Breaking Down Trust

TL;DR: Trust is sometimes a fuzzy concept that everyone emphasizes but few actively mold. Building trust is an active practice, facilitated by understanding the different components of trust and the different levels of trust required for different types of relationships.

Doubling down on trust

Last week my partner, Anton Brevde, wrote a great piece about trust. A few days later, I asked a candidate during an interview what they believed was the most important aspect of a team’s culture and he replied “trust”. I strongly agree with Anton and the candidate. Trust is foundational to every relationship, including early stage teams. So I decided to double down on trust for our blog post today.

In my experience, I have found it hard to think tactically about trust. Most agree that it is important to build and maintain trust. But how do you conceptualize trust? What does it mean to you?

The goal of this piece is to make the concept of trust less nebulous. We all know that trust is important, but how can you build and strengthen trust if you don’t actually have a way to unpack it, analyze it and create strategies to address it?

Components of trust

A few years ago, I was introduced to a simple visual diagram in a Stephen M. R. Covey book, The Speed of Trust, that changed the way I modeled trust. Since then, whenever I felt that something was off with an employee, investor or partner, I use this model to unpack my vague emotion and determine what I need to investigate and shore up.

According to Covey, trust encompasses both “Character” and “Competence.” The former is rooted in values while the latter is primarily rooted in execution.

For example, you trust Steve, your top salesperson, to fly out to Peru and close the deal but don’t ask too many questions on how he intends to do it. In this scenario you trust his competence but not his character. Conversely, Tod is trusted with all the most confidential HR information. However, if he hits “send” on another company-wide email with multiple spelling mistakes in the FIRST PARAGRAPH you are going to lose it. In this case, you trust his character but not his competence. Neither relationship is sustainable in its current state.

This component-based model of trust has affected everything from how I designed performance reviews to how we hired to how I personally managed my direct reports. Most critically, it helped me think tactically and create strategies to build trust more quickly with new hires.

As a thought experiment, consider someone you trust completely and go through the four buckets of intent, integrity, capability and results. You will likely have multiple examples of when they demonstrated each. Conversely, think of someone who broke your trust and you will have a specific instance in one of those categories.

In summary, understanding the underlying components of trust allows you to work through trust issues.

A spectrum of trust

I hear the phrase, “trust but verify” frequently in the investing world.

The second key concept that has helped me unpack “trust” is appreciating that there are different levels of trust needed for different types of relationships. In other words, the amount of “verification” depends on the needs of the relationship.

You don’t need to trust an external vendor in the same way you need to trust your direct manager. Delivering inventory to your warehouse at a predetermined contractual date is a different type of trust than entrusting your career development and compensation to an individual.

I think of three broad levels of trust. One is not superior to another. Each should properly reflect what is needed by both parties out of the relationship.

1. TRANSACTIONAL: This includes external vendors, your car mechanic and maybe a peer in another department at a larger company. You trust that this individual will deliver the project, finish the job on time, show up for appointments, etc.
2. INTIMATE: This would include relationships that involve sensitive information and work product. You expect to see your lawyer and doctor on this list, but it would also include human resources, executive assistants, office managers, peers and other individuals that have access to sensitive information and speak on your behalf.
3. NON-JUDGING: This is a level many think they achieve with their teams, but few actually do. Most of us live at the intimate trust level. Working in a non-judging team means that you explore ideas, engage in debate and expose personal fears and dreams with the knowledge that the other side will be receptive, respectful and supportive.

This all seems obvious. I am including it here because of my past mistakes in relation to the third level.

Human relationships evolve from transactional to intimate to non-judging. When building transactional trust, you can fall back on contracts, the rule of law, ratings, etc. In regards to intimate trust, people spend years building up their reputation and five-star recommendations.

There are not many external accelerators for the kind of trust present in non-judging relationships. It is personal. It takes an enormous amount of vulnerability to verify this level of trust. It takes a lot of energy to build non-judging trust.

It can be done quickly. I have reached this level of trust in a few days with perfect strangers through immersive, professionally- guided sessions in remote locations. Those experiences were intense and exhausting. In general, it takes a long time to build this type of trust among a team. The investment required to actually verify a “non-judging” level of trust is higher than people want to believe and people often mistake an intimate level of trust with true non-judging trust.

Trust as the foundation

In 2013, my old leadership team trekked over the Golden Gate Bridge to Cavallo Point for an offsite. The agenda was to frame our culture, write company values, etc. After a productive two days, we went out for dinner in nearby Sausalito to celebrate.

A few weeks later, it was as if the offsite had never happened. Turns out, everyone had gone through the motions at Cavallo Point and come back to the office with their own agendas, from trying to absorb departments, to creating phantom roadmaps of what we should actually be building, to sticking their heads in the sand and working 9-to-5.

We called an emergency offsite and included an external mediator who spent the entire time trying to build trust among the team. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done. Within six months, half the team was no longer at the company. Years later, I do not fault any of the individuals at Cavallo Point. I truly believe they were all trying to do their best to make the company succeed. If we had focused on building trust BEFORE creating plans, the outcome may have been different.

Building trust is an active practice.

Trust is such a large and important concept that it feels almost all encompassing. Maybe that’s why it is oftentimes a scary thing to tackle. You cannot say “I don’t trust our CEO” out loud and not do something about it. It’s like saying “I don’t love you” in a romantic relationship and thinking you can continue dating.

I hope that the two models around the (1) components and (2) levels of trust can help you intentionally build trust into your culture and individual relationships. Trust is the foundation on which everything else is built. You generally don’t ‘hope’ the foundation is poured. You ensure it is done first and it is done well.

Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation and agriculture.

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