Inside JLC: Trust and Trustworthiness, Part 1

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us here at JLC Media. Honored that you took some time to be with us. The topic today is one that keeps unfolding for us in different places, and it's about trust and trust and trustworthiness. And the first part I'm going to do a couple of sessions. This one we're going to work on. What does trust look like? This is a really interesting question because sometimes someone that I really in my life didn't particularly care for, didn't want to go out to dinner with, didn't want to have a drink with, I trusted him. And I'll be able to share a little bit of that story going forward. But that's really why we want to talk about this. What does it look like? And the intention is for you to develop a couple of understandings, understandings about what behavior I need to produce so that people feel like I can be trusted and be trustworthy. So at the end, each of you will have an opportunity to grab one or two ideas that you could put into your proverbial bag of tricks as a leader to enhance the trust and trustworthiness among those that are in your care. Again, we don't think you aren't trustworthy or don't understand what trust is. Everything we do at JLC is enhancement work. How do we get better at this? So, Vince, what are you hearing us say today? We're going to talk about.

Yes. Thanks, man. What I'm hearing you say is you want to talk about what does the look and feel of trust and trustworthiness looks like to both an individual perspective, but also the impact it can have on a group or a team. And you're going to break this off in a couple of sessions and we're going to tell some stories, share some experiences, and see where this journey takes us as we are always in this continuous state of learning.

That's really good. You actually made me think of a conversation I had with a retired Navy SEAL when bumed used to be at the old building down by the Navy Yard. And he just bumped into me. And I was in between sessions on behalf of Joe, actually, and we sat down, had a cup of coffee, and we talked about leadership and what it meant to him and his sensibility is that both things matter, trust and trustworthiness. And I have to trust those few people right around me is how he did that. He talked about those he might be in a dangerous situation with and how he could behave effectively so that they would trust him and feel like he could trust Them. So thank you for that, Vince. That was really good. Colleen, what are you thinking and what hearing right now?

Jordan? What I'm hearing is that we're going to be talking about trust and trustworthiness and that hopefully everyone will walk away with something that they can use and immediately apply to enhance those two aspects. And immediately I thought I just go to my family, I go to kind of a personal side and teenage years and that sense of trust and trustworthiness. And it just makes me think of many times, once that trust is broken, how difficult it is to rebuild and to trust again.

So actually, you're opening the door to another opportunity for us to talk about that. I think it's really important. We're human. We make mistakes, and I really feel like sometimes we punish ourselves more than other people, but if we see somebody do what we did, we start to punish them like we punished ourselves. It's really a tricky space to get in. And the mental models we generate around people, sometimes hard to break. Once I decide you're not trustworthy, I don't know. I don't know what to do. You know, now I have another opportunity to work on myself and do something different. So thank you, Colleen. Joe, what are you thinking right now? Trust and trustworthiness?

Yeah. I'm reflecting on what you said about the SEAL you ran into at headquarters. And again, I think the seals are widely admired for their commitment and to mission and, of course, for their training that leads up to that. But much of their training, I would suggest, is designed to create that bond of trust between the ones that are left. Again, that's the point of the rigorous, I think, physical challenges and mental challenges that they are posed in their training, so that when they get to the other end, so that when they are, in fact, Navy SEALs, they know that when they see someone else wearing that device, that that is someone that they can trust without, without doubt. Someone who shares a common frame of experiences and. And with whom they almost have an instant relationship. And so I think it comes, you know, for. For us, the. The need to develop trust and executive relationships in business and working relationships. Many times that's something that comes only with time, only over a period of working on issues and understanding more about each other's values and how you view issues and concerns. So it's a much more methodical process, and I think many times that's very frustrating to executive teams who are on a fixed time frame in the military. They have a limited tour, and if it takes you six months to develop a trust relationship, or a trustworthiness, then that's fully a third of your time. So I think trust is something that people want. They want it now. It's not an impatient now. It's a. I want to know who you are so that we can trust each other and move forward from there. And so I think anything we can do to promote that is meaningful.

I love that. And I'm going to pivot to Colleen now. Notice what Joe said there. Try to figure out who you are. So as I'm all of you that are listening, just think about somebody that you trust. Right. A position held in the literature is that it's hard to trust someone you don't know. So Joe just teed up this whole conversation. So even if you have to play a parental role, there has to be a greater good involved. So that human being says, not only did I expect my mom or dad to treat me this way, I trusted that they would. So, Colleen, play out a little story for us about someone you can do family or you can pivot to someone you really, really trust a lot. And I'd like to know what that looks like and how you and that person got close to one another. You're on.

