Trust is an essential element for any relationship.
If your children trust that they can share with you they will do so, at least more often. If you have strong trust in your relationships at work with your team and the leadership, you can accomplish what may otherwise seem (or even be) insurmountable.
In a truly great book, “The Soft Edge,” by Rich Karlgaard he devotes much time to sharing stories and research on the power of building trust in business especially. The bottom line is this: profits and customer engagement are off the charts for teams that have a strong sense of trust.
“The big lesson: You can pay for someone’s time at work, and people will show up and do what they need to do. But you can’t wrench ideas, extraordinary effort and innovative solutions from their minds. Instead, if you give trust and respect, you’ll find those great, innovative ideas readily offered.”
It is interesting to me that more leaders don’t spend more time ensuring they get this absolutely right. (According to Karl, only 19% of people trust business leaders to make ethical or moral decisions. Worse yet, only 18% trust business leaders to even tell the truth… Side note: I think this is true in parenting. We sometimes don’t think we should have to “build” trust in our homes, but I’d say that healthier homes depend on it.)
The book has some strategies for building trust, (transparency and authenticity are key…), but I won’t go into a full playbook here. As always in this blog, I hope to inspire you to consider the topic and to take action if you believe it is speaking to you. I have been in organizations where this has proven beyond true, and can personally give you the differences if you reach out to me. This is critical in our homes, communities and work. Let’s stay on top of it and grow where we can.
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