Building Trust: Showing Up & Being Seen (part two)
Do you want your associates engaging in more authentic conversations? Giving and receiving honest feedback? Giving a discretionary effort on a daily basis? Lowering turnover rates? So does every organization. However, wanting to see these results will do nothing to move the needle. If these outcomes are to be reached, organizations have get to the root of why conversations are not authentic, why people abstain from giving feedback, why there is a lack of accountability, and why people continue to leave. The root of these issues is a lack of trust and until organizations work to build trust, they will not see a change in their associate's behavior.
The challenge with trust is just because you want it - or tell someone to have it… doesn't mean you get it. You have to build trust - and it takes time. Trust is hard to define but easy to identify when it is missing. I watch companies wrestle with how to define “trust” and “integrity” when they select these words as organizational values. People will look at me and say, “You can’t really explain it, you just have to have it.” I believe if we cannot explain it - if we can not put behaviors behind it - then we cannot expect alignment to it. Therefore, we are going to back up and look at the elements we can incorporate into our interactions with those whom we wish to build trust. Building trust is broken down into two components, Showing Up and Being Seen. Each of those components have two elements which underpin it:
Showing up
-Consistency
-Connectivity
Being Seen
-Transparency
-Vulnerability
We crave trust because when we can trust, our life is simplified. If I trust you to complete a task, I do not have to use my capacity to think about that task. If I trust you to keep me employed, I can focus on doing my best work opposed to looking for a job. In Michael Wakefield and Kerry A. Bunker's essay, Leader Development in Times of Change, they mention, “interpersonal trust functions to reduce complexity in decision processes and social relationships.” When we trust, the complexity of the decisions I make related to that trust become simpler.
This is the second post in the “Building Trust” collection. Check out the first post to dive deeper into the elements of Showing Up - Consistency and Connectivity.
BEING SEEN
Transparency
Transparency has become part of the corporate lingo - everyone is asking for increased transparency and everyone complains when they feel it is lacking. When working with middle management, I often hear things like, “I am sure my boss has a plan they haven’t yet filled me in on…” followed by a defeated shrug. What they are really saying is there is information they need, which they are not receiving, that would help them meet their desired outcomes. When associates think their boss is hiding information from them, they do not feel trusted. When they do not feel trusted, they do not give trust and we watch engagement slip downwards. The interesting thing about these experiences is 9 times out of 10 times… the boss does NOT have a plan or an answer. But it doesn’t matter because the perceptionis a lack of transparency. Transparency requires sharing information when it is available and being clear when there is none to share.
However, we have become used to everything being transparent. We see every time a company has shipped a damage item (thanks to photos attached to product reviews). We see everything our coworker’s cousin’s kid eats for lunch (thanks to instagram and facebook and snapchat). We can get any answer by asking one of our many smart devises a question. We have hit a point where we expectto be privy to information - wether it is relevant or not. The challenge arrises when there are actual situations where information can not be shared (safety, security, privacy). We, as those who choose to lead, have to be transparent about what can be transparent and be ready to clearly state what is and what is not available information.
To Be Transparent:
-Share anything vital to an individual’s effort
-Be clear about what cannot be shared and why
Vulnerability
At its most simplistic, vulnerability is about allowing ourselves to be seen, really seen. The challenge is, most of us don’t want to be really seen. Most of us want to be perceived as seen - and want that perception to show only the best version of themselves. I ran a workshop recently and asked the participants to talk about how they spend their time. At one point I sat down with a woman who was stressfully looking through her time matrix, “I think I am doing this all wrong.” She said, looking up at me with a glistening of a tear in her eye, “On Instagram I see how people live their lives and none of them look like mine.” And right there - that is the challenge when we lack vulnerability. We put people in a position to think they are alone. That they are the only one feeling this way. In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown talks about the courage to say, “Here is my story. You are not alone.” She talks about it in terms of courage - it takes courage to be vulnerable.
I have a client who was transitioning out of the company he ran for years. Through the transition we spoke about the tasks that needed to be handed off and how he could begin making that transfer. One of the items on the list he labeled as “Difficult Conversations.” When I questioned him, he shared that over the years, he, and he alone, had been responsible for all the difficult conversations that needed to happen at the company - firing someone, giving constructive feedback, telling a customer there had been a mistake on the job, etc. Then he looked at me and said, “In all honesty, it’s one of the things I can’t wait to have off my plate. Everyone thinks I am so good at those conversations - they don’t know the toll it takes on me every time I have to have one.”
And that lack of vulnerability has negatively impacted both him and his people. In terms of the impact it has had on him - his stress is never validated and he has to go through each experience feeling very much alone. In terms of the impact it has on others - he never shared how hard having difficult conversations are for him, so others think he is just naturally great at having those conversations. People always handed them off to him and they never practiced and therefore never developed the skill.
When we acknowledge our struggles and mistakes it shows we are human and creates a safe environment for others to not be perfect and acknowledge when they make mistakes or need help.
To Be Vulnerable:
-Give a peak into the perfect and the not so perfect
-Share your story
Being Seen requires we trust those we are being seen by. As leaders, we have to model the way and that may mean we must step out of our comfort zone. We may need to extend trust (I trust you enough to be seen by you) before we are completely comfortable extending that trust. But most leaders fear the outcome of being seen. They are likely, “to be overly invested in maintaining an image of self-reliance and self-confidence (unflappable, stiff upper lip, never let them see you sweat) that undermines the very thing they are struggling to accomplish: establishing and maintaining the trust that will allow them to create and maintain commitment.” (Leader Development in Times of Change). We always have the choice - send a message that you are unflappable - or send a message that you have the courage to been seen.
Check out the first post to dive deeper into the elements of Showing Up - Consistency and Connection.
