Speed of Trust

THE VOICE AND SPEED OF TRUST
“Trust is the glue of life. When trust is present, mistakes are forgiven and forgotten.”
--Stephen R. Covey

WHEN WE SEEK TO EXPAND OUR INFLUENCE AND INSPIRE OTHERS TO FIND THEIR VOICE, we move into a world of relationships. Building strong relationships not only requires a character foundation of inner security, abundance and personal moral authority, it also involves stretching ourselves in developing vital new interpersonal skills that will make us equal to the challenges we face with others.
Almost all of the work of the world is done through relationships with people and in organizations. But what is communication like when there is no trust? It’s impossible. It’s like walking through a minefield. What if your communication is clear and precise, yet there is no trust? You’ll always be looking for hidden meanings and a hidden agenda. A lack of trust is the very definition of a bad relationship. In the words of my son Stephen, “Low trust is the great hidden tax.” In fact, this hidden tax is greater than all taxes and interest combined--- hidden and unhidden!
What is communication like when there is high trust? It’s easy; it’s effortless; it’s instantaneous. What about when there is high trust and you make mistakes? They hardly matter. People know you. “Don’t worry about it, I understand.” “Forget it. I know what you mean. I know you.” No technology ever devised can do that. Perhaps, in a sense, this is why the heart is more important than the brain. Someone may be brain-dead, but if their heart is still pumping they live on; when your heart is dead, you’re dead.
As my son Stephen says, “Nothing is as fast as the speed of trust.” It’s faster than anything you can think about. It’s faster than the internet, for when trust is present, mistakes are forgiven and forgotten. Trust is the glue of life. It is the glue that holds organizations, cultures and relationships together. Ironically, it comes from the speed of going slow. With people, fast is slow and slow is fast.

MORAL AUTHORITY AND THE SPEED OF TRUST
Relationships are governed by natural laws. Enduring trust in a relationship cannot be faked, and is rarely produced by a dramatic, one-time effort. It is the fruit of regular actions inspired by the conscience and the heart. In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I introduced a metaphor for trust called the Emotional Bank Account. It is like a financial bank account into which you make deposits and withdrawals---only in this case, you make emotional deposits and withdrawals in your relationships that either build or destroy them. Like any metaphor, it has its limitations. But generally it is a powerful and simple way of communicating the quality of a relationship.
There are 10 key deposits and withdrawals we can make with others that, in my experience, have a profound impact on the level of trust in our relationships. It also lists the sacrifices required and principles embodied in each deposit.
It’s important to recognize that the reason the 10 deposits build trust is that they embody principles central to human relationships. When you study each of those 10 deposits, what would you say are the common elements? I suggest that one common denominator of the deposits is initiative, which is made of willpower and determination. You’ll notice that every one of them lies within your own power to do. Every one of them lies within your own ability to influence. Because they are based on principles, they produce moral authority or trust. You can see how there is no way you can make those deposits, exercise that courage, that initiative, that determination, without the ability to do the “20 emotional personal push-ups” at the personal level.
What is the second common characteristic of the deposits? I suggest it’s the absence of selfishness and the presence of humility. It’s the willingness to subordinate oneself to another person, to a principle, or to a higher cause. It’s realizing that life is not just about me and mine; using the words of the philosopher Martin Buber, it’s about “I and Thou”—feeling profound reverence for the worth and potential of every person.
Moral authority, trust and bonding can evaporate over time in the absence of making continual deposits, particularly with people we work and live around all the time. This is so because their expectations are so much higher. With people we haven’t seen for years, we can often pick up where we left off. The trust and bonding and love are restored immediately because there are simply no expectations of continual depositing.
A third common characteristic is that, like most worthwhile things in life, they require a sacrifice. (Remember, a good definition of sacrifice is giving up something--even something for good—for something better.) If you are already familiar with the emotional bank account, I encourage you to see it here with new eyes and open yourself to new insights that will enable you to find your voice and inspire others to find theirs. You’ll notice that each deposit represents a choice to use your birth gifts in an effort to sacrifice an ineffective personal habit and replace it with an action that builds moral authority in relationships with others.

SEEKING FIRST TO UNDERSTAND
Why would “seek first to understand” be the first deposit? One simple reason: You do not know what a deposit is to another person until you understand them from their frame of reference. What may be high-level deposit to you may be a low-level deposit to another, or even a withdrawal. What may be an important promise to you may be unimportant to another. How you express your honesty, openness, kindness and courtesy may be perceived completely differently when seen by others through their unique cultural or personal filters. While the underlying principles of each deposit hold true in every situation, it requires an understanding of others within their frame of reference to know how to specifically implement the practice.

