Trust

Trust relationships are vital to the conduct of business. Some base level of trust is required just to have employment contracts, or to engage in commercial transactions. The level of trust in business relationships, whether external or internal is a greater determinant of success than anything else.

Trust is a bi-lateral relationship: one trusts, and the other is the trusted.  This typically gets created at the individual level, between people, and usually in conversations. The Trust Creation Process is a five-step model for that process:

1. Engage the client in an open discussion about issues that are key to the client;

2. Listen to what is important and real to the client; earn the right to offer solutions;

3. Frame the true root issue, without the language of blame, via caveats, problem statements and hypotheses; take personal risks to explore sensitive issues, articulate a point of view; create by giving away;

4. Envision an alternate reality, including win-win specific descriptions of outcomes and results, including emotional and political states; clarify benefits—make clear what’s at stake; be tangible about future states;

5. Commit to actionable next steps that imply significant commitment and movement on the part of each party.

Trust is a bi-lateral relationship: one trusts, and the other is the trusted.

Being or becoming trustworthy cannot be reduced to pure behaviours. You can’t bottle it in a competency model. Our actions are driven by our beliefs, and our beliefs are driven by our values or principles. Trustworthy behaviour is way too complex to fake without the beliefs and values behind them. If your values don’t drive you to behave in a trustworthy manner all the time, you’ll be found out quickly.

The way to become trusted is to act consistently from those principles and not just any set of principles will do. There are four specific principles governing trustworthy behaviour:

1. A focus on the Other (client, customer, internal co-worker, boss, partner, subordinate) for the Other’s sake, not just as a means to one’s own ends. We often hear “client-focus,” or “customer-centric.” But these are terms all-too-often framed in terms of economic benefit to the person trying to be trusted.

2. A collaborative approach to relationships. Collaboration here means a willingness to work together, creating both joint goals and joint approaches to getting there.

3. A medium to long term relationship perspective, not a short-term transactional focus. Focus on relationships nurtures transactions; but focus on transactions chokes off relationships. The most profitable relationships for both parties are those where multiple transactions over time are assumed in the approach to each transaction.

A habit of being transparent in all one’s dealings.

Being or becoming trustworthy cannot be reduced to pure behaviours.  You can’t bottle it in a competency model.

Transparency has the great virtue of helping recall who said what to whom. It also increases credibility, and lowers self-orientation, by its willingness to keep no secrets.  Applying these principles to all of our actions will develop the fullest possible sort of trusting relationship.

In the event world there are tremendously high levels of trust required because so much is riding on a defined moment in time.  At Ground:zero we work every day to enhance the trust relationship with our clients and provide reassurance to potential clients.

With a trusted relationship with Ground:zero Productions you know that when it comes to the technical side of your event, “you can sleep easy at night”.  If you need to understand how trust is a core principle at Ground:zero please call us on 01634 841663 or email at trevor.davies@groundzero.uk.com.

Source: https://trustedadvisor.com