Trust is the theme for this month’s newsletter, and we’ve been doing a lot of leadership development work around trust for our clients – both teaching leaders the tools to lead with trust and working with leadership teams to build cultures of trust. Trust can be a difficult thing to grasp – it can seem so abstract or intangible because, well, it is. But it doesn’t have to be.   

Trust is an action. It’s a verb. It’s something you do. And when we view it that way, we make it tangible.  

One of the reasons we are obsessed with teaching leaders how to build trust is because of these data points:  

• 85% of organizations have cultures of low trust 

• 58% of employees would trust a stranger over their boss 

• 93% of business executives believe the trust improves the bottom line 

• 61% of workers say that low trust impacts their ability to get their work done 

Plus, studies have shown that psychological safety (aka trust) is the #1 indicator of a high-performance team.  

Trust and psychological safety are must-haves for thriving, profitable organizations. You’ll have higher retention rates, productivity, performance, innovation, and collaboration.  

And the key to achieving high trust is making it an ongoing commitment through your consistent actions. However, it’s not that easy – or everyone would be doing it (and 85% of companies would have cultures of high trust instead of the reverse being true).  

Since trust can seem like a complex topic, here are some of the simple ways we teach leaders to build trust:  

(1) Make daily Relationship Bank Account deposits: you have a Relationship Bank Account (RBA) with each of your colleagues, your team members – really anyone you work with. And the strength of the relationship is based on the strength of the RBA. This means you need to be making more deposits into these bank accounts (recognition, meeting deadlines, following through on promises) than withdrawals (forgetting a birthday or milestone, missing a promised deadline). We work with leaders to create a RBA recognition system that is doable and genuine for them. For example, you can start with a goal of making three RBA deposits per week.  

(2) Create a “win bank”: this is an easy way to celebrate your team’s success and celebrate the wins. This can be a shared resource that everyone can contribute to, and then you can share the wins at your regular monthly team meetings. As high-achievers, we often don’t pause to practice gratitude and celebrate our achievements, and the win bank is a tool to start doing that.  

(3) 85% vs 100% Rule: this might be my favorite tool of all time. Often on a team, team members assume that every single task or project needs to be 100 percent. This keeps people from sharing rough drafts early and often for feedback and refinement. This can also cause people to experience imposter syndrome and not share their suggestions and ideas for improvements on team projects. It’s extremely helpful to go through your teams’ projects, tasks, and responsibilities, and identify which ones can be 85% and which ones need to be 100%. For example, the first draft of a project can be 85%, but spreadsheets for a board meeting needs to be 100%.  

(4) Renegotiate Deadlines: as high-achieving, highly scheduled people, how often do we overcommit and then later regret it? If you’re anything like me, it’s often. Picture this – you’re in a meeting and someone asks you to take on a project and your inner people-pleaser overcommits to a deadline. And you’re dying inside. Once you leave that meeting, you’re allowed to circle back and renegotiate the deadline. And it sounds something like this, “Hi, Sarah. I was overly ambitious in my deadline commitment to X project. Would it be possible to have a new deadline of X?” A renegotiated deadline is much better than a missed deadline – and it’s an easy way to build trust because you’re showing them you value their project.  

These are just a few of the ways you can make trust a verb. You can even start taking action this week! Which one are you going to try?  

Remember – the goal isn’t to be perfect. The goal is to have the courage and consistency to make trust a priority. It’s good for your people and it’s good for business.  

Best,  

Vitale