How to Build Trust in the Workplace

It was on one of my operational tours in the Balkans that the importance of trust in the workplace really came home to me. At short notice, I was deployed to an existing multi-national mission. I was given a team, drawn from various parts of the military, which had come together at equally short notice. As a leader, I was facing trust issues both externally and internally.

Externally, the other international partners were dubious about our commitment. The UK had been involved before but had then withdrawn. The new team was therefore met with scepticism by the very people I needed to establish good working relationships with.

Internally I had a group of people who had never worked together before and, coming from different branches of the army, were naturally prejudiced against each other. The tribal nature of the regimental system creates in-group/out-group biases that can be challenging to overcome. I knew I had work to do to change this mindset and culture.

To address these issues, I made sure I was honest about previous failings and transparent about what we wanted to contribute. Then, I picked challenging tasks, but ones we could deliver on, to help build my team together while delivering tangible results to the international headquarters. I also gave my team leaders latitude as to how they would achieve their tasks; I just mandated what they needed to do. It was not all smooth going but we did manage to develop a culture of trust both within the team and with our international partners, and because of this, we achieved our mission.

This is just one example where I have faced important issues of trust in the workplace. I can think of many more – both good and bad – where the whole culture of an organisation is affected by the trust people feel for one another.

What do we mean by trust and why is it important?

So hopefully, with the example I have shared, we start to get an idea of why trust is important. But before we get ahead of ourselves let’s just check what we mean by trust. Which words come to mind when you think about trust? How would you define it?

Trust can be thought of as faith, belief, hope, conviction, or confidence. From these synonyms, we can start to see that trust has both a logical and emotional quality. We choose to trust a thing because of how we think and how we feel.

In relationships, trust is foundational, whether that is with friends and family, or with colleagues at work. In this context trust can be defined thus:

“Trust is the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the action of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action.”

Aljazzaf, Oerry, Capretz (2010)

So, whether we are starting to get to know someone and building rapport, or maintaining a long-lasting relationship, trust is critical. But, knowing this, how do you develop a culture of trust and psychological safety in the workplace?

The neuroscience of trust

The first thing we need to understand is how our brains work when it comes to trust. Paul J. Zak has spent many years studying the neuroscience of trust (HBR, 2017). His research has centred around how the hormone oxytocin is related to trust. His work demonstrated that higher levels of trust are linked to the brain producing higher levels of oxytocin.

It is great knowing that oxytocin helps to develop trust, but it is unlikely that we will be wanting to dose ourselves with synthetic hormones just to be more trusting! Fortunately, during his research, patterns emerged of actions that promoted oxytocin levels (positive behaviours) and things that inhibited its production (such as high stress). These were narrowed down to eight key behaviours that foster trust.

The 8 behaviours that foster trust in the workplace

So here are the eight behaviours, identified by Paul Zak, that can help to release oxytocin naturally and build a more trusting culture in the workplace:

  1. Recognise excellence
  2. Induce “challenge stress” (difficult but achievable tasks)
  3. Give people discretion in how they do their work
  4. Enable job crafting (let employees choose projects to work on)
  5. Share information broadly
  6. Intentionally build relationships
  7. Facilitate whole-person growth
  8. Show vulnerability

It is worth taking some time out to reflect on these. As a leader or manager, what are you doing to foster these behaviours? As an employee, how would you rate your team on each of these behaviours?

With these eight behaviours, we have started to link the neuroscience of trust to the psychology and practice of trusting cultures. As with the cultural iceberg, we are linking what is seen in an organisation with what is unseen. But there is another model that is worth being aware of, and that is the trust equation.

The Trust Equation – understanding the psychology of trust

Charles H. Green developed the Trust Equation, along with David Maister and Robert M. Galford, co-authors of The Trusted Advisor. They explored the psychology of trust by looking at professional services and how people relate to one another. The result of this study was the Trust Equation.