Sure. Well, that's an easy one. I think. Cole, he's my son right now. He's 23, comes to mind. And I think about our journey. Right. And many times, as Joe said, trust takes time, especially when it's been broken. And I would say it was broken significantly in his teenage years, and it was really a trying time. And what does trustworthiness look like now? I mean, I am so proud of the young man that he is. He is exceedingly forthcoming. He's candid. He stays in touch with me. He stays. We stay in conversation with each other. He shares not only just the things from his perspective in his life that are going well, but he also confides in me some of the challenges or some of his fears or some of the things that are weighing heavy on his heart. He also comes through, and he follows through with what he says. Right. If he says he's going to do something, he does it. And he follows through. And I think because through repetition and time, he's consistently done that. And I think that has demonstrated the strong, trusting relationship we have together and his trustworthiness by his behaviors.

Thank you. Vince, what are you hearing? And I'd like you to pivot once you kind of acknowledge Colleen's thoughts, because she did bring up that phrase again. Conversation. What are you hearing? And would you then pivot to someone that you felt you were in a trusting relationship with. So we can learn from that.

Sure. So, you know, I heard Colleen say a couple of things that really resonated with me, one of which was conversation that she's engaged in continually in an intentional fashion with her son. But also he has taken the responsibility to engage her in intentional conversation with repetition and regularity. So over time, they both created an environment of trust with one another to bring issues and things to the surface, whether it's a personal issue for his life or in his professional development. And so I thought that was key in that conversation with Cole. And everything she said about that young man is spot on, man. He really is a dynamic character. And the last thing that. That she brought to the surface that really resonated with an environment of trust is his committed actions. Everything that he commits to, he follows through on. And, you know, you'll have a couple of opportunities to do that until you don't. And once you don't do something that you say you'll do, you can destroy that environment trust. So that's what I heard. And if that's okay now, I like to pivot. You know, she used a personal example with her family. I would just like to use one from a professional environment for myself. So I had a boss that I worked to. I worked for. I was his number two guy or a coo. That was my role. He was the CEO in his role, but we'd never met one another. We both worked in a DoD space. I'd been in about 25 years at this point, and I'd never met the man, didn't know anything about him. It's what I would call a cold meat. And to Joe's point, you don't have a lot of time. You have a very defined window of opportunity to work together. And so if you can't establish trust immediately, you can't achieve your outcomes. In this particular case, this guy, what I learned from him was he was very intentional from the day we met at engaging me and establishing a relationship up front. He wanted to come over and have invite me over for dinner. He wanted to get to know me right away. And from that initial interaction, he insisted that every week on Fridays, he and I would just sit down one on one for 10 or 20 minutes, and we would have conversations together about what my previous week looked like, what worked for me, what didn't work for me, what were my observations. But what was critical was he didn't come across as a person who knew everything. He was Very vulnerable as a leader. And so he would tell me and show me where areas where he had concerns, in areas where he didn't have the answers. And so very quickly we were able to establish between one another an incredible amount of trust that allow us to move our relationship forward very quickly. And it certainly had a very positive outcome on our ability to lead and direct our team.

I love that. Joe, how about you react to what you heard and respond in a way that confirmed what you heard from our brother, from another mother. And those of you that are listening, Joe made a commitment to be here today. It's his anniversary. I'm not going to swear that he knew it was his anniversary. He made the commitment, but he's here because he made the commitment. Oh, he did know. Okay, so what did you hear from Vince? And please add on to his story with your own.

Yeah, so I appreciate both of these stories from Colleen and from Vince, but I have to tell you that in my thinking these are two very different divinities, if you will. I think in the case of, you know, family members or personal, very close, immediate family kind of relationships, I think trust in those relationships has a different dimension because I think many times family members, well, let's, let's start off with an assumption that the family unit is brought up in a spirit of trust that you can talk and work together. However, I think as those, particularly as children or again close relatives, get age on them, they go through a phase where they feel like they need to demonstrate their independence or revolt in some way. And many times that's a very short sighted kind of thing on their part. But they, perhaps almost inadvertently they do things where they attack family members or they're mean to family members or they withdraw from the family unit. And I think not being a psychiatrist, but I think there is some line of study that says they do that because there's kind of a security in the family unit that says they can never be completely turned out of the family so they feel safe in attacking the ones they love because they're always there. And I would, I'll, I would, I would gather, I, I would guess that most of us have had that kind of experience in my life as, as, as sad as it may be and hopefully, you know, whatever path you're on in those personal relationships, it's getting better or I think professionally to come back to what Vince was talking about, I think it's a different relationship than that family unit that you're looking for. Trust where you are attempting. Who are you, Are you Thinking about these things again, not that you're a copy of me or a clone of me, but how do you regard these professional challenges? And what do you think about the unknowns? And what about the unknown unknowns? And, you know, if we go in this direction, what do you think are the risk? And. And not just, you know, to perhaps to that you would see to me professionally, but to you professionally, to our organization professionally. And so I think that is the kernel around which I think the organization, you know, wants to rotate very quickly because you can never see all the risk yourself. And you want the perspectives of others, and the only way you can get to the point where you can share those perspectives is through this portal of trust.

