Posted by Damos on August 25, 2005, at 17:27:57
In reply to What if....., posted by cricket on August 25, 2005, at 11:49:44
Hey Cricket :-)
Trust is a combination of Character and Competence. Character is about motives, values, honesty, etc. Competence is about capability, knowledge and skill. We don't judge competence by bits of paper hanging on a wall, we tend to percieve it. So trusting means "I know you will not deliberately (character) or accidentally (competence), consciously or unconsciously - take unfair advantage of me." Trust is a measure of my safety with you. In order to be trusted you must first be trustworthy. In all honesty the hardest thing about trust is that to get the most out of it you actually have to trust a little too much. Much of the building of trust is done through the making and keeping of committments. You make one and keep it, my trust in you goes up and you put a deposit in my "emotional bank account" (Stephen Covey) that I'll allow you to draw down against later. You keep making and breaking them and your account will be overdrawn so I'll stop lending.
Trust is only 1 of 6 essential elements of a solid relationship, the others being:
Understanding
Acceptance
Respect
Courtesy and
Mutual AccountabilityUnderstanding is really important because our understanding of each other helps us build trust. The better I understand you the clearer my picture of your character and competence and therefore my assumptions as to your motives, intent and my ability to read you moods, sense of humour etc.
Acceptance. Peoples emotions tend to move from anxiety to acceptance as they learn more about the other person. It's about approving of someone, even though they may be very unlike you. Basic training in the military is really about taking these people from vastly different backgrounds and breaking them down to a level where they can accept each other and appreciate what each persons differences bring to the whole.
Respect. 'All' of you are a team and each of you brings something to the table. In solid relationships and high performing teams the input of every single member is treated with respect and appreciation
Coutesy is all about how we address, listen to and respond to one another. Courtesy is a manifestation of trust, acceptance and respect. We demonstrate it by graciousness, consideration for one another, sincerity, listening and the type of humour we use with each other.
Mutual Accountability is basically "if you don't succeed, we don't succeed"
The ability to collaborate "on" purpose is also where magic can happen. What I mean is that we can work together on something never exactly having an agreed and shared purpose or, we can collaborate "on" purpose where we agree and share a common goal and purpose that we are both working toward.
It's also important that when you're trying to build solid relationship that things be really explicit. Because otherwise you tend to fill in the blanks with assumptions, judgements, past stuff etc
What you described sounds like a paradigm shift. A shift in the way you percieve, understand and interpret the world. I think it was Thomas Kuhn who said something like: that every significant breakthrough in science is first a break with tradition, old ways of thinking, or old paradigms.
Sorry to have gone on so long. Please feel free to ignore the lot. I just know when I worked with our people leaders about this stuff a lot of it came as a shock and the very awareness of what was needed to make solid relationships and the feedback from their teams actually helped some of them change their behaviour and the way they related to their people.
It's never too late the change the way we view a relationship. Wishing you well Cricket.
poster:Damos
thread:546520
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050824/msgs/546617.html