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Trust. Business Catalyst or Achilles’ Heel?

By Justin McCullough

Trust600What if character and competence were the primary concern for building your business (and yourself)? Have you considered that?

According to thoughtful work by Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard, both of whom have sold millions of business books and helped transformed countless businesses, there is an important case for trust in your employees and business.

This is what Stephen Covey had to say about Trust in his book Speed of Trust and Smart Trust:

  1. Trust is an economic driver.
  2. Trust is the number one competency of leadership.
  3. Trust is a learn-able competency.

I can agree with this. When you don’t have trust, things quickly fall apart, stall out, and bog down.  Depending on the character and competence of those working with you, the outcomes could be “just barely manageable” or down right “tragic”.  And its the relationships of others as well as the poor performance of the organization that pay the cost of these trust problems.

During a two day business retreat, I experienced all sorts of trust building exercises, all with one purpose; To open us up to one another, draw us closer as a team so we could work together, and become more trusting partners in the work we needed to do. I’ve experienced it first-hand. Trust matters if you want to drive successful teams and a successful business.

This post is about the mechanics and components of trust and most likely it is not at all what you think it is.

For example, how do you look at team building? My guess is that it doesnt look much like this:Building a Great TeamSince your team building model most likely doesn’t build up from trust, you are likely to suffer from these problems:

The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team

So let’s take a quick look at this insightful introduction to trust by Stephen Covey.

Are you looking for velocity in your business? Want to go further, faster, more efficiently? If so, Trust should be at the core of your relationships, partnerships, and projects.

we-need-to-build-a-relationship-of-trust-not-just-within-a-firm-but-within-a-society-by-trust-i-quote-1I’t comes as no surprise as to how important trust is.

trust-the-foundation-of-a-cohesive-team-6-638 How exactly does trust work?

be-the-flintstones-10-638

It starts with understanding the two key components of trust:

trust-competence-characterComponents-of-TrustTo summarize that in as simple of a way as possible, trust looks like this:
TrustMatrix

As you consider trust, you can put yourself and others into 4 primary quadrants:

TrustDistrustQuads

When you put it in action, trust looks like this:ppn0808_030b.jpg_600
In order to move into Trust, you must be able, believable, connected, and dependable:

ABCD-TrustModel

To move toward trusting environments, you must address character and competence and dispel the myths of trust:
Screen Shot 2015-04-23 at 9.13.12 AM

When you harness the power of trust, you’ll see the benefits or suffer the consequences.

coveyhighlowtrust

Look out for the behaviors that build or diminish trust.
behaviors-that-build-or-diminish-trust-accounts-1-728trust-presentation-6-728

 

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Justin McCullough

About Justin McCullough

Justin is a business builder, speaker and author. Over the last 15 years, he has delivered more than 500 critical projects ranging from launching businesses, websites, ecommerce sites, custom apps, newspapers, magazines, books, advertising campaigns, and strategic marketing initiatives. Co-workers, vendors, and clients work with Justin because he listens, clarifies the ambiguous, sets goals, inspires action, and delivers results. Justin is married, the father of two young boys, and Christian. He likes smart people like you!

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"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." - Philippians 4:8 ESV