MAKING AND KEEPING PROMISES
Nothing destroys trust faster than making and breaking a promise. Conversely, nothing builds and strengthens trust more than keeping a promise you make.
It’s easy to make a promise. A promise usually satisfies another quickly—particularly when they are stressed or anxious about something they need you to fix. When they’re happy with the promise, they like you. And we like to be liked.
That which we desire most earnestly we believe most easily. All kinds of people are suckered into deals and agreements because they want something so badly they’ll believe almost any explanation, story or promise of getting it. They turn a blind eye to negative information and go on in their believing.
But promise-keeping is hard. It usually involves a painful sacrificial process—especially when the pleasant promise-making mood passes or when hard realities descend or circumstances change. I’ve trained myself to never (“never say never”) use the word promise unless I’m totally prepared to pay whatever the price is to keep it, especially with my children. They’ve often begged me to say “promise.” Then they would feel at peace knowing I would come through—almost as if they had whatever they wanted now. But, many times I was sorely tempted to say “I promise” just to satisfy them quickly and keep the peace at the moment. “I’ll try” or “it’s my goal” or “I hope to” wouldn’t satisfy. Only “I promise.”
Occasionally, when circumstances outside my control changed, I would ask my children to understand and relieve me of the promise. In most cases they understood and relieved me. But my younger children usually didn’t understand. Even though they said they did and freed me of the promise intellectually, they really didn’t emotionally. So I kept the promise unless it was very unwise to do so. In such cases I would have to temporarily live with the diminished trust and try to rebuild it slowly in other ways.

HONESTY AND INTEGRITY
Basketball coaching legend Rick Pitino captured the principle of honesty simply and profoundly: “Lying makes a problem part of the future; truth makes a problem part of the past.”
I remember working once with a building contractor who was unbelievably upfront and open about the challenges he faced, even the mistakes he had made on our project. He took responsibility for the mistakes. He gave such consistent, complete financial accounting, along with all the options we could take at various stages of construction, that I absolutely and instinctively trusted the man and relied on his word from then on. I knew that, if anything, he would put our interests ahead of his own. His willingness to put his integrity and our relationship above his pride and natural desire to hide his mistakes and avoid embarrassment formed an unusual bond of trust between us. That trust earned him a great deal of business.

KINDNESSES AND COURTESIES
With people, little things are the big things. I once had a student come to me at the end of the semester and essentially say after praising the class, “Dr. Cover, you are an expert in human relations, but you don’t even know my name.”
He was right. I was chagrined, embarrassed and properly chastened. I have to deal with my tendency to submerge myself in intellectual conceptualization, task orientation and efficiency all the time. You see, until relationships are strong and purposes are shared, that efficiency is ineffective, particularly with insecure, “high-maintenance” people. Not so with things. Things have no feelings. People do, even so-called big people, VIP’s. Small courtesies and kindnesses given consistently yield huge dividends.
On the other hand, people see through superficial, “kind” techniques and know when they are being manipulated. Often when I speak to children at home or school, I tell them that if they will learn and use four expressions (totaling only 10 words) sincerely and consistently, they can get what they want in most cases.

One word— “Please.”
Two words—“Thank you.”
Three words—“I love you.”
Four words—“How may I help?”

Adults are big children.

THINKING WIN-WIN OR NO DEAL
Win-lose thinking is the underlying assumption of almost all negotiations and problem solving. It comes from society’s scarcity mindset, which says the more the other guy wins or gets, the less there is for me. The goal is to get what you want—which usually means figuring out how to manipulate or gain the advantage over the other guy to get him to concede as much as possible. Many try to work out differences with others, even family members, in the same way. Both parties battle it out until one concedes or they settle on a compromise. I remember making a presentation in which I taught the idea that the key to breaking out of this win-lose mindset is to become emotionally and mentally settled on championing the other party’s “win” as much as your own. It requires courage, abundant thinking and great creativity to not settle on anything that has a compromise for either party. I taught that a further key was to begin with a No Deal option. In fact, until No deal is a viable option in your own mind, that is, until you are totally prepared to go for No Deal, to walk away, to agree to disagree agreeably until both parties actually feel it is a win for them, you’ll find yourself manipulating and often pressuring or intimidating others to go along with your win. But when No Deal is truly a viable option, you can honestly say to the other, “Unless this is a true win for you and you deeply and sincerely feel it, and unless it’s a true win for me and I deeply and sincerely feel it, let’s agree right now to go for “No Deal.” That process is so liberating, so freeing, and it requires such a combination of humility and kindness with strength and courage that once it is truly hammered out, both parties are transformed; such intense bonding takes place that afterward they will always be loyal to each other in each other’s absence.
You’ll notice that the power of this Think Win-Win or No Deal deposit lies in the initial willingness to sacrifice—to suspend your own interests long enough to understand what the other person wants most, and why, so you can then go to work together on a new, creative solution that encompasses both of your interests.

CLARIFYING EXPECTATIONS
Clarifying expectations is really a combination of all the other deposits mentioned because of the amount of mutual understanding and respect required to drive such communication, particularly when it is about clarifying expectations about roles and goals. If you study the underlying roots of almost all communication breakdowns, or broken, sick cultures, you’ll find they come from either ambiguous or broken expectations around roles and goals: in other words, who is to do what role and what are the high-priority goals of those roles.

A FINAL WORD ON TRUST
Trust is not the only fruit of trustworthiness; it is also the root of motivation. It is the highest form of motivation. Love also becomes a verb. It is something you do; you love or serve others; you trust others; you see their worth and potential and provide opportunity, nourishment and encouragement. If they do not live true to this trust, it will deteriorate, and they will not be inspired to see their own worth and potential. They won’t have the ability to communicate to others their worth and potential. Remember the power you hold to give your trust to others. You may open yourself to the risk of being disappointed, and you will need to be wise in the exercise of this power. But when you do, you give a priceless gift, an opportunity to others. The greatest risk of all is the risk of riskless living.

This article is adapted from Stephen R. Covey’s book, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness.
Copyright ©2004 by FranklinCovey Co. Published by FREE PRESS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.