The “Trust Issues” Issue
How well would you do in “the Love Lab?”
Psychologist, professor and author John Gottman created a lab to be able to observe married couples in their natural environment. Don’t think of “Sex, Lies & Videotape” people, it’s more like “undercover boss.” Couples agreed to have Gottman and his team of researchers observe their daily conversations and interactions with each other in order to determine what makes for a happy, life-long marriage. The results of these studies have led Gottman to boast that he can predict, within 5 minutes of observing a couple, whether they will make it or not. (within a 95% confidence rate!) In that observation, he’s only looking for one thing:
Is each person open to the influence of the other?
Said another way, a couple will thrive if they are willing to let the other person have a constructive, growing, positive impact on them.
If they are, it means that they are able to leverage the best of each other, to form something even stronger and more complete as a married unit, compared to if they were just on their own (or pushing/pulling to each get their own way).
Perhaps this seems intuitive to you. Perhaps not. We would suggest that, if Gottman’s research and conclusions are accurate, the bedrock principle and key ingredient underpinning the success of our primary relationships is TRUST.
You will not allow another person to influence, affect and grow you if you do not first trust them. We believe this applies to every close on-going relationship that we have, including the close relationships in our workplaces and teams.
This thought should force us to stop and consider the level of trust that we have in each of our most important relationships. Trust is far more than knowing if the person is telling you the truth, following through with their commitments or choosing to protect our collective best interests in the face of temptations.
Trusting someone enough means to build a deeper connection that will give them permission to influence, change and grow you. For most of us that would seem both daunting and risky, as we have built in survival instincts that warn us that trusting the wrong individuals can leave you vulnerable and exposed.
With that in mind, what needs to be true to be willing to trust someone; to be willing to take their feedback or follow them down a path you’re not sure about?
Learning to trust someone means that you likely:
- Respect their wisdom & consistency of character (not just their intellect or their job title)
- Admire how they show up as a person that would have you aspire to want to model their behavior.
- Believe they have the best intentions in regards to the mutual wellbeing of your relationship (not just their own).
- Are approachable and relatable as they consistently demonstrate a willingness to be vulnerable by exposing their weaknesses and shortcomings.
- Are willing to engage in conflict with others, not for the sake of conflict but rather to get to the right outcome.
- When in conflict, does not act as a knower who is trying to impress others by knowing what is right but rather is a team player who wants to ensure that the collective gets it right.
So with that in mind, let me ask you: Do you trust your team? Your boss? Your #2? Your business partner? Your board?
There are very few of us who could unilaterally say a “hell yes” to all of these people and it would suggest that we all have trust Issues. We come by them honestly, to be sure. For many of us, we have the painful “battle scars” from the list of people who we trusted in the past and who ultimately let us down. I am sure you can relate to at least one of the following scenarios:
People who turned out to be selfishly motivated, at our expense.
People who exploited our vulnerabilities.
People whose history reveals a wake of damaged relationships.
People who used us instead of valuing and growing us.
People who competed with us instead of working to help develop us.
People who value things and have used people to acquire them.
In relationships, trust is not something that is given but rather it is earned. It takes time to build and can be quickly compromised with one indiscretion. The closer our relationships (parents, siblings, spouses, business partners) and the longer the list of violations we experience, the deeper the chasm of our trust issues. If we have experienced the emotionally damaging let down in these close relationships, then it is easy to wonder whether it is ever possible to rebuild trust again.
It would seemingly be easier to safeguard and protect ourselves by choosing not to trust and instead work for ourselves and by ourselves. However the great paradox is that we only grow while in relationship with others. The only way to develop as a person, the only way to succeed as a team, is to learn to build trust in our most important relationships.
Before we jump in to assess the other people in our lives, let's first think about ourselves for a moment. Ask the question, am I a person worthy of other people’s trust? (that’s what trustworthy means).
- Do I regularly put other people’s needs and interests ahead of my own?
- Do I share my vulnerabilities, weaknesses and failings with others?
- Am I open with others on what my needs are?
- Am I seeking to grow my character (rather than just my bank account, list of subscribers or personal accomplishments)...do I even know how to do that?
- Do I seek out mentors who have healthy and solid personal lives (not just idolize those with shiny public lives)?
- Have I broken someone’s trust recently?
- Regularly reflect and ask yourself “how trusting are you and who do you need to become to be more trustworthy?”
Seeking to become a person worthy of others’ trust is the starting point for building meaningful relationships. Choosing to become a person that is trustworthy, is the first step to attracting other trustworthy individuals. The more we value being a trust-worthy person, the more empowered we become to evaluate how to find other trust-worthy team members and that is the only way to create high performing teams.
For more on this, (re)read Patrick Lencioni’s “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”.
And for some of us, perhaps it’s finally time to seek outside help in order to deal with the Trust Issues from our past. Pig’s do not know that pig’s stink and to that end we may not be aware of the broken belief systems that are holding us back from giving and receiving the trust we need to truly thrive in our most important relationships.
We are where we are in our lives as a result of our past relationships. In many cases we may have developed trust issues as a result of the pains of our past. While we are all products of our past (whether we want to admit it or not) we don’t need to be prisoners of it. Choose to live life to its fullest potential by taking the necessary steps to build more trust in your most valuable relationships. Fully,
