Five Tips for Building Trust

In my 25+ year career working with internal business partners, consulting and volunteer work, I’ve found quickly establishing a working relationship but on trust is a critical skill. Trust is an important currency for moving forward.

I have developed a personal approach to working with a new group of people, one that focuses on intentionally creating a framework of trust.

I’ve included a few tips below.

1. Intentionally Listen. The temptation is to build trust by enthusiastically sharing what you know. Resist this temptation. Listen enthusiastically first. You will position what you do know more effectively. Even more importantly, you will find out important things you don’t know.
2. Transparently Honest. Speaking of things you don’t know, be honest about what you don’t know and if you are trying out a new approach. Genuine transparency is a skill. To be good at it, practice it early and often.
3. Consistent Excellence. For the things you do know, deliver with excellence. This is the time to step up your game. It may not be 100% error free, but it should be unmistakably top quality. It is important to make a good first impression.
4. Know your audience. To a certain extent, trust is in the eye of the beholder. One stakeholder may need discretion and the ability to speak openly without their words being shared. Another stakeholder may have an immovable dependency on your work’s timeliness. Yet another needs 24 hour responses to emails and phone calls. Letting any of these areas down can impact trust for that stakeholder and who they influence. This is where listening well early on will help you identify the needs of each stakeholder.
5. Recover quickly and well. Inevitably, something does not go as planned or well. A typical response is to over highlight what did go well, hoping to control the message and minimize the focus on the problems. I recommend the rarer path of authentically acknowledging the concerns and making the extra effort to recover well. This only works if it is needed infrequently. The goal is to leave your partners with experience of an outstanding recovery handled quickly, pleasantly and well.

What most people remember is the overall experience. If their time with you is that you are attentive to their needs, transparent, deliver with excellence in a way that meets their unique needs, and promptly recover (and exceed expectations!) the occasional mistake; you will quickly earn their trust and become a valued member of the team.