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CHAPTER
5

OUR READINESS AND WILLINGNESS TO TRUST:
CAPACITY FOR TRUST

Chandra began to doubt in her ability to keep up with the increased workload and changing demands placed on her. “Can I do this? I’m not sure if I can trust myself to learn these new systems and procedures in time to get the project done. I don’t know anymore.” Later, she reflected on her fears. She reviewed the strengths she knew she would bring to the job. She was able to see that what was most important to the position were the skills she possessed. “I will use this opportunity to build on them.”

“Can I trust them? I don’t know if it is safe to rely on my new teammates to come through for me and get the job done. I took a risk counting on my coworkers in my old job, and those guys didn’t deliver as promised. I lost my credibility and reputation with my clients—I was burned badly! Now I’m a lot less willing to trust my teammates with such an important project.”

Where does our readiness and willingness to trust begin? How do they affect our perceptions and our beliefs? How are they influenced by our experiences, positive and negative?

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We have explored the meaning of transactional trust and the behaviors that build it. Here we explore where trust begins, our readiness and willingness to trust ourselves and others which we call our capacity for trust (see Figure 2).

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Our capacity for trust is fundamental to understanding how we bring ourselves to relationships with ourselves and others. When we trust ourselves, we see ourselves as reliable, dependable, and well intentioned toward ourselves and others. When we trust others, we feel we can rely on their judgment and their intentions. We have confidence in them and their word.

Our capacity for trust is influenced by our life experiences, and it expands or contracts depending on the nature of our experiences, positive or negative, and the situations that we encounter.

Some of us enter trustingly into relationships until we have an experience that tells us it is no longer safe to trust. Others enter untrustingly into relationships until it is proven safe to trust. We refer to people’s readiness to trust as their developmental predisposition.

HOW OUR CAPACITY FOR TRUST DEVELOPS

Our developmental predisposition to trust begins to form in the very early stages of our lives and is based on positive and negative experiences. The first two years of life are especially critical to this development. Through the loving care of primary caregivers, we develop our fundamental capacity to trust others. Some of us have early life experiences that represent support, comfort, safety, and nurturing. We found ourselves surrounded by those we could count on. We may therefore tend to be more ready and willing to trust others.¹ Others of us may have found ourselves in early life circumstances of inconsistent care, loss, lack of safety, little nurturing, and few people we could rely on. We may therefore tend to feel the need to wait and see before we trust others. We need concrete evidence that it is safe to trust.²

As we develop mentally and physically, we are able to be more self-reliant, and we learn to trust ourselves more. As we develop muscle coordination and become more mobile, we also become more aware of ourselves as individuals separate from our parents. As we master developmental tasks that are appropriately acknowledged by our caregivers, we begin to develop a sense of confidence in ourselves. Confidence from these experiences influences our willingness to take risks and to trust in our competence to resolve problems and overcome difficult situations.

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As we continue to grow through adolescence and into adulthood, our capacity for trust matures from the concrete to the abstract, from simple to complex, largely based on our conditioning or lifetime experiences: “I trust it because I can see it” to “If I do something for you, will you do something for me?” to “You have my word that you can depend on me, no matter what!”

Our lifetime experiences influence our readiness and willingness to trust today. But our conditioning may also be influenced by the situations in which we find ourselves. It can be quite difficult to separate the impact of our experiences (our conditioning) from the dynamics of a current situation in which we find ourselves. The following story illustrates how our life experiences influence our capacity for trust.

Ed was a department manager who regularly betrayed people in both his commitments and in his communications. Finally he was removed from his supervisory position. Robert, the new manager, had to deal with his predecessor’s mistrustful legacy. Because people in the department had a diminished capacity for trust due to the earlier boss’s behavior, they were very skeptical and prejudiced regarding Robert and his current behavior. They didn’t cut him any slack. They interpreted his every action with distrust and assumed he was acting in self-serving ways. When he made mistakes or even committed minor betrayals, they were unable to appreciate the big improvement in his behavior over that of their earlier manager, Ed.

Because of the employees’ prior life experiences of a tyrannical boss who betrayed them constantly, they were conditioned to treat the new manager with caution and skepticism.

It is important that we are aware of our capacity for trust. It is at the core of how we bring ourselves to our relationships and how we practice trust-building behaviors. Our capacity for trust influences our perceptions and beliefs, our perceptions and beliefs influence our behavior, and our behavior is what builds or breaks trust with ourselves and others.

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TRUSTING OURSELVES

Trust in ourselves is indispensable to our sense of self and self-esteem. We might think of it as the glue that holds together our sense of who we are (our identity) and how we deal with others and our world. When we have a high level of trust in ourselves, we feel centered and confident. We view ourselves as dependable and reliable in fulfilling our expectations of ourselves and the expectations others have of us.

Trust in ourselves also influences our work relationships. People who have a healthy level of trust and confidence in themselves tend to be trusted more by others than those who have low trust in themselves.

We all have an inner voice that asks us questions about our capabilities; we might call this our “capacity for trust voice.” This voice asks such questions as “Can I do this?” “Do I believe I have what it takes to achieve this objective?” “Am I capable of learning this new program?” “Am I right for this job?” “Am I able to live up to the new bosses’ expectations of me?” “Can I keep up with the changes around here?”

Each of us has asked these questions of ourselves at one time or another during our working lives. You can be assured that these are questions employees are asking themselves, particularly during change or when the stakes are high. Although we may not answer these questions consciously, we answer them daily through our actions.

When we trust in ourselves, we are more inclined to answer yes to these questions. We may feel a bit anxious or tentative answering yes, but we know that we are able to draw on our relationships with others for the support we need. We find a starting point within ourselves that we can lean into and from which we can move forward. We ultimately find our way. When we answer no, we may find ourselves paralyzed by fear, wallowing in confusion and self-doubt and unable to find that starting point. We are also less inclined to ask others for support.

