How was your weekend? Are you ready for Valentine’s month?
Tip of the week: FORGET ABOUT EARNING SOMEONE’S TRUST, FOCUS ON NOT LOSING IT! It was a breezy evening on the east side of mid-town. Although a bit chilly, it was not cold for New York standards, so we decided to sit outside. Rapidly, the Third avenue rush hour traffic steered us away from the office’s monotony, even when it stood just a couple of blocks away. Meanwhile, the antipasti made its magic opening our senses to the wonders of Italian gastronomy.
It was my first dinner with the new Division director, and -while chatting about the heavenly and the mundane- she regaled me with a nugget of wisdom that challenged -and changed- the way I had been operating for most of my professional life: “With the years -she said- I learned that trust is not earned but lost.” That simple phrase kept me up most of the night.
The standard approach is that one needs to ‘earn people’s trust.’ However, accepting this approach implies that we have to live in a world of doubt, mistrust, and fear until that happens. Since nobody is perfect, the chances are that we will not earn people’s trust easily nor rapidly. Thus, the time we have to endure in such an unpleasant world is bound to be lengthy. Do we want to? Why should we? Why should you? Why should I?
Then, I concluded that I did not want to live in such a gloomy world. Ever since that fateful night, I meet people assuming that they are trustworthy. It is a decision that has served me well, and perhaps you might want to try it. Be advised, however, that it requires some courage and the acceptance of your own frailty and fallibility more than of others.
You might ask when or how do you move from trusting someone to not doing it? What do you do afterward? The answers can only be given by yourself. Your threshold is necessarily different from mine, but let me tell you that the higher it is, the more exacting on you it becomes. It would be unfair to demand from others what you do not offer, so be careful what you expect others to do -or not to do- to keep them on your right book!
I firmly believe that ‘teams are not a group of people who work together, but a group of people who trust each other.’ If you agree, perhaps adopting my director’s approach would be a good ‘teambuilding’ strategy. Are you ready to take the risk?
Undoubtedly, the larger your team is, the harder this gets and I still struggle with what to do when you lose trust in one of your team members… I am counting on your suggestions and comments to help me grow as a manager and a leader! In the meantime, Roger Dean Duncan and Paul Axtel share some insights and ideas that you might find useful.
Have a great week, and don’t forget to share your ideas!