Building trust

Successful business requires collaboration and teamwork. For team relationships to work well, we need high levels of trust. But how we build trust can differ from person to person, culture to culture. Becoming aware of this can help us see how to improve trust with the people we work with.

When Valeria first met her international clients, she tried to bond with them by telling them about her family and her parenting style. She showed them photos of her children on her phone. Her clients felt that her behaviour was unprofessional and it was difficult for them to trust her.  

During a team-building exercise, employees at a British firm were asked to share some personal facts. Kelly wanted to make a good impression on her new colleagues. She talked about how she was the top student of her year at high school and how she won a scholarship to university. The following day her colleagues spoke to each other about how uncomfortable they felt about her boasting. 

On the first day of a course, trainer David aimed to reassure his new trainees that they were in good hands. He talked enthusiastically about the big corporations he had previously worked in and the famous clients he had trained. He mentioned the good feedback he'd received and showed the results he was able to provide for his clients. The participants on the training course found this information boring and irrelevant. They wanted him to begin the training and not waste time talking about his previous achievements.    

Why did this happen? 

There are many ways of building trust, and the approach we choose might depend on the relationship we are building, the culture we are used to and our personal preferences. However, if the methods we choose do not match the expectations of the people around us, it can lead to misunderstandings and negative assessments.

Let's consider different approaches to building trust. Author and speaker Richard Barrett suggests that there are two main components of trust: character and competence. One way of building trust is to show that we are caring, fair, open and honest human beings. In other words, we can build trust by showing our character. Another way to build trust is by letting others know that we are capable, experienced and have achieved excellent results. This way of building trust emphasises our competence. 

It can be a useful exercise to analyse specific work relationships in terms of the character/competence model. You might think about the type of trust your relationship has and the type of trust your relationship lacks, in order to see how you can develop. Many of us use both approaches, depending on the context. For example, in a job interview, we might focus on establishing trust by demonstrating our competence through work experience. When we are working within a team, we might prioritise showing our character to form close professional relationships. By becoming aware of the context and how our conversation partners are responding to our trust-building efforts, we can adapt the way we build trust to better suit them.

When working at new professional relationships, it is important to remember that there is no one correct way to build trust. Making quick judgements about the speaker, like Valeria's clients, Kelly's new colleagues and David's trainees did, could stop trust developing and damage our chances of forming positive relationships. Instead, if we assume the best intentions behind what is being said and are generous in our judgements of other people, we create positive conditions for building trust at work.