When you use the right language and framework you build trust in your business
In your business, what does it mean to you when someone is trustworthy?
How important is trustworthiness to you?
And how important do you think trustworthiness is to the future of your business?
Think about a relationship you have with one person in your business – whether this be a team member, customer or supplier.
One half of what creates this relationship is TRUST; the other half is TRUSTING.
One of you is taking the risk to trust the other; the other person must prove whether or not they are trustworthy.
So, what does it mean to be trustworthy and why is this so important to the relationships you have within your business?
Charles H. Green, a world-renowned commentator on trust, suggests that we should strive to be more credible, more reliable and more intimate whilst reducing any focus on ourselves and our results.
He has developed an equation to provide some language and a framework around which you can unpack the concept and feeling of trust. Both the language and framework will help you understand how to build trust:
Trust – trusting and trustworthiness; the outcome of your behaviours means you’re worth trusting; in other words, you’ve earned the right to be trusted.
Credibility – competent and capable, with relevant credentials; expert in your field.
Reliability – do what you say you will do consistently; have a good track record.
Credibility and Reliability are rational forms of trustworthiness; they are objective, and they can be measured and scored.
Intimacy – feel safe, respectful, appropriate, emotionally connected – emotional security.
Improving and building on these 3 aspects will earn you the right to be trusted.
Self-orientation – selfishness; self-obsession; in it for me, not caring about others.
Making use of this formula and focusing on the components, measuring and scoring where possible, will help you to work on the relationships in your business and enable you to generate relationships of high trust.
