TRUST
I think a lot about trust and how difficult it is to achieve. Trust is the foundation of all good relationships, whether business, professional or personal, yet the components of trust are often elusive. My dictionary tells me that trust is reliance on the integrity or strength of another, confidence in another, but it doesn't tell me how to give or receive it. Experience tells me when it is achieved but doesn't tell me how to get there in all circumstances.
I've known people who I trusted at my first encounter and people I've known for many years who I don't fully trust. There are people who trust me in certain situations, in certain matters, yet don't trust me in others. I've been trusted for years and then suddenly lost the confidence of some people. Do they think I've changed, that I'm a different person? In the absence of some defining event, why do they suddenly lose confidence in me? Or is it that they never fully trusted me?
I believe that trust requires several things on both sides of a relationship. The first is openness. People don't trust someone they don't or can't know. If you are withdrawn and closed, people will assume you have something to hide, something you're ashamed of, something which makes it hard to trust you. While you can still gain trust without revealing yourself fully, it will take longer. The second is the opportunity to respond in a trustworthy manner. This opportunity doesn't necessarily require direct interaction, it can be an opportunity of the past which forms part of your reputation, but people will rarely trust you if you've never proven yourself to be trustworthy. To have these opportunities, you must interact with people and give yourself the chance. People will be hesitant to give you these opportunities so when they're offered, grab them, embrace them, use them to show people they can rely on you. Finally, trust, axiomatically, requires you to perform in a trustworthy manner. If you fail to meet commitments, if you perform poorly, if you do something dishonest, even in small ways, people won't trust you.
There's another important component to trust, though. We must trust others. It's difficult, if not impossible, to be trusted if you're unable to trust. People who are suspicious, people who don't trust their colleagues, friends, lovers, acquaintances, create the illusion that they are untrustworthy. This illusion makes it difficult to gain trust. Now, I don't mean to urge blind acceptance of promises, naive reliance on people we don't know, leaving ourselves open to damage from bad people. I mean that we must start from a desire to trust, almost an expectation that we can trust. Maybe if we're willing to trust, we'll find more trustworthy people. Ronald Reagan urged that we trust but verify. Let's adopt that attitude until we learn enough to trust but let's seek to trust.
Without trust, relationships are impossible. With trust, we can happily interact with others. Seek and gain the trust of others. But also seek to trust others. You will help yourself be trusted.
10-8-01
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