So I actually. You guys have been wonderful. Let's talk about portal of trust for a minute, because I want to stay there. Vulnerability is critical. And although I didn't do Brene Brown's research, the research is legion. Now, if we can't be vulnerable with one another, we can't even surface our best thinking. And if there's no trust, I start to behave as leader as though my thinking is the right thinking instead of the best thinking. How do we actually practice conversational structures where the space is so safe, it's actually dangerously safe that people can say what's on their heart, what's on their mind, and the response will not be punishment. It will not be judgment. It will be curiosity. And each of these spaces that you guys have laid on the table. And I love Joe's sensibilities about the distinctions between family and professional business. I get that strongly. Although many people attempt to transfer the family identity into the office. Office, we're dysfunctional. As an example, I generally hear a lot. And the work that we do is how do you become truly intentional in your conversations? So the human beings you're with can present themselves in a completely vulnerable way. So even when somebody says, so what were your challenges last week, Vince, and how's that going moving forward? And Joe, this is what I was thinking when we came to this particular conclusion. Help me move forward. And Cole. Yeah, I was in trouble, and I'm not at the moment, but I sure want to talk about what got me there so I can think about what can I do differently moving forward? Notice in all of those places, it's the what questions that matter, not the why question. If you want to take one thing away from this, do yourself a favor and stop asking, why did this happen? It creates a very strange psychological response inside of you. The difference between why did this Happen and what can I do differently? Moving forward is enormous. And when you can do that together, that sensibility around trust will grow. This was hard for me to learn. I was always really interested in why did this happen? And years and years of failing to resolve that internally or with others that I had the privilege of working with. I was coached and taught that there are other questions to ask. And the what question is a big one. So those of you that are listening, that I always ask my three incredible friends and colleagues to give you one little snippet of advice before they check out. And mine would be, watch your questions as you're attempting to build trusting relationships with people and watch out for that why question. And I do want to stay in Joe's space, but it takes some time. I can say trust me, and I can do Richard Nixon and everybody else that's been in political places that wanted you to trust them. And things sometimes happen that don't get us there. So the political structures want us to trust them. And we worry about that time and consistency in response and in the ways people add value. Those become more aligned to a trusting relationship. So mine is the questioning why, what versus why? And it takes time, which I love that aspect that Joe gave us. And actually, the three of you were wonderful. I'll start with you, Joe. One thing you would say to a listener that say, think about this next time. You're really working on developing a trusting and trustful and trust relationship.

Yeah. So I think it's important to remember that human beings are complex machinery. If you want to think of them that way, that they require maintenance, they break down, they're imprecise. And I think it's important to, as you. As you are working to build trust, that you make allowance for that. And so I think the fact that you were attempting to trust someone means that you are counting on them for something. But at the same time, you recognize that things happen in their lives so that sometimes they're not able to deliver in the way that you expect. That doesn't mean they're untrustworthy. Again, I think over a pattern, if it's a consistent pattern over time, then there you go. So then it becomes a matter of a different level of trustworthiness. So I think just keeping in mind the fact that life is complex, that people are complex, that people have problems, people have issues, people are in like, people can be in a lot more than like, they can be very close to you. So you can have levels of trust across the spectrum. You know, high levels of trust. Or lower levels of trust, but they are still trustworthy. You get the bear through vulnerability and through the experience. And I believe a generous spirit that says, people are trying, but everybody has a hard time.

That's beautiful. Thank you, Vince.

So as I listen, my one takeaway for listeners is just be aware that your way of thinking, of solving an issue, of getting to a solution is a way. It is not the only way. And when you're talking about environments of trust, one of the things I had to learn for myself was when you are a part of creating environments of trust and getting the best thinking on the table is being able to move forward with some of that best thinking, even if it's not your personal best thinking. So you have to be very intentional by incorporating the great ideas and the great information that's coming from your team. And just to think that I may have the solution, but the way I want to do it isn't the only way to do it. And if I want to create an environment of trust, you have