The equation is actually a measure of trustworthiness, in other words, how much trust we are willing to invest in a person. In this context, to have trust between two parties, you need someone who is trusting and another person who is trustworthy. The equation gets to the heart of that relationship.

Equation of Trustworthiness:

Trust (or Trustworthiness) = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy)/Self-Orientation

The Trust Equation

For clarity, it is worth exploring the terms that Green uses in the equation. Here are some questions you can ask to think about how someone might score against each of these terms.

Credibility (words)

  • Is the person professionally credible; do they live up to their CV?
  • Do the person’s words fit their actions?

Reliability (actions)

  • Are they dependable?
  • Will they do what they promise?

Intimacy (feelings)

  • Do you feel safe or secure around the person?
  • Do you trust that person with confidential or personal information?

Self-orientation

  • Is a person self-centred, putting themselves before the needs of the vision and team?
  • Are they self-obsessed (always framing an issue from their own perspective) or do they look at a situation more broadly?

If you want to quantify each factor you can give a numerical value (1-10) for the answer to each question. You can score someone you are thinking about (to better analyse that relationship) or you can score your team culture to examine the levels of trust within your workplace. Finally, you can also use this as a self-reflection exercise and examine how you perform in each area. Remember to think of evidence – of actual experiences – to back up your scores.

The steps to building trust

So, those are the steps to building trust. Understand the trust equation and you can quantify the levels of trust that you have with an individual or team. Then you can implement the eight behaviours to develop a more trusting culture in your workplace.

Therefore, which behaviour do you most need to work on today?

If you want the right answers you have to start with the right questions

About The Right Questions

The Right Questions is for people who want greater clarity, purpose and success. There is a wealth of resources to boost your effectiveness in achieving goals, your leadership of yourself and others, and your decision-making.

Wherever you are on your journey, I hope that you find information on this site to help you on the next leg of your quest. Even if that is just the inspiration to take one small step in the right direction, then that is a success. If you can take pleasure in learning and travelling as you go, then so much the better.

Need help navigating your journey to success?

I love to serve people, helping them unlock their potential, empowering them as leaders, and assisting them in achieving their goals. Please get in touch and let me know how I can support you!

8 Simple Ways to Build Trust and Team Performance

I once had to suspend a member of my team in the middle of delivering an important project. It was a difficult decision and painful for everyone involved, but it needed to happen. The actions of this individual had eroded the bond of trust that they had with the rest of the group. As a result, the whole team was no longer working effectively. If the individual was allowed to continue, the productivity of the whole organisation would have been undermined. Trust in the leadership, team discipline and work processes would have been damaged.

The behaviour of the individual had impacted output but, in the end, it was all about trust. Trust takes time to build and a moment to lose. Helping to reinforce trust within a team, and to avoid these breaches of trust, is a vital part of a manager’s role. That is because where there is a lack of trust there will also be a lack of high performance.

Even without this example, we all know that trust is important in any relationship. But what do we mean by trust? How would you define it? And having defined it, what can we do to develop trust in our relationships at work?

Defining trust

Trust can be thought of as faith, belief, or hope. It is the feeling of confidence that we have in a person, organisation, or thing. Trust has both a logical and emotional quality. We choose to trust a thing because of how we think and how we feel.

In relationships, trust is foundational, whether that is with friends and family, or with colleagues at work. In the context of relationships trust can be defined as:

“The willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the action of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action.”

Aljazzaf, Oerry, Capretz (2010)

So, whether we are starting to get to know someone and building rapport, or maintaining a long-lasting relationship, trust is critical. But, knowing this, how do you develop a culture of trust and psychological safety in the workplace?

The neuroscience of trust

The first thing we need to understand is how our brains work when it comes to putting faith in someone. Paul J. Zak has spent many years studying the neuroscience of trust. His research has centred around how higher levels of trust are linked to the brain producing higher levels of oxytocin.

