Organizations are no longer built on force, but on trust. - Peter Drucker
Trust is a core, foundational principle in partnership work. It’s truly a place where partnership will soar or get stuck if trust is not strong. Trust doesn’t just happen. It has to be earned and maintained and when done well, trust can be more valuable than gold.The good news is that trust isn’t a quality you either have or you don't. It’s a learnable skill. Teams and organizations that operate with high trust significantly outperform those who do not cultivate trust at the core of their culture.
So how do you learn to build trust? What are the core tenets of creating trust? How can you put these tenets into actionable behaviours?In his book
The Speed of Trust
, Stephen M.R. Covey provides a roadmap for trust building that will be invaluable to any
partnership broker or person working in partnerships. He starts by describing trust in basic terms: "Simply put, trust means confidence. The opposite of trust - distrust - is suspicion. When you trust people, you have confidence in them - in their integrity and their abilities. When you distrust people, you are suspicious of them - of their integrity, their agenda, their capabilities, or their track record. It's that simple."
The Speed Of Trust
not only explains the economics of trust, but also shows how to cultivate great trust in yourself and your relationships. The book defines the five levels (called waves), or contexts, in which trust is established. It also forms the structure for understanding and making trust actionable.
First Wave:
Self Trust. The key principle underlying this wave is credibility
Second Wave: Relationship Trust. The key principle underlying this wave is consistent behaviour.Third Wave: Organizational Trust. The key principle underlying this wave, alignment, helps leaders create structures, systems and symbols of organizational trust.Fourth Wave: Market Trust. The underlying principle behind this wave is reputation.Fifth Wave: Societal Trust. The principle underlying this wave is contribution.Understanding these waves will enable you to see, speak and behave in ways that establish trust, allowing you to become a leader who gets results by inspiring trust in yourself and in others.Because trust is so important here is the link to the full book summary of The Speed of Trust from Executive Book Summaries. I encourage you to print, study and implement the actions outlined in the book. Your partnerships will soar and deepen at the speed of your trust building.