How, when getting together for business purposes, perhaps on an individual basis or in meetings, do we look to build trust, and maybe more importantly, does how we communicate prevent trust being developed?
Am sure on numerous occasions, you have seen senior people look to make a very important point to others and quite frankly the person speaking has either not made much progress at all or actually, made the situation antagonistic.
Building and developing trust is critical within a business context, especially if productive, constructive relationships are going to develop. There is a seminal book on this subject, The Trusted Advisor, written in 2000 by David Maister. In the book, Maister introduces the Trusted Equation. In essence, the amount of trust that exists is expressed as an equation having credibility, reliability and intimacy as the numerators and self-orientation as the denominator. For this article, the focus will be on the intimacy variable.
Whilst intimacy can be thought of narrowly within the context of confidentiality, there is real merit to also focus on the key attributes of a conversation that can develop trust or indeed severely hinder trust arising.
Often, where difficult conversations need to be had, participants, or at least one of them, gravitate to the use of technical and often negative language, be that when talking about processes and concepts or even as simple as reverting to the use of not widely understood acronyms.
Why does the person use this type of vocabulary? Could it be to demonstrate, supposedly, superior knowledge to others, could it be to deliberately alienate more junior people in the room or could it just simply be a lack of awareness that such a style is inherently alienating.
The vocabulary used is vitally important if intimacy has any way of developing and if intimacy is not developed, and referring back to the Trust Equation, then trust will be adversely impacted.
For example, in working with Internal Audit teams who have to deliver difficult news to an examined department that risks have been identified as ‘high’, the business department is naturally defensive. Too often the Internal Audit team use language such as ‘necessary regulatory requirement’ and ‘fines may well be incurred’ to emphasise the ‘high’ risk assessment. Whilst such phrases may well be correct, too often their use does not enhance intimacy and in fact negates intimacy. Where an alternative approach is taken and the communication is much more about the specific, direct business implications if the risk is to occur, there is a much greater tendency for the risk rating to be accepted, trust to develop much more quickly and potentially, valuable beneficial business relationships to be formed.
When I hear overt use of technical language being used in meetings, I often think of how a radio presenter would address such a situation. The radio presenter is ultimately concerned about building and developing trust with the listeners. A good radio presenter will interject and look for the interviewee to clarify, in simple terms, the technical terms or the acronyms as used. If the radio presenter fails to do this, there is a high risk the listener will lose interest and look to utilise their time in other ways. In essence, the radio presenter has lost the trust of the listener by severely reducing the level of intimacy.
The most effective leaders and managers are excellent in building trust, even when very difficult negotiations are happening, and to a great extent the development of the intimacy, and by definition not reducing intimacy, is achieved by utilising simple positive language and making sure everyone present feels involved and connected, not alienated. The best exponents of building trust quickly will often use concise, but very relevant, storytelling techniques to ensure the communication does not err towards alienating expressions.
When next involved in a business get-together, and this could be in the guise of talking, listening or even just observing, ask yourself if the language being used is accretive or destructive to intimacy being formed. Question if the language used can be positively amended and from which there will be the tangible benefits of genuine intimacy and hence, trust developing more quickly and more deeply.