It is great knowing that oxytocin helps to develop trust, but it is unlikely that we will be wanting to dose ourselves with synthetic hormones just to be more trusting! Fortunately, during his research, patterns emerged of actions that promoted oxytocin levels (positive behaviours) and things that inhibited its production (such as high stress). These were narrowed down to eight key behaviours to foster trust.

The 8 behaviours that foster trust in the workplace

So here are the eight behaviours, identified by Paul Zak, that can help to release oxytocin naturally and build a more trusting and effective culture in the workplace:

  1. Recognise excellence
  2. Induce “challenge stress” (difficult but achievable tasks)
  3. Give people discretion in how they do their work
  4. Enable job crafting (let employees choose projects to work on)
  5. Share information broadly
  6. Intentionally build relationships
  7. Facilitate whole-person growth
  8. Show vulnerability

Let’s expand each one a little more.

1.     Recognise excellence.

Public recognition of someone, when they have achieved something, can be a huge boost to oxytocin. If the praise is unexpected and personal it is even more powerful. Such recognition also boosts confidence.

2.     Induce “challenge stress”.

Challenge stress is the idea of setting difficult but achievable tasks. These stretch targets prompt personal growth and team development as they require focus and collaboration. These are the BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) championed by Jim Collins in his book Good to Great. The balance here is to find the right level of challenge so as not to push people into negative stress and therefore managers should monitor such goals and adjust them accordingly.

3.     Give people discretion in how they do their work.

If people feel empowered to do work in their way, they are likely to be more motivated and therefore more productive. This trust and freedom have also been shown to improve creativity and innovation. The opposite of this autonomy is when people are micro-managed which has opposite effects.

4.     Enable job crafting.

Job crafting goes beyond discretion about how they do tasks and takes this further to allow employees to choose which projects to work on. Not surprisingly, people work harder on the things they care about. Google has famously championed this way of working, allowing employees to pursue personal projects for 20% of their time alongside normal responsibilities. The challenge for the leader is to align people with their passions while covering all the operational outputs required of a team.

5.     Share information broadly.

People like to be informed; conversely, they hate it if they feel kept in the dark, even if unintentionally. This is because we all need levels of certainty to avoid negative stress. To build trust, organisations need to be open about goals, strategies, and even challenges.

6.     Intentionally build relationships.

Relatedness is important. We all want to feel part of something. But you must be intentional about building a sense of belonging to build high-performing teams. Creating social events and opportunities for social interaction is very important. As mentioned earlier, achieving challenging tasks also helps build and deepen these relationships.

7.     Facilitate whole-person growth.

Good leaders have and promote a growth mindset. They help people to develop personally as well as professionally. They also do not limit a person’s growth to the opportunities available within their organisation. Work-life balance, considerations such as family and health, should sit alongside discussions about performance for a person to feel truly valued and supported.

8.     Show vulnerability.

Finally, people need to show each other vulnerability. Opening up to someone (in an emotionally intelligent way) is an act of trust in itself. As Brené Brown highlights in her book Dare to Lead, when a leader shows vulnerability – when they are truthful about what they don’t know, acknowledge mistakes, or ask for advice from subordinates – it actually promotes credibility and strengthens team bonds.

Encouraging positive behaviours in your team

Whether you are a leader, a team member, or a freelancer working with multiple clients, building trust is vital to effective work environments. Therefore, if you want to have good relationships and high-performing teams, seek to build trust through these 8 behaviours:

  1. Recognise excellence
  2. Induce “challenge stress” (difficult but achievable tasks)
  3. Give people discretion in how they do their work
  4. Enable job crafting (let employees choose projects to work on)
  5. Share information broadly
  6. Intentionally build relationships
  7. Facilitate whole-person growth
  8. Show vulnerability

If you are intrigued by the mindset of trust then I recommend you read How to Stop Your Primal Brain from Hijacking You at Work which explores neuroscientist David Rock’s SCARF model and the psychology behind our social connectivity. This will really help you improve your one-to-one as well as your team interactions.

