The Benefits of Trust
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It seems a great deal of the business classes teach all come down to a variety of common threads: setting appropriate goals, understanding the problem, motivating people. But one aspect crosses over all of these, and has relevancy for everything beyond business as well. Generating trust, and more so, the benefits of trust.
How to generate trust is best described by David Maister, Charles Green and Robert Galford in their 2000 book The Trusted Advisor (here from Amazon, or here from Booktopia in Australia). It’s not only one of my favourite business books, but one of the few I’ve kept for my bookshelves.
The benefits of trust are not so concisely found, so here’s a list I’ve pulled together over the years.
The more _____ (a client, a colleague, etc) trusts you, the more they will:
- Reach out to you for advice
- Be inclined to accept and act on your recommendations
- Bring you in on more advanced, complex and strategic issues
- Reward you with more business (and repeat business)
- Share more information with you, which in turns, helps you to improve the quality of service you provide others
- Pay your bills on time and without question
- Introduce you to colleagues, team members, business acquaintances, their friends, and other key people to build your network
- Lower the level of stress in your interactions, if not minimise future potential conflicts
- Give you the benefit of the doubt
- Forgive you when you make a mistake
- Protect you when you need it … even from their own organisation
- Warn you of dangers that you might avoid
- Be comfortable and allow you to be comfortable
- Involve you early on when issues begin to form, rather than later in the process
- Trust your instincts and judgments, including those about other people
And perhaps most of all, respect you … if not, you will feel more confident about yourself and your work.
Any to add? Please add to the comments below.