Episode 111: How to Build Trust Remotely

This is Episode 111 and I've listened back to a couple of these episodes. I've looked at the titles to think, you know, what would be changed, if anything and what I was saying and not a lot has changed as far as the things that are most important to us.

These are universal principles that can be adapted in any environment. It's mainly how do we show up in the way that we want to how do we get the best result from The people that are working around us by igniting the best in them.

How do we build trust? How do we communicate? How do we defuse conflict? How do we see and hear people?

Now the way that we're seeing and hearing people are different. It's going to be different for a while. And even when whatever normal comes back, it's going to be different, too. But these are the points and the principles that are going to help us all adjust when these new catalysts of change happen.

So today, we're going to talk about something that came up in my coaching session just before this, and it's talking to all about trust. He is someone who travels a lot every four to six weeks, he is going in an office in his company on in another part of the world. There is a lot of relationship building that's happening in casual water cooler conversations or in networking that's happening outside of the office.

Obviously we can't do that now. We can't pull people aside. We can't have a drink with them. We can't invite them to a meal in a pub or restaurant. We're not necessarily just happening to have casual run ins with people. This is a time where we need to be really intentional and deliberate.

So I wanted to kind of peel back the layers and see where the value is in this casual, organic or serendipitous meeting. Where's the value that this individual is getting?

For him, it came down to building trust to having a human to human connection that gets lost when we're only focused on building agendas. We're not really seeing people, if we're they're just accomplishing tasks and and stating what our objectives are.

This is an opportunity for us to look at how do we go from one extreme and then the other extreme so going from hyper professional and hyper casual what is that in between Let's be honest, we're not wearing our business suits to zoom calls or conference calls, most of us, maybe not, haven't even showered, or hopefully we've brushed our teeth. But we're not showing up in kind of our armor. We're not showing up in this professional attire, that's even giving the impression that things are similar.

We can have an in between that can merge the benefits from having professional objectives and also bring our very human and casual self into it, which allows us to build trust.

During our session I said, “You know, you mentioned the word trust. So tell me what the building blocks of trust are for you?.

He said, “Well, I think it might be empathy or might be sympathy.”

He went back to empathy, so I asked him, “What does empathy mean to you?”

And he said, “Well, it's giving it to get it. So by sharing vulnerability by sharing personal things that you're comfortable with, it allows other people to connect with you.”

BINGO!

When we get to show up as ourselves, it signals to the other person. “Well, I can show up as myself too.”

That’s the first piece. Being the example of what you want to see and experience.

Then there’s keeping your word. If you don't keep your word, if you say you're going to do something and you don't do it, then that immediately is a trust killer.

Also, reciprocation. If someone doesn't reciprocate trust, then that is a trust killer.

Where we go wrong is when we assume there is established trust without basis. When we assume that the person sitting across from us or having the conversation has the same expectation and perceived outcome, and has an understanding of what we're doing, but there's never a communication or a shared agreement. And then we're not balanced. That's where things go awry.

All relationships break down from unmet expectations. This is where we can get curious and clarifying and verifying, and also bringing ourselves into it can really help to build trust.

So we think about seeing people for who they are, and honoring that piece of them, and also being really clear about what it is we need from them. What is it that we're willing to give? What is it that we would like to get from them?

This way we can create these shared agreements, we can create shared expectations that helped to build trust. It can take a long time to build trust, and and it probably should, we have proximities of trust to us, the people who are closest to us - those have been tried and tested over years. You know, those people that you've known for 10 years plus, that you don't have to necessarily keep tabs with every day or every week or even every month, but you know that when you come back together, the trust is still the same Because you have that shared understanding, you have shared operating principles.

There are people that you feel connected to, but trust needs to be. It needs to be verified over time. That's where these check ins on the agreements happen. That's why we review contracts. If we're in business, we're not just signing a document and walking away from it, we're going back to check on. Okay, well, what does reciprocity look like? How do I get what I need? Is this person getting what they need? And that's okay. But if we want to deepen relationships with people, we have to put ourselves out there in order to signal to other people that it's okay for them to do the same.

So just because we're not having face to face, drinks with people, we're not necessarily having those those passing moments in the hallway or are those moments at a conference that you know in a buffet line to crack a joke, we are still able to connect with people. But the two key things are we have to be intentional and we have to be deliberate This is where setting the intention before every single engagement we have with the question of how do I use this opportunity to build trust? How do I need to show up? And what does success look like for me? How do I know when I deepen trust, you will know energetically when this starts to happen.

We want to feel trust on a gradual level, that deepening that stretching that growing. You will know it when you feel it. But know that over time, each step that you make towards this, the more sustainable and manageable it is. This time period is all about R&R, what is realistic and what is reasonable and being face to face being in person with people is not it's just not realistic right now. But we can still have conversations, we can still have different types of conversations that deepen our trust, we can still get to know people, we can acknowledge and validate them, we can see and hear them.

We can't lose the human level of this technology and communication shift. In fact, we need to leverage our human connection even more.

As you're navigating this, if you're working from home, or if you're in the job hunt, or you're just trying to get by, you can use this with your friends and family, you can use this with colleagues thinking about how can I connect with this person on a more human level? How do I share a little bit more of me? And how do I get curious with them to learn more and appreciate more about them?

We are all diverse, dynamic, multifaceted beings and it's our opportunity now to stop seeing things on the surface level and to start taking a deeper and more appreciative look at what is around us.

I hope that all of you are safe and well, if you have any questions if you need any more resources, I have set up a page with telework. Working for teams or individuals to navigate this uncertain unprecedent time, whatever you want to call it at the remote leader.com we just did something on routine reset, you can schedule a complimentary routine reset with me for 15 minutes. And if you have any questions, let me know if you're if you're struggling with anything, ask me the question. I'm happy to answer it on a future podcast and to all the Spitfires out there. Keep being awesome!