If you want the right answers you have to start with the right questions

About The Right Questions

The Right Questions is for people who want greater clarity, purpose and success. There is a wealth of resources to boost your effectiveness in achieving goals, your leadership of yourself and others, and your decision-making.

Wherever you are on your journey, I hope that you find information on this site to help you on the next leg of your quest. Even if that is just the inspiration to take one small step in the right direction, then that is a success. If you can take pleasure in learning and travelling as you go, then so much the better.

Need help navigating your journey to success?

I love to serve people, helping them unlock their potential, empowering them as leaders, and assisting them in achieving their goals. Please get in touch and let me know how I can support you!

How to Judge if Someone is Trustworthy using the Trust Equation

Why is trust important? How does trust work? How do we know who to trust?

Trust is foundational to relationships, but it can be hard to quantify. For example, imagine you are away from home and need to go and see a doctor. How do you know whom to trust to help you? You look up local clinics on the internet and find two options. On one website, there is a picture of someone, straight-faced, in casual clothes, accompanied by a short statement of them telling you how good a doctor they think they are. The other site has a picture of a smiling doctor (we know this as they are wearing a white coat with a stethoscope draped around their neck). In the background, we can see various certificates and below the picture is a description of how the staff care about you and your well-being. Which doctor do you choose? Which do you trust?

This is a hypothetical example, but it does demonstrate that knowing whom to trust is a vital part of our decision-making. Therefore, it is no real surprise that neurologically we have developed powerful mechanisms to assess how trustworthy people are. But explaining how this psychology works is slightly harder as the brain works largely intuitively in assessing whether we should trust someone or not.

Fortunately, research has shown that there are common elements at work when we analyse trust. Whether that is for a person we have just met or someone we have known or worked with for a while, it turns out that this feeling is based on some factors that can be measured. And this is where the Trust Equation comes in.

The Trust Equation – understanding the psychology of trust

The Trust Equation was developed by Charles H. Green, co-author of The Trusted Advisor, along with David Maister and Robert M. Galford. They explored the psychology of trust by looking at professional services and how people relate to one another. The result of this study was the Trust Equation.

The equation is actually a measure of trustworthiness, in other words, how much trust we are willing to invest in a person. In this context, to have trust between two parties, you need someone who is trusting and another person who is trustworthy. The equation gets to the heart of that relationship.

Equation of Trustworthiness:

Trust (or Trustworthiness) = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy)/Self-Orientation

The Trust Equation

For clarity, it is worth exploring the terms that Green uses in the equation as some may not be immediately clear. To make things very practical, here are some questions you can ask to think about how someone might score against each of these terms.

Credibility (words)

  • Is the person professionally credible; do they live up to their CV?
  • Do the person’s words fit their actions?

Reliability (actions)

  • Are they dependable?
  • Will they do what they promise?

Intimacy (feelings)

  • Do you feel safe or secure around the person?
  • Do you trust that person with confidential or personal information?

Self-orientation

  • Is a person self-centred, putting themselves before the needs of the vision and team?
  • Are they self-obsessed (always framing an issue from their own perspective) or do they look at a situation more broadly?

As mentioned before, our brains usually intuitively make this calculation but, with the equation, you can quantify each factor by giving it a numerical value (1-10) for the answer to each question.

The Trust Equation (explained in less than 5 minutes)

Examples using the Trust Equation

Let’s explore this with a couple of examples.

