Building a Culture of Trust in Organizations

The most important thing they can do to help us as an organization is choose to trust whenever there's a gap between what they expect and what they experience to fill that gap with trust rather than suspicion. That makes all the difference in our culture, that makes all the difference in an organization. [00:00:42]

Healthy organizations are filled with people who choose to believe the best rather than assume the worst. And they fill that gap with trust. And one of the things we're gonna talk a little bit about, if, if there's time, is there's a sense in which, when this happens, when somebody lets us down, when they don't come through or they don't come through again, or they don't follow through, whatever that looks like, the assumption is I don't have a choice. [00:01:50]

And the individual who's mature enough to understand that and then disciplines themself to fill that gap with trust, things are just gonna go better. Because so oftentimes, as we're gonna talk about, there is an explanation, but if I immediately go to suspicion, if I immediately assume the worst, that begins to create something, not only in my relationship with that person, but in my relationship with people who have a relationship with that person. [00:02:22]

When an organization has, people who have disciplined themselves because it's a discipline, have disciplined themselves to offer each other a healthy explanation, you are impacting, positively impacting the culture. And we're gonna talk in a minute about how long do you let that go before you have a, a difficult conversation. But if the go-to, and this is why when Billy Phoenix interviews me in front of our new staff, this is always the first question that he ask. [00:06:19]

Trust actually breathes life into an organization. Same with a marriage, same with a relationship with one of your, one of your children. In fact, if you have a middle schooler or a high schooler, isn't it true you just want them to, if you would just trust me. Right. And don't we say that if you would just trust me, like if I say it enough, you're they're gonna trust me. [00:15:36]

Because all of those involve some short term failure. Yeah. Right? Yep. And if there's not room to fail because of a fear of what's gonna happen, because people lose confidence in me or lose trust in me, and then people just don't experiment. The, the whole idea of making anything better, they're gonna let somebody else work on that is, is too risky. [00:16:15]

A culture of trust exposes the untrustworthy people. This is a little bit counterintuitive, but the best way to find out whether or not somebody is trustworthy is to trust them. Trust them. In fact, that's the only way. Yeah. This is, this is the downside of being a micromanager. If you don't trust people, you don't know if they're trustworthy, you don't get the best out of them. [00:25:32]

The conversation itself is an expression of trust. Because you trust the person, you can have the conversation. Exactly. Yeah. The reason I'm confronting you, instead of talking about you, the reason I'm coming directly to you is because I trust you. And I'm gonna come into this conversation, assuming there is a good explanation. [00:27:31]

And then there's this, in some instances, and I'm so guilty of this, there may be a gap between what I expected and what I experience. And the other person isn't even aware there's a gap because I haven't made my expectations clear. Again, I say that because I'm guilty of that. So you sit down with a person and you say, why hasn't this happened? [00:29:51]

The takeaway is we maintain trust until we just can't trust anymore. And when we have to have that conversation, even going into those conversations, we're still trying to create a culture and protect the culture of trust. [00:30:37]

Number one, when there is a gap between what I expect and what I experienced, I will choose to believe the best. I'm I'm, I'm committing to that even before it happens. Number two, when other people assume the worst about you, I'm coming to your defense. Mm. When other people are talking about you, I just want you to know I'm coming to your defense. [00:30:47]

If what I experience begins to erode my trust, I will come directly to you to resolve the problem. If what I experience begins to erode my trust, in other words, oh no, I'm beginning to harbor suspicion about this person. I'm coming directly to you. The point being, I don't want anybody on my team to fear the consequences of a meeting I have with somebody else about them until I've first gone directly to them to discuss the matter. [00:31:36]