Our capacity for trust directly affects our attitude toward taking risks and trying new things. We know that an athlete is capable of accomplishing only what he or she believes is possible. For example, if a pole-vaulter does not believe that she is capable of clearing eighteen feet, the chances are pretty slim that she will achieve that objective. Likewise, at work, an employee may be given a task to complete on a short deadline. If she simply assumes, without honestly assessing the requirements of the task or attempting to meet the goal, that there’s no way she is going to be able to complete it on time, she will prove herself right and fail to get the job done. However, if she works through her fears, realistically assesses the situation, trusts in herself, and strives to meet the goal, she may very well be successful.

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A higher capacity to trust enables us to take risks, particularly during times of change and transition. We are able to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity, try new approaches, take calculated chances, and share pertinent information, to include our thoughts and feelings when appropriate.

Sandy was asked to take over the central operations center of a large telecommunications company. This job was a high-profile position and a promotion for Sandy. Although she had never seen herself in such a role, she did see how the assignment would serve as a stepping stone to reaching her professional aspirations. Sandy found herself considering the position with quiet excitement, coupled with strong anxiety and fear. She was not sure she could trust herself to do the job. She felt that she didn’t have the necessary technical skills.

At one point, her fear almost took her over, and she came very close to turning down the position. She shared her concerns with her boss. Her boss helped Sandy see the skills she did have and how foundational they were to this role. The conversation with her boss helped her quiet her fears. Sandy was able to see the abilities she could count on and trust. She identified the people around her she could rely on to further develop her technical knowledge.

Sandy accepted the job, trusting in herself and those around her to develop and execute a sound strategy. She was successful in her new job and was given another promotion two years later.

TRUSTING OTHERS

When we trust in others, we view them as dependable and reliable in fulfilling our expectations. Our capacity for trust voice may ask, “Can I really trust my coworkers?” “Will they tell me the truth when it counts?” “Are they able to do what it takes when the chips are down?” “Can I trust them to do their part to get this project to the customer on time?”

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Our capacity for trust in others is critical to our work relationships. It is the force that holds our relationships together. When we have a high capacity for trust in others, we are more willing and able to work in a fluid fashion. We share information and depend on others; we relax in our necessity to control people in making sure a job gets done. Leaders who have a high capacity for trust are willing to trust another person until they have clear evidence that he or she can’t be trusted.

Our capacity to trust others influences how we work together and how work gets done. Healthy working relationships are based on trust, not legal contracts or money-back guarantees. We know that trust is a reciprocal process: trust begets trust. Generally speaking, the more we give, the more we get. Mutually trusting relationships grow the more we share information (communication trust), keep agreements (contractual trust), and respect people’s abilities (competence trust).

When we have a more expanded capacity for trust, we are also more inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt when they have let us down. We suspend our judgment or criticism until we more fully understand the circumstances. For instance, when someone doesn’t come through for us, our inner voice will be less inclined to angry thoughts—“I should have known I couldn’t trust her”—and instead might say, “I wonder what might have happened to have caused this person not to deliver? Perhaps she was sick, had a family emergency, or had a computer failure.” We remain open to the individual, continuing to trust until it is clear that it is no longer appropriate to do so. We approach the person with sincere interest regarding what happened rather than with readiness to blame and to make her wrong.

Although there are no guarantees in any relationship, personal or professional, it is easier to risk trusting others when we trust in ourselves. That trust in ourselves anchors us through both our highly trusting and satisfying relationships and those with disappointments and frustrations.

THE STARTING POINT FOR OUR RELATIONSHIPS

Whatever our individual capacity for trust, we must be aware of it, as it is the basis of our perceptions, beliefs, and behaviors. Heightened awareness of our capacity for trust helps us to pay attention to what we need in relationships and thus to be able to make a conscious choice to practice trust-building behaviors in response to situations rather than to react in ways that may not build trust. Trust building does not require us to change who we are or how we trust, but rather to make a conscious choice to practice the behaviors of transactional trust.

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TRUST BUILDING IN ACTION

Reflecting on Your Experience

1. Think about your relationships with others in your personal life. How do you bring yourself to those relationships?
   1. Do you tend to assume that others can be trusted until proved otherwise, or do you wait for people to prove they are trustworthy?
   2. Whichever your tendency, how does it affect the quality of those personal relationships?
2. Think about your relationships with others in your professional life. How do you bring yourself to those relationships?
   1. Do you tend to assume that others can be trusted until proved otherwise, or do you wait for people to prove they are trustworthy?
   2. Whichever your tendency, how does it affect the quality of those professional relationships?

Application Exercises

The following two exercises are designed to help you as an individual become more aware of your capacity for trust and to help your team become aware of its collective strengths and areas of vulnerability.

A. Individual Reflection. Think about situations at work. Reflect on the following questions and record your insights and observations. You may use a matrix like the one illustrated here to organize your thoughts.

1. Do you trust yourself? In what types of situations can you answer yes? In what situations is the answer no?
2. Do you trust others? Again, in what situations can you say yes and in which ones no?

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Professional Life	Situations in Which I Can Answer Yes	Situations in Which I Answer No
Do I Trust Myself?
Do I Trust Others?

B. Team Discussion. Post a blank Capacity for Trust Matrix on the wall. Have team members name different work situations and record their responses to each as they relate to the team or organization. The team then reviews and discusses their observations.

1. Ask the team, “What story does this tell about us?” What key insights emerge?
2. Discuss with your team key observations and insights contributed by each team member. Identify the team’s collective strengths and areas of vulnerability.

Trust Note

It is important that we are aware of our capacity for trust; it is at the core of how we bring ourselves to our relationships and how we practice trust-building behaviors.