Interpersonal soft skills are significant in their ability to build relationships forged on trust. Honest communication, mutual respect, even where there are differences of world view or personal opinion, integrity and ethical behaviour, contribute to underpinning the trust factor. Trust is required in constructing healthy communities and organisations, and when it upheld, has been seen to unleash creativity, engender empowerment, optimise teamwork. Fostering a culture of trust, therefore, rewards communities and organizations that hold true to the principles as a highly valuable intangible asset. Both Jack Welch and Warren Bennis maintain it as a key component to business succcess and yet few companies or institutions seem to manage in enfranchise trust sustainably because of a failure to transmit it as a cultural norm.

The characteristics of trustworthiness include integrity, reliability, fairness, caring, openness, reciprocality and, within appropriate caveats that does not transgress a core value set, loyalty. Organizations and institutional policies might promote a culture of trust by promoting open communication, by modeling behaving in socially responsible and ethical ways to every employee.

According to Charles Green, creator of the Trust Equation, ‘the way we use the Trust Creation Process model is really just outcomes of the principles we hold.’ What I understand Charles to impute, it that who we are and what values we hold to be true, informs how we engage and behave with others across the board.

Green maintains that the only way to become trusted is to act consistently from a set of core principles and the four specific principles governing trustworthy behavior that he cites are:

1) A focus on the Other (client, customer, internal co-worker, boss, partner, subordinate) for the Other’s sake, not just as a means to one’s own ends.

We often hear “client-focus,” or “customer-centric.” But these are terms all-too-often framed in terms of economic benefit to the person trying to be trusted.

2) A collaborative approach to relationships.

Collaboration here means a willingness to work together, creating both joint goals and joint approaches to getting there.

3) A medium to long term relationship perspective, not a short-term transactional focus.

Focus on relationships nurtures transactions; but focus on transactions chokes off relationships. The most profitable relationships for both parties are those where multiple transactions over time are assumed in the approach to each transaction.

4) A habit of being transparent in all one’s dealings.

Transparency has the great virtue of helping recall who said what to whom. It also increases credibility, and lowers self-orientation, by its willingness to keep no secrets.

According to Green, applying these principles to all of our actions will develop the fullest potential of trust that bonds and binds relationships, and thereby, builds longevity and reward born from such a strong tie.

As this erudite research on trust reveals, ‘Trust has several beneficial effects. It helps build teams, where trust acts as a bond of tying people together. It reduces energy otherwise required for controls. It helps in cases of conflict. Overall, it reduces task complexity.’

The benefits trust rewards us with professionally, socially and personally, are worthy of our time, attention and investment to explore, accomodate and demonstrate. Make no mistake. your ‘relationship capital’ is being accounted for with every interaction, so it is a wise person that conducts themselves with every meritricious endeavour of creating relationships bound and bonded in trust.

Understanding the power of a quality relationship management depends a good deal on an awareness of people’s behaviour and preferences. Soliciting from any group, community or department, what motivates, inspires and provides satisfying experiences is key to creating strong bonds and powerful alliances that drive buy in and support, no matter the context.

Currently relationship management, across all it’s various attributions, is poorly understood and even more abysmally executed. If the current understanding of relationship management is simply to monitor and respond to negative commentary on your reputation, your brand, your business or your services, or to follow up and cross sell when the customer or client has fallen off your radar, this is no better than shutting the stable door long after the horse has bolted it. It’s about listening, responding, reciprocating, acknowledging, modeling ethics and values, everywhere you are or your business is active.

The value of building and maintaining a reputation built on the seven principles of human givens (accountability, boundaries, respect, responsibility, honesty, support and trust) means creating cooperative alliances and rewarding relationships. This cannot be short cut, avoided, undeserved or manipulated. We are each being held to account on our behaviours in regard to our commitments and on this we stand or fall in peer assessment.

There is no excuse now, given the quantity and quality of tracking technologies and social media assets, not to create a formidable and very manageable strategy to build and sustain quality relationships and use all positive testimonials, word of mouth recommendations and quality referrals to build personal and professional capital as well as business advantage. To fail to implement such a strategy is to be asleep at the wheel in a fast moving and competitive world.

Robb Thompson is the founder and President of Robb Thompson International, an innovative company that focuses on developing leadership skills with integrity. His coaching centres on  personal excellence and character development. Recently he wrote on the necessity of honesty as a core value and respect as a mandatory skill:

Honesty

Webster’s defines honesty as honorable in principles, intentions and actions; sincere; frank; truthful. Honesty is the willingness to reveal your true motives. Honesty is similar to transparency, meaning full disclosure.

Honesty is a responsibility to yourself and to others. The foundation of your character cannot withstand the cracks of dishonesty. Every time you allow yourself to be dishonest, you weaken the strength of your character. Every crack reduces the strength of your foundation. Although a crack may be small today, it will eventually split the entire foundation.

Honesty does not change at home, work, or elsewhere. It is always the same. It is a way of thinking. People of honesty can hardly even imagine telling a lie. It’s just not in them. They have aligned themselves to the True God, and His life in them drives them to tell the truth. These people have a hard time believing that other people lie regularly, but they do!

Perceived Payoff:

Everyone does what they do because there is a perceived pay off. I use the word “perceived” because it is not necessarily true. An individual who is lazy has a perceived payoff. An individual who smokes perceives that the pleasure is worth the pain. Likewise, a dishonest individual lies or withholds truth because of the perceived payoff. In every case the payoff is immediate, but the negative costs are delayed. With a little foresight and wisdom, honesty becomes a much sweeter choice during trying times.

