Dreams Come Alive

You don’t just give away your trust easily. It is something you gain over time and not just get at the snap of your fingers”, a close friend opined earlier today when I asked what the big T- word meant to her.

Based on informal discussions and chats with many others, hers seems to be a fair reflection of the perspective of wider society. Without going into whether that is a right or wrong, or good or bad view, it is clear that in the interconnected spheres of tight friendships, close family kinships, loving intimate relationships and high performing corporate networks, trust is a significant difference maker.  

According to the Dean of a management education institute whom I recently interviewed as part of a consultancy project on the global corporate team player, once trust is lost it is enormously difficult to bring it back. Certainly cheated spouses and bamboozled businessmen the world over can bear testament to that sentiment.

A fair question to ask is “how does one build and maintain trust in any relationship or partnership?” but I think people do already know how to do that. Perhaps a better question is when to build and maintain trust? 

Are you demonstrating trust in every memo and email exchange? In every question asked and every instruction issued? In your assumptions and evaluation of others? In the way you look at your partner and/or colleague? In the way you interact with others? 

Building trust is like learning how to walk or talk or eat or write. We became masters of daily acts by doing them over and over again, by continually practising them, by constantly using those techniques and by being conscious of performing them.

It takes not just an isolated action or an occasional deed but a consistent and habitual set of behaviours to establish and nurture that all-important ingredient. In other words, trust needs to be lived.