Maxim #45
Trust is the keystone
This maxim reminds us that trust, like a keystone in the summit of an arch, holds relationships and organizations together and keeps them from falling apart. It is a vital ingredient for engineering and implementing change in an organization.
Trust is a complex human mechanism that can take a long time to build, but in itself is inherently fragile. It can be lost quite easily, and once lost is that much more difficult to regain. Many brilliant minds have studied and written extensively on what trust actually is and how it is achieved between people. Rather than try to compete on academic grounds, it is easier for us to try explaining the importance of trust in our own practical terms. Trust is based on reliance. So we break it down into three basic guiding principles:
- If you say or write something, it needs to be honest.
- If you say you are going to do something, you need to do it.
- You need to genuinely care about others.
These three principles are true for client, staff and personal relationships. Although they seem like easy guidelines to follow, life has its own complexity. Because trust is so fragile, you can damage it without always knowing what you are doing. Here are a few examples we see regularly in companies where people often inadvertently damage trust. They:
- Say they will do something (e.g., achieve budget, install a system within a time frame, promise to evaluate their staff) but don’t get it done.
- Are always late for meetings.
- Want recognition for their accomplishments but are slow to give recognition out to others.
- Don’t share enough credit with peers or staff.
- Argue a position that transparently favors themselves over others, or over the company.
Because trust is so vital for being successful, it’s worth thinking about what we do and what we don’t do that either earns or damages our ability to be trusted by others.