Example 1

Firstly, let’s examine how we might perceive the local barista who serves us our coffee in the morning. I am thinking of one in my favourite coffee shop. How do they score on credibility? Well, their claim to be a barista is backed up by the fact that they work in a good café, and I have seen them serve great coffee. Therefore, let’s give them 8 out of 10. In terms of reliability, whenever someone asks for their double-shot latté that’s exactly what they get (and it tastes good too!). So, 9 out of 10 here. In terms of intimacy, I don’t know them well enough to share all my personal life with them, but they do smile, say a warm hello and address me by my name. They make me feel good, thus, let’s make that 7 out of 10. By contrast, the score for self-orientation will be low as whenever I see this person, they are always serving other people. They are asking what other people want, not talking about themselves, so we can give them a 2 out of 10. Using the equation this becomes:

(8+9+7)/2 = 12

Example 2

Now let’s take a contrasting situation. Picture a politician whom you know of but don’t necessarily follow closely. I have one in mind. This person has been a politician for some time so there is credibility there, but they have also changed their messaging on certain issues. So, for credibility, we can give them a 6. This variation in what they say and do also impacts their reliability score as I don’t feel that they will do as they promise. Therefore, this might be a score of 5. In terms of intimacy, I don’t feel I have any real connection with this person. Would I feel safe with them? I would like to think so, but I still can’t give them more than a 6. For self-orientation, the score must be higher than the barista as, even though they are a public servant, I recall that when I have seen them in interviews, they are often defending themselves. Thus, here I would give them a 7. Now, using the equation we have:

(6+5+6)/7 = 2.4

How do we compare trust equation scores?

This prompts some interesting reflections. The scoring indicates that I trust the barista more than four times more than the politician. In some ways, this is true as I have a closer personal relationship with the barista, even if it is just because we know each other’s names. And I really like coffee.

But here we expose a problem. Even though we are giving a quantitative score to trust, this is impacted by qualitative feelings and influenced by cognitive bias. The barista gives me a lovely coffee every time I see them. That has a powerfully positive anchoring effect. By contrast, the politician suffers from negativity biases, as I see them on connected with emotionally negative news. Also, if I am honest, I go to that coffee shop as it is the sort of place ‘people like me’ go to. This means I have an in-group bias towards that barista, but an out-group bias against a politician who belongs to a political party I might not support.

Finding the right comparisons

Here we have illustrated what is good news for baristas but a perennial problem for politicians. We generally love the experience of getting a coffee but are less keen on politics. As our elected leaders feel ever more distant, and all we see are the U-turns in policy or the sound bites on the news, building trust with the electorate becomes very hard.

By contrast, we might feel that we generally trust doctors or teachers, but that is often because we have some personal contact with these people. Even if we don’t know them personally, we hold their qualifications (and therefore their credibility) in high regard.

It is important to note that this comparison of the barista to a politician is also unfair. Trust is also contextual. If the barista suddenly ran for political office, then we are likely to see their scores change, particularly in the realms of credibility. A fairer, and more useful comparison would be scoring one barista against another and one politician against another. That better explains why we might choose one café over another or vote for one representative rather than another.

Applying the trust equation

We all have an intuitive feeling when we trust people but sometimes, particularly when we are unsure of our feelings, it is worth quantifying them. Understanding the trust equation can help do just this and assess the levels of trust that you have with an individual or team.

Remember:

Trust (or Trustworthiness) = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy)/Self-Orientation

Why not experiment with the equation now? You can score someone you are thinking about (to better analyse that relationship) or you can score your team culture to examine the levels of trust within your workplace. Finally, you can also use this as a self-reflection exercise and examine how you perform in each area. Remember to think of evidence – of actual experiences – to back up your scores.

If you want the right answers you have to start with the right questions

About The Right Questions

The Right Questions is for people who want greater clarity, purpose and success. There is a wealth of resources to boost your effectiveness in achieving goals, your leadership of yourself and others, and your decision-making.

Wherever you are on your journey, I hope that you find information on this site to help you on the next leg of your quest. Even if that is just the inspiration to take one small step in the right direction, then that is a success. If you can take pleasure in learning and travelling as you go, then so much the better.

Need help navigating your journey to success?

I love to serve people, helping them unlock their potential, empowering them as leaders, and assisting them in achieving their goals. Please get in touch and let me know how I can support you!