Q: Trust is good. We know this. But why is it particularly important in the workplace?
A: My belief is trust is not a soft skill. It is a bottom-line decision. If you don’t think trust affects the bottom line in the workplace, ask Tiger Woods. Your credit score is a trust score; the more you’re trusted by the lender, the less you pay over the course of a loan. Professor [John] Whitney at Columbia Business School said mistrust doubled the cost of doing business. I believe it costs way more than that, and a lack of trust is your biggest expense. And every time trust goes up, stress goes down, attrition goes down, time-to-market goes down.
Q: You say trust has eight pillars: clarity, compassion, character, competency, commitment, connection, contribution and consistency. Which of these is most important to someone’s career?
A: I believe you need all eight. The consistency pillar — the worker who’s consistent, I can trust. The worker who’s inconsistent, I can’t trust. The contribution pillar — that’s the idea that we get results. At the end of the day, I need to get results. But I also need the compassion and clarity pillar. So I can have someone who’s all compassion and who has character, but if they don’t give results I won’t trust them. On the other hand, I have a sales guy who gets results but he doesn’t have compassion and character — over time I won’t trust him.
Q: But there’s always some guy in an office nobody trusts but seems to do just fine. What explains that?
A: The truth is that lack of trust always has an impact. Look at Bernie Madoff. He tried to kill himself before he went into prison. And from prison, he said I’ve never been more at peace in life. You don’t think that breach of the character pillar had an impact in his life? I know there are idiots at work, and you have to navigate around that, but if you look at their lives with a bigger perspective, every one of the pillars has an impact. You want to see a successful person — including their bottom line — who has all eight pillars.
Q: Can you simply be trustworthy and have everything go your way, or does trustworthiness have to be somehow conveyed to others?
A: One of the pillars is clarity. People trust what’s clear, and they mistrust what’s ambiguous. You do have to communicate it, just like a leader has to communicate vision or people don’t know it. People are generally not as clear as they think they are.
Q: Can trust be regained after it’s been lost?
A: It can, but it starts with making and keeping commitments. A lot of people will make an apology, but they won’t move to a commitment. I asked a CEO from the Netherlands what is the difference between America and the Netherlands? He said, “You’ve got a bunch of lying apologizers. They all say they’re sorry, and they don’t mean it.” We have people who say, “I’m sorry I’m late.” No, you’re not sorry. You’re always late. People think they’re done when they say they’re sorry, and the truth is we don’t trust them anymore until they make another commitment and keep it.