Truth always comes to the surface, if not in this lifetime, then in the next. And even if the truth never surfaces, the conscience is a constant, painful reminder. The murderer whose crime is never discovered may have gotten away from the law, but his memory torments him.

Half Truth – Full Lie:

People often lie to make themselves look better. Isn’t it interesting, though, that anyone we know who lies has a horrible reputation? Now, society doesn’t call this lying-it’s just stretching truth. It’s deceiving people without actually saying anything untrue. Nevertheless, honesty leaves no possibility for deception. Do you stretch the truth or hide revealing facts?

Although honesty may cost you in the beginning, you’ll experience the rewards in the end. The Scriptures tell us that the integrity of the righteous will deliver them.’

The message is in order to grow your reputation, you must be honest and be respectful. Nothing else will authentically draw people to do business with you or accelerate your success as much as these traits.

Promoting an ethical culture is a key leadership responsibility.  Equity, transparency, honor, integrity, commitment, and stewardship are standards for excellence in democratic local governance as much in a corporate setting. Every organisation and community deserves an organizational culture based on ethical values and behavior. To accomplish this requires a top down and bottom up approach. Managers need to understand the company culture, paying particular attention to incentivising positive behaviors that support ethical conduct, as well as facilitating employees’ decision-making processes to diminish unethical violations.

Company leaders can deliver continuous education and virtual training to address both and minimise costly interventions and mediations. RNIA CBOK is designed to enable staff in keeping promises and commitments within a set of simple values. The education  training activity focuses on:

accountability for decisions and actions

the value of honest feedback

consistent and appropriate behaviour in a collaborative spirit

The value of setting a good example is communicated across the culture and the consequences of inconsistent delivery reflected in peer feedback. Adhering to ethics allows for all viewpoints to be heard respectfully, transparent decision-making and emphasizes the benefits of open and honest communication.How can we trust restored and what efforts in building relationships to ensure a culture of values is instilled and installed?

Can you really imagine a scenario where you are supported to be a ‘whistleblower’ by staying true to your core values? ICMA TV promotes ethical conduct through its Code of Ethics training for local governments, as well as publications on ethics issues, technical assistance, and advice to members. Given the state of politics, the more proactive ICMA is, the better things can become and begin to reclaim the trust of the people. But how can you affect the same in your enterprise?

Trustworthy people have to be consistent – their actions and lifestyles set out an example of integrity and commitment. Peter Drucker(2) describes the “mirror test”, where leaders make sure that the person they see in the mirror in the morning is the kind of person they want to be, respect and believe in. If there is a lack of consistency between our public and private lives, then sooner or later we will be unable to manage the divide.

Organizational values define the acceptable standards which govern the behaviour of individuals within the organization. Without such values, individuals will pursue behaviours that are in line with their own individual value systems, which may lead to behaviours that the organization doesn’t wish to encourage. Frequently, most organizations derive their culture from a top down model, but what happens in more flat cycle, chaordically driven environments?

In a smaller, co-located organization, the behaviour of individuals is much more visible than in larger, disparate ones. In these smaller groups, the need for articulated values is reduced, since unacceptable behaviours can be challenged openly. However, for the larger organization, where desired behaviour is being encouraged by different individuals in different places with different sub-groups, an articulated statement of values can draw an organization together.

Clearly, the organization’s values must be in line with its purpose or mission, and the vision that it is trying to achieve. So to summarize, articulated values of an organization can provide a framework for the collective leadership of an organization to encourage common norms of behaviour which will support the achievement of the organization’s goals and mission.

Five ways to live out values

However, just as with a mission or vision statement, it is one thing to have a written guide to an organization’s values that remains on the wall, or in a folder, but it is quite another thing to have living values which shape the culture – the way that things get done. So here are five suggestions to ensure you have living values:

1. Communicate the Values Constantly. Values should fit with the organizations’ communication, both internally and externally. If we say that we’re fun, team-oriented where everyone counts, then having a traditional style with a photo of the CEO may challenge this. Refer frequently to the values in talks and sermons, in articles in internal/parish magazines. Acknowledge and thank those people who have achieved something which particularly emphasises the values.

2. Enroll New Folk. The values should be explicitly available as new members join an organization. If your organization is a business, this can be a part of the selection process.

3. Revisit and Refresh the Values. Revisit your values periodically – allowing members to update them. This has the power of enrolling those who have joined the organization recently, and avoids the stated values no longer reflecting the business culture.

4. Confront Contradictory Behaviour. Ensuring that we give feedback to those who don’t live out the values of the organization. If people are allowed to live out contradictory values, then over time there is a clear danger that these will usurp the desired values, particularly if it is the more dynamic, dominant individuals who are espousing the contradictory values.

5. Periodically Check out with Feedback. Ask people what they think are the values of the organization – not only members, who may be influenced by the stated values, but outsiders – observers, customers, former members.

Pause for Thought : Do you have a statement of values. If not, let your organisation come up with them, rather than driving them yourself.  If you do have a statement, is it a living expression of current, real values in the organisation or an expression of past desires?   Review the five pointers above to see how well the organisation is living the values.

This article is courtesy of The Teal Trust.