Trust on the Fast Lane: Shortcut to Building Trust for Success
"Want to fast-track trust? Unlock the secrets of trust-building and accelerate your relationship building with practical strategies in this trust accelerator guide."
Hey there! Let's talk about trust, shall we? I don't know about you, but I've wondered about this so many times. You know why? Because no matter how nice people seem, I tend to be a bit skeptical. Can you relate? But here's the thing - if I can figure out what trust really means, then I can speed up the process of building it. We've all heard that trust is complex and takes time to build, but can be tough to repair once broken. Yet, we still strive to build it, right? Wanna know why? It's simple.
Trust is like gold, always in demand but not always easy to find.
But don't worry, if you’ve five minutes, I'll share a personal experience with you about how trust can supercharge your outcomes, and best of all, I'll show you some tricks to speed up the process of building trust. So, get ready for an engaging and eye-opening ride into the world of trust-building!
Engineering leadership isn’t new to me but I had just transitioned roles from being an individual contributor in this company. Thanks to my managers at the time, I was given clear guidelines on how I’ll be evaluated and what success looked like during my transition. Three months post my transition, I was truly enjoying the role. I was managing a decent sized engineering org with a charter challenging enough to learn a lot and build large scale distributed services.
That said, there were other organizational friction I had to overcome. Our team depended on a platform service for our downstream processing needs and our demands were often deprioritized. This meant that team’s my engineers had to routinely scramble to get work done and sometimes in code bases that we didn’t even own. It slowed our delivery rates and increased operational burden. My own ideas to improve operations and expand the product vision met with lots of resistance from leadership and product managers. The team I led, had to work closely with cross-functional stakeholders closely too. Needless to say, with delivery delays, our team wasn’t predictable enough for them to extend support. Getting through each day without breaking ties on at least one key decision was tough. I knew this situation was temporary. I also knew, if only my leadership trusted me, half these problems would magically disappear. With time, I was confident I can turn this around. After all, I have managed similar crisis situations in the past. This time though, I wanted to accelerate the recovery sooner.
Reed Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder, gives a simple formula to think about trust.
Trust = Consistency over Time. Almost!
It could be perceived as an over-simplification of a complex, multi-faceted concept but there is so much depth to it. Especially if you think about the numerator as a function of integrity, transparency, competency, honesty, reliability etc. The problem though is, how could anyone think about doing all of this consistently for a long period of time? And are they all weighted equally? What if I was able to do only 2? Obviously, I didn’t have all that time. I was already sensing attrition risks in my team. Yearly talent reviews are around the corner.
My normal instincts would tell me to showcase my competency, deliver results and the results demonstrate my ownership leading others to trust my leadership. This time though, it was different.
Metaphorically speaking, I looked at the situation “standing from a balcony”. That is, I needed to see beyond the day-to-day tasks and challenges, and instead look at the overall direction, goals, and challenges of the team. It was time to adopt a strategic mindset and take a broader view of the technical landscape, rather than getting bogged down by operational details. That’s right.
My secret shortcut to accelerating trust was to adopt a strategic mindset.
The view helped me understand the unwritten rules of the organization, where the ladders were hidden and where the snakes were lurking, my allies who can partner etc. As my manager at the time used to say, "keep your ears close to the ground," and that's exactly what I did. During a voice of the customer review, I discovered that another leader in our organization was also facing prioritization issues with the same downstream partner as I was. I took the initiative to reach out and offer to work together on a plan, drafting an escalation to find a win-win-win solution.
An easy way to find your ally is to see if they have mutual goals or shared problems.
In our discussions, I learned that the platform team had been delaying an initiative to expand their processing networks, which would benefit both our teams and many clients. I proposed taking on the responsibility of that work if they committed to prioritizing our needs. This way, my team wouldn't have to work on piecemeal fixes in an unfamiliar codebase, and the platform team could unblock us while also getting a significant improvement for free.
But I didn't stop there. I set up a joint mechanism for regular progress reviews and bottleneck inspections across our three teams. This turned out to be incredibly effective, and doors started opening even before we delivered the program. The other leader I was partnering with introduced me to other influential leaders in the organization, and one thing led to another. Even before we completed the program, my team was already in a great position thanks to these collaborative efforts.
Second shortcut - Just as Power creates Power, Networking begets Networking
In conclusion, trust is a vital currency in our personal and professional relationships. Generally speaking, it takes time, consistency, and effort to build and maintain and the rewards are immense. But, by understanding the unwritten rules of the organization, finding your allies and taking strategic steps to accelerate its development, we can unlock its power to enhance our outcomes and relationships. Trust, after all, is the cornerstone of any healthy relationship, and it is within our power to cultivate and maintain it. Here's to building a foundation of trust that unlocks doors and propels us towards success in our personal and professional lives!