One of my favorite parts of my morning walks is listening to podcasts. I get to learn while I get my endorphins. I listened for a second time this morning to a Brené Brown conversation with Charles Feltman, the author of The Thin Book of Trust.
Lack of trust has been an area of concern in our annual Voice of the Employee survey, and it has been highlighted to me in many conversations in the last few weeks, so I have been thinking a lot about how to be better at building trust.
The definition of trust as “choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s action” is at the core of why this is so important and difficult. It is also complicated by the fact that trust is multi-layered.
- Do I trust that you have my interests at heart in addition to your own?
- Do I trust that you are being honest?
- Do I trust you to do what you commit to doing?
- Do I trust your competence?
- Do I trust that you can keep a confidence?
In Brown’s conversation with Feltman, there was a marvelous exchange about whether you could trust someone in some areas and not others and both agreed that it is both possible and critical to do that.
I am still processing what I learned, but my key personal takeaway from the podcast was that it is often the lack of clear commitments and boundaries that create the foundation of distrust. I need to work on that!
I would love to hear what you learned from this podcast or about how to think about trust.