Let’s cut right to the chase: The most powerful way to establish trust is to provide information in advance, generally through some form of communication—perhaps person-to-person at first, followed by appropriate behaviors, collateral communication and performance. Trust is damaged or destroyed by either intentionally or carelessly withholding information.
Unlike “reputation,” which is really a public relations concept, “trust” is a powerful management term. All managers should understand it, recognize its power, and know when they are damaging or breaking it. As it happens, trust is the most fragile and volatile ingredient in any relationship, and it depends on communication.
Trust is based more on the absence of damaging behaviors than on a checklist of positive actions. I prefer this approach because it is easier to convince those in positions of authority and power to avoid situations, decisions and actions they readily recognize as trust-busters than to establish a glowing list of wonderful behaviors. As you examine the partial list of trust-busting behaviors that follows, each item on the list has at least one crucially destructive, negative communication component. More important, each of these behaviors turns out to be intentional. Those with power and authority know when they are breaking trust, and they are quite puzzled when no one calls them on it. Because behaviors such as these go unchallenged, they continue to occur. The following are common behaviors that lead to a loss of trust:
1. Arrogance
Arrogance is the absence of empathy. Those who are arrogant tend to take action without consulting those who will be directly or indirectly affected, and make decisions unilaterally, without input from key partners.
2. Breaking promises
One of the fundamental bases of trust is that each party can rely on the other to honor commitments, both implied and explicit. When commitments are broken without prior notification or explanation, the first element of the relationship to suffer is trust. Losing the security of commitment can call into question most of the other elements of a relationship as well.
3. Creating fear
You create fear when something you do damages or threatens to damage someone’s core values. Fear can derive from the appearance of deception, or from a feeling that the relationship is unreliable.
4. Deception
In a relationship, deceiving or misleading creates a feeling of separation and distance. Deception also creates a sense of disappointment because the individual, product, company or organization failed to recognize that, at the very least, there should be a sense of candor between the parties, no matter what the circumstance.
5. Denial
When mistakes or errors in judgment are made, a product under-performs or an unforeseen crisis occurs, failure to respond promptly and to relate the circumstances candidly, with empathy for those who are affected, changes a relationship of trust to one of suspicion and caution.
6. Disrespect
Even adversaries can trust each other to some extent, provided there is a sense of respect. When the reputation of an individual, product, or organization is discredited or trivialized, there is a sense of uneasiness and discomfort that often leads to frustration, anger and other negative behavior.
7. Withholding information
The essence of trust is having confidence that no matter what happens, those in the relationship are able to count on the behaviors and attitudes of others in the relationship. That confidence stems from being fully informed in advance about decisions that will be made or circumstances that might occur. Deliberately withholding information, support, praise, cooperation or collaboration weakens the relationship.
8. Lying
Lying often starts with simple misunderstanding—the truth to one individual or organization can seem untruthful to a competitor or competing interest, simply based on the critic’s or competitor’s point of reference in relation to a given set of facts.
9. Playing the victim
Symptoms of playing the victim include self-serving phrases like “After all we’ve done for these people,” “They should have known better,” and “We don’t deserve to be treated this badly.”
There is always a reason why trust evaporates or diminishes in an organization. The explanation for loss of trust lies somewhere in the mix of these behaviors. Maintaining trust requires constantly analyzing relationships to identify and eliminate negative behaviors, confusion, lack of information, negative attitudes and unexpected outcomes.
Communication is the most powerful tool available to us for establishing, maintaining and repairing trust.
James E. Lukaszewski, ABC, APR, Fellow PRSA, helps clients deal with touchy, sensitive, high-profile situations. Jim’s new book, Why Should the Boss Listen to You?, published by Jossey-Bass, is now available in bookstores. Contact him directly at +1 914.681.0000 or
, or visit his web site at www.e911.com.
