Trust is the foundation of belief, and belief is the mother of excellence. If you and your team hope to punch through the REAL glass ceiling–that being the one between mediocrity and excellence–you’ve got to find the ways to get to BELIEF. As Chester Scott would say, that’s the one you want.
I have been learning a lot lately about where trust actually comes from. I’m reading a review of 50 years of trust and culture studies compiled in a real doozy of a tome entitled The Moral Foundations of Trust by Dr. Eric Uslaner of the University of Maryland. I spoke with “Ric” the other day and here’s what I learned that you need to know to build trust, belief, loyalty, and excellence (among other good things:
- There are at least three types of trust. Who knew? They are…a.) “Particular Trust” (trust only of people I know, or of people just like me), b.) “Strategic Trust” (trust between parties who build contracts with rewards and penalties), and c.) “General Trust” (trust of people in general; trust of strangers)
- General trust is what makes democracies work, and communities, and organizations. It is essentially goodwill and social capital, speeding up decisions and streamlining execution as people “buy into” the cause of the community without hesitating to see if something or someone will screw them for taking the risk of acting.
- General trust is hard to come by, and disastrous to lose. It is set in us very early in life by our parents as an optimistic worldview. That is the root of trust. You have three times the odds of possessing general trust if your parents were college educated, regular churchgoers (but not fundamentalists) and they allowed you to disagree with them, over those whose folks were not.
- General trust in the United States led the world in 1960 with 58% of our population agreeing that “most people are trustworthy.” By 2004, that level had fallen to 36%, just behind India and Italy. The main reason for the fall? Income inequality. Over that time, the middle class has been squeezed, the poor are poorer, and the rich have become filthy rich. We no longer believe that “we are all in this together” and that we share a common moral foundation with each other.
- As a result, our politics have become poisoned and we are no longer as easily able to find common ground, meet common challenges, and protect the commonweal. Watch the budget crisis this summer and next year. Let’s pray for a miracle: that we allow Congress to work together to get the budget under control.
Okay, so how do you as a leader address this sorry situation in your organization, knowing that the national environment has become less favorable to trust in general? By starting with the biggest trust problem you have. That would be…
YOU.
Right. Remember that root of trust–the optimistic worldview? Do you have one? Here are the four empirically derived components of an optimistic worldview, based on Ric Uslaner’s multivariate analysis of 40+ years of data:
- Vision of a more hopeful future: Do you think things will get better? Do you see how they will, with clarity? What future will you create? This is your CAUSE.
- Community, specifically an inspired and supporting one: Have you brought your work group into that vision, with you working together with them as individuals united as a true team supporting each other in pursuit of that hopeful future? This is your CONTRIBUTION.
- Mastery, a sense of control over one’s life and one’s destiny: Do you feel you are self-controlled? Have you brought that discipline and reliability to your personal processes and those of your organization? This is CHARACTER.
- Competence, or self-efficacy (to use the fancy term): Are you growing your knowledge, skills, and abilities into signature strengths? Are you aware of and closing the gaps in your knowledge in order to achieve your vision? Can you get things done? This is COMPETENCE.
We can’t lead others farther than we have led ourselves. This is leadership. And the lack of it in the last four decades has drained our collective optimism and made us a less trusting nation. If you hope for organizational excellence, start now to become the change you wish to see in your world. You can only restore organizational trust by restoring your personal trustworthiness. That’s a strong CORE, with these “core four” as your focal points.
Trust me on this.
BUILT TO LEAD 
Great stuff Sully. We just covered this topic at practice yesterday and I’m sure that team gained clarity from your words. Thanks for sharing, my friend…