Success is a byproduct of personal commitment, of cooperative interpersonal behavior, of willingly giving and receiving candor from competent people.  These factors enhance trust being developed and maintained.  Both high performance and high satisfaction are needed to achieve optimum organizational levels of quality or effectiveness, productivity or efficiency, economies, delivery, service, procedural correctness or accuracy, and (ultimately) profit.

In a trust-related experience, any action, or behavior which brings you closer to achieving your real long-term goals and objectives is considered productive.  Likewise, any action, or behavior, which moves you further away from achieving your real long-term goals and objectives is considered counterproductive.

Though many “experts” disagree with this definition, trust can be defined as anticipating a certain outcome or result, whatever the value of the outcome or the result to those involved.

Trust has five identifiable elements of interpersonal behavior:

1. Competence: The perception that a person is capable and does their work well.
2. Presentation: How people appear or appeal to others, as people tend to trust others more if they are: more friendly, articulate, good-humored, and show a concern for their appearance, and if they possess universal features of attractiveness.
3. Values: People value others more if they tend to have high integrity, valid opinions, and high principles based upon if their own values, principles, goals, attitudes, and perceptions similar to oneself.
4. Intentions: The perception that a person wants to, or tries to, do the right thing and strives for effective performance or improved achievements.
5. Respect: The perception of the open, honest, fair, and compassionate treatment of others.  This is the single most important element of these five elements of trust in interpersonal behavior.

Self-evaluate your responses to the exercise from Tuesday and determine what the results say about you and the effectiveness of your relationships with other people.  Although it is not the intent of this contribution . . . the absence of trust is chaos, but trust is manageable if it is somehow measured, and in spite of what you have been lead to accept previously, trust can be accurately measured.

So . . . back on task now . . . as a Researcher, as a Sourcer, etc.   How do you build trust quickly with others?  Please weigh in by commenting below.

Ray Towle has experience in leading, and in contributing to, project teams, managing high volume work efforts both internally, and also in support of external clients. Ray has served in many diverse HR Roles, but primarily sourcing and recruiting, for the following companies or organizations: Hewitt Associates, Carolina Handling Company; General Steel Company; Georgia State University; Habitat for Humanity International; Hunt Oil Company; Inland Steel Company; Oglethorpe University; Panasonic USA; Phillips Consumer Electronics; SYGMA Network; The Home Depot and the U.S. Army.

Trust is a vital interpersonal skill.  Effective people are more understanding of the elements that influence trust than are people of less interpersonal effectiveness.  People who are considered to be effective are more willing to put something of themselves at risk with another people, usually by confiding in other people.  Trust should have limits, however.

Highly effective people make adjustments about trust in different risk situations.  When those people reveal a shortcoming or flaw, they carefully, even sometimes shrewdly, risk their reputation and their self-esteem, but when they demonstrate this risk, they have usually concluded that the potential rewards are greater than the inherent risks in what they reveal.  Occasionally, this is done because of misplaced faith or inappropriate naivete.

This is a self-assessment exercise in which you will not be required nor encouraged to share with anyone, if you prefer not to.  The information you create in this “exercise” will remain within your complete control.

Take a few minutes and jot down some notes and do your best to respond openly and honestly to these five self-assessment questions:

1. How would you describe the degree or level of your willingness to trust others?
2. What factors affect your willingness to trust others?
3. Is there something that you would never confide to anyone else?
4. Why or why not?
5. How could you be damaged if your trust in another person was betrayed?

The remainder of this topic (Part 2) will be posted on Thursday.