Trust is Key

Trust is essential in working with colleagues and or team members. In order to earn the trust of others, you must trust yourself. You must believe in your own integrity and reliability, and that begins with keeping/honoring your commitments. Do what you say you're going to do!

Trust is earned, and it takes time. It definitely includes being authentic, showing a respect for and a true interest in others, being a giver, and doing the little things right, like being courteous, being on time, and doing what you say you will.

Trust: It's Importance

Elizabeth is a SVP and holds a high level position in a public relations agency. She loves her work, feels the agency is family to her, and wants to contribute to her absolute maximum ability. She knows this means she needs to do great work, as do the members of the five person marketing team she heads. Elizabeth tries to be the role model the team will look up to, working long hours, responding to client needs quickly and dutifully, being quick to praise team members, and being certain to pass along important information to her team so they feel well informed and important, which they are. Elizabeth and her team’s results are good, though with stretch goals the past two years they are coming up just short.

About seven months ago, we began to work together. Elizabeth gave me permission to talk with her team members. She was initially staggered by feedback, which was certainly generally good, as she is admired for her work ethic and is dedicated to their clients and their agency. What we learned though, was while Elizabeth wants to “be there” for her team members and schedules frequent little meetings so she may talk one on one with each person, she usually cancels these meetings, and usually with short notice, always for a good reason – a client need. Elizabeth felt her team members understood as the client comes first. We talked at some length about this. Her team members had grown tired of the constant last minute cancellations, and felt she was not really all that interested in their ideas, their goals, and in them, and that had led to a lack of trust.

Elizabeth came up with her strategy: she must treat her team members as clients, internal clients, and pay close attention to them, just as she does the agency’s external clients. She now has an early morning coffee each week with one or two team members, and she does all in her power to to protect that time so that she may ask purposeful questions, take notes and show she is truly interested in each person on her team. While a couple of these meetings have had to be postponed, because of client needs, Elizabeth immediately reschedules, if possible for later the same day, definitely as soon as possible.

While this different approach is just three months old, it is evident that there is a renewed level of trust, esprit d’corps is up, people seem a lot more excited and energetic. Elizabeth and her team feel there are going to produce amazing marketing results this year. Trust is the difference.