Why do we trust someone?
Vasi is here 🙂
Coffee – ✅
Spotify on – ✅
Evernote open – ✅
It’s Wednesday for me and (most likely) Friday for you 😀
Sooo, it’s dose-time!
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Estimated reading time: 7 minutes, 55 seconds.
What’s the issue about?
I just sent my 2-year-old boy to my parents. On the subway on the way home, I started reading Fredrik Backman’s book “And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer” – a story about the slow forgiveness between a man and his grandson, between a father and his boy. The book opens with a message from the author that reminded me of what makes me really love writing so much: “I was just trying to organize my own thoughts, and I’m one of those people who needs to see them on paper to understand them.” 🙂
And so this dose will be for understanding a magical feeling: why we trust some people and not others.
I’m sure you’ve had quite a few cases where you meet someone and even after spending a little time with them, you start to feel the “chemistry” between you and start to trust them that they won’t screw you up.
My most vivid case was when I first saw Hari and Petya from the gang. After 2 hours with them, I knew this was my place to work. And these are exactly my people. Our gang recently celebrated our 7th birthday. I joined shortly before our 3rd birthday. And I’m happy because that feeling from 4 years ago is still the same.
Well, in this dose you will understand the mechanism that is actually “under the hood” of this feeling of complete trust and instant match that we build with a person.
My point is that you will be able to use the mechanisms to build trust with the people you work with within your team or outside of it such as clients and management.
To achieve blind trust and to display dependability.
It’s something that Hari and Petya developed for their latest training (the Trusted Advisor Training), and I like to steal for you just such useful soft skills tips that we cook in our lab.
I believe that trust is the most valuable resource we can have. It’s no coincidence that trust is also the basis of the TReE Team Model developed by us, through which we make dev teams powerful. Trust is the team’s hidden foundation, which consists of strong human relationships and a psychologically safe environment.
In a previous dose, I wrote about the two types of trust: Affective Trust and Cognitive Trust. And what drives each type of trust.
Let’s see which behaviors are behind building each of the two kinds of trust.
And I’ll do a reality check with you, going back 4 years, to my first meeting with Hari and Petya.
Building Affective Trust
Affective Trust (trust of the heart) is the emotional and interpersonal kind of trust.
It is strongly driven by emotions such as empathy, close relationships, and concern. It is the trust that people have in you as a person with good and honorable intentions towards them.
Behaviors behind building affective trust in the other person are:
1. Show vulnerability – share personal information, position, experience
2. Respond to what they share – don’t ignore, but react empathetically
3. Share observations – say something you’ve seen around them
4. Ask personal questions – show interest and be curious about them as a person
Through these behaviors, you will find common ground between you and the other person on a personal level.
Building Cognitive Trust
Cognitive Trust (trust of the head) is the dispassionate kind of trust.
It is strongly driven by logic. It is the belief of other people about your competence and professional abilities as an expert.
Behaviors behind building cognitive trust in the other person are:
1. Share your experience – give specific examples from your past experience
2. Show your expertise – give details from under the hood, but use their words
3. Communicate transparently – explain what will happen next; if there is a problem – explain what led here
4. Set clear expectations – promise what you can deliver; don’t promise everything & don’t promise nothing; don’t promise what they want to hear
Through these behaviors, you will show yourself as an honest and transparent expert and you will sound confident.
Reality Check of Petya and Hari’s Behaviors
This particular situation was actually a job interview. And I had to judge:
– Will I enjoy working with these people (even will I enjoy seeing them in a non-work context as well)
– Will I have a nice and calm work environment?
==> Do I have Affective Trust in them?
– Do they understand how a company develops?
– Will this company be successful? (that is, do they understand the job as trainers?)
– Will I have stability in this company?
==> Do I have Cognitive Trust in them?
I remember these moments from our conversation:
1️⃣ “We don’t want to mislead you. We won’t be able to afford the salary you’ve had so far. It’s just that the company is at a stage where we don’t have the revenue to afford that salary.
We wish we could give you more. But… at the moment we also cannot have such salaries that suit us. Or such as we would have received if we had remained in our previous positions in the IT sector.
We cannot tell you specifically at what point you will be able to reach the salary you had at your previous job.”
==> They didn’t sugarcoat or oversell working with them. They said openly and directly what they could offer me as a job, what they couldn’t, and what their plans were. And they explain everything confidently.
Show vulnerability – ✅
(Affective Trust)
Share your experience – ✅
Communicate transparently – ✅
Set clear expectations – ✅
(Cognitive Trust)
2️⃣ “Working in a startup has its pros and cons. We have a lot of flexibility and you will be able to have freedom – from where to work, when, and with whom, to give ideas and execute them. It also has disadvantages such as uncertainty. We are still a small company. We do everything ourselves. You will need to change roles and functions frequently.
(Hari:) For example, so far we have been conducting training, and now I will have to prepare invoices, and then Petya and I will have to prepare an offer for a new client. Yesterday I went shopping for materials for our next training… We are a financial, sales, and administrative department at the same time.”
==> They shared their experience, and difficulties, but also good things that happened to them when starting the company.
Show vulnerability – ✅
(Affective Trust)
Share your experience – ✅
Show your expertise – ❌
Communicate transparently – ✅
Set clear expectations – ✅
(Cognitive Trust)
3️⃣ In the beginning, our conversation started with stories about… skirts 😀 Petya fell in love with the green and long skirt I was wearing then. After that, it became interesting to them that I had returned from Croatia the previous day. They asked me about the island of Krk, where I and my partner were. Hari told me that he was also in Croatia and in Krk!
… but it turned out that he was in Krk – the park which – yep, is not on the island of Krk 😀
==> From the very beginning of our meeting, they relaxed the atmosphere. And they set the conversation to be friendly.
Respond to what they share – ✅
Share observations – ✅
Ask personal questions – ✅
(Affective Trust)
Now it’s your turn 🙂
1. Think of someone you can tell you trust as a person, and as a professional. It could be a colleague, a manager, a friend, or even someone you don’t know personally, but you follow their advice and learn from them
(my example of someone I trust and learn marketing and copywriting things from is Eddie Shleyner).
2. Look again at the 2 lists of behaviors. And think if they do or have done most of them. I bet they do 😉
If you want to explore more on the subject:
3 useful tools to take care of trust in your team:
– See A Leader’s Tale comic for the 4 phrases for building trust
– Do a Personal Histories Exercise to build affective trust with your teammates
– Improve trust in your team by discussing difficult topics. To do that safely – throw an Anxiety Party
Stay Healthy, my dear Pill-er!
– Vasi
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