Give thanks with trust

Nov 25 2010

Give thanks with trust

Posted by Lachlan Bethel in Life Insurance

By: Mike Prokopeak

With Thanksgiving upon us, it’s important to remember to trust in the people around you. Both you and your organization will benefit.

For many, the Thanksgiving holiday is a time to enjoy family and give thanks for the joys in their lives. For others, it’s a time to be endured, not enjoyed, peppered by awkward conversation around the dinner table.

In every personal relationship, there’s the equivalent of a trust account, said Stephen M.R. Covey, CEO of training company CoveyLink Worldwide and author of the business best-seller The Speed of Trust.

“Just like a bank account, you grow the account when you make a deposit and you deplete it if you take a withdrawal,” he said. “What’s a deposit and what’s a withdrawal for trust? It’s your behavior. It’s how you act, how you work together, how you exchange. There are certain behaviors that will grow trust fast and others that will cause you to lose it.”

Covey said there are four basic ways to grow the trust account:

Demonstrate respect and show others that you care. Listen with the intent of understanding, rather than with the intent to reply. Show loyalty and speak about people as if they’re present, even if they’re not. Give others an advance of your trust. Trust is reciprocal in nature. “When we give it, people receive it and they return it. But when we don’t trust people, they tend to not trust us back,” Covey said.

That’s not to say that you should enter relationships blindly, but rather extend trust until it’s proven you should do otherwise. People will often act as they are treated.

“Too often we get wrapped in a vicious cycle of distrust and suspicion and it goes down the drain,” he said.

Family badmouthing is a key example of this — people know that you’re probably doing talking about them behind their back too. Rather than join in the behavior, try to understand the other perspective and be fair. “It tells everyone that is present that I’d do the same for them too,” Covey said.

In relationships, just as with bank accounts, bankruptcy happens because people make too many withdrawals or withdrawals are too big. Words are helpful and apologies sometimes necessary to rebuild the trust account, but they need to be followed up with action.

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