceive and recognise the positive aspects of life and their own talents. And from there, not just accept new challenges, but seek them out. To keep growing as a person and in their skills” – Meisterleistung

  1. Getting to know the other person

If you want to build trust between you and Christa, you will still need to invest regular time where you get to know each other: what is your story? What are your talents and challenges? What are your desires, hopes and dreams? The better you know the other person, the easier the filter of trust in your brain will open and stay open.

  1. Generous giving

In the end, you will always only remain bounded in your confidence and ability to know the other! So, it remains an act of daring: courageously giving the other an advance in trust. Because trust is also a gift you give the other person, and where you learn, based on your common sense, to give the other person the benefit of the doubt. In a team, therefore, besides getting to know and understand each other better and better, it is also important to make a clear commitment: we give each other trust!

Summary:

  • Trust is the number one filter in our brains to communicate
  • Self-confidence is the basis for growing in gaining the trust of others
  • Trust grows where you get to know and appreciate each other’s stories, strengths, people, hopes and dreams.
  • In a team, trust grows to the extent that all team members make a commitment to invest time in building and maintaining mutual trust.

I wish you much success and joy of discovery in building more trust in your relationships and in your team.

Blog written by Paul Ch. Donders

Some good books on the topic of trust:

  • The Trust Factor, Paul Zak, HBR, 2018
  • The ABC of trust, Kenneth Blanchard, 2014
  • Warum Vertrauen Siegt, Gertrud Höhler, 2005
  • Presence, Amy Cuddy, 2016
  • Speed of Trust, Stephen M.R. Covey, 2008