How to Build Rapid Trust

 "Organizations run at the speed of trust." - Dave Ramsey

 

Trust is one of those things we know we must have, but find it hard to wrap our hands around it. It is not tangible, but the results of healthy trust can drive your people to work above and beyond and cultivate a healthy work culture. 

I love Dave’s quote here on the speed of teams. I think what he is alluding to is the efficiency and productivity of teams. Here are some quick ways to rapidly build trust. 

  1. Admit your mistakes openly and often

    • When you admit your mistakes, it does two main things. It humanizes you and helps people understand that you are a person. People don't trust robots. People trust people. It also shows self reflection. People will trust you when they know that you are working on yourself.

  2. Delegate

    • This one is tough for a lot of leaders. There is an entire process for delegation, but at it's essence, delegation is passing ownership to another. If you had someone that kept every project and never let you do anything, you would feel they did not deserve your trust. But when someone gives you a task or project and let's you run with it, you feel ownership and that the leader is worthy of trust.

  3. Be consistent

    • This cannot be emphasized enough. We are beings that feed off consistency. If you have any question about this, ask anyone how they like their coffee. Chances are they can go into detail about how they like their coffee, and when they order it they expect it to turn out as such. When a leader is consistent, followers can make predictions, plan ahead and trust that the leader is consistent in responses and needs.

  4. Give feedback in the moment

    • The biggest mistake that people have here is building up feedback until it explodes in a random conversation. If leaders can set an expectation that they give feedback in the moment and it will always come with the question "How can I help?", then followers will expect that growth moment and trust that the leader is out for their best interest.

  5. Communicate expectations early and often

    • There is nothing worse than being in a situation where you don’t know what is expected of you. You are constantly wasting energy trying to figure out the end goal and getting nowhere. As a leaders, our job is to never allow our followers to doubt our expectations. This does not mean micromanage, this means to continually communicate what success looks like. If we do this well, our people will work effectively and most of the time surprise us with the results.

  6. Praise in Public and Align in Private

    • No one wants to be chastised in public. It accomplishes only 2 things when you do this. First, it communicates to the rest of your team that they could be next and instills fear in them of making mistakes. So what will they do? Hide their mistakes. Secondly, it humiliated the person you punished and will cause decrease in moral and productivity. If you praise in public and align in private, you bypass all those negative outcomes and still get the results you seek.

 

Trust is built over time, but these simple tools can help you rapidly increase the trust you so desperately need.  


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