Trust: It

1
Trust Its Earned, not Given

• L.D. Firkins, DVM, MS, MBA
• University of Illinois
• College of Veterinary Medicine

2
What is Trust and Why is it so Important?

• Confident reliance in someone when you are in a
  position of vulnerability
• How do you decide if you are going to trust
  someone?
• What happens when someone has lost your trust?
• How are you going to gain trust when you hit
  practice?

3
Trust Has to be Earned and it is Easily Lost

• Roughly half of all managers do not trust their
  leaders
• 69 of people responded that they just did not
  know who to trust anymore
• In a recent survey 4 out of 5 people had only
  some or hardly any confidence in people
  running major corporations

4

• Are you and your circle/group of classmates
  trustworthy?
• If so, how do you know this?

5

• Are you and your classmates capable of building
  trust throughout our college?
• Students within your class
• Students across classes
• Faculty and students
• Faculty with faculty
• Administration with students and faculty

6
Why the Difference?

• It takes more than personal integrity to build a
  trusting, trustworthy organization
• In an organization people are bombarded with
  often contradictory messages every day
• If people feel the organization acted in bad
  faith, theyll rarely forgive and theyll never
  forget

7
If People Trust Each Other and Their Leaders They
Will..

• Be able to work through disagreements
• Take smarter risks
• Work harder
• Stay with the company longer
• Contribute better ideas
• Dig deeper

8
A High-Trust Work Environment

• Fun
• Supportive
• Motivating
• Productive
• Comfortable

9
If They Dont Trust the Organization and the
Leaders...

• Will disengage from their work
• Focus on rumors, office politics, and updating
  their resumes

10
A Low-Trust Work Environment

• Stressful
• Threatening
• Divisive
• Unproductive
• Tense

11
The Decision to Trust

• You are looking to hire someone to work closely
  with you
• Two candidates both equally qualified
• First one walks in wearing a robe, speaking with
  an accent, and their work experience is with
  companies you have never heard of
• Second one walks in wearing an orange tie,
  speaks as you do, his kids go to school with your
  kids, you both graduated from Illinois

12
The Decision to Trust

• Number of similarities
• Common values
• Membership in a defined group
• Shared personality traits
• We tally up our similarities and differences

13
The Decision to Trust

• Alignment of interests
• How likely is this person to serve my interest?
• The patient and the surgeon both benefit from a
  successful operation
• People have common and unique interests
• Aligned interests lead to trust, misaligned
  interests lead to suspicion

14
The Decision to Trust

• Benevolent concern
• People are self-centered
• Want to know if you will fight for them
• If you will put yourself at risk for your
  employees it not only engenders trust, but also
  loyalty and commitment
• You must balance multiple and sometimes competing
  interests

15
The Decision to Trust

• Capability
• Similarities, aligned interests, and benevolent
  concern have little meaning if you are viewed as
  being incompetent
• Must demonstrate consistent ability to meet his
  or her needs

16
The Decision to Trust

• Predictability and Trust
• How certain am I of how you will act?
• Do you do what you say you will do?
• Is the video matching the audio?
• If not, leads to confusion on which message to
  believe and the result is distrust
• Over deliver

17
The Decision to Trust

• Level of Communication
• Trust is a relational concept so good
  communication is critical
• Miscommunication leads to feeling betrayed which
  leads to a greater breakdown in communication and
  eventually, outright distrust
• One persons openness induces openness in others
  and the decision to put faith in others makes it
  more likely they will reciprocate

18
What are the Enemies of Trust?

• Inconsistent Messages
• The audio does not match the video
• Antidote
• Think through your priorities before you
  broadcast them
• Make sure you are being honest and coherent
  instead of making unrealistic commitments or
  demands

19
What are the Enemies of Trust?

• Inconsistent standards
• Cannot play favorites
• People keep score - relentlessly

20
What are the Enemies of Trust?

• Misplaced benevolence
• Incompetence
• People with a cloud of negativity around them
  they see the downside of everything
• They cannot be ignored. Every time you let
  troubling behavior slide, everyone else feels the
  effects and blames you

21
What are the Enemies of Trust?

• Rumors
• They are almost always negative
• People are going to hold you accountable for what
  they think you said (which may not be what you
  think you said) for longer than you might believe
• Provide clarity at every opportunity

22
Trust Its Got to be Earned

• Trust is essential for top performance
• With trust one can resolve disagreements and get
  people to dig deeper than anyone has the right to
  ask
• Without it people become disengaged, focus on
  rumors, office politics, and resume updating
• It is tough to gain, relatively easy to lose, and
  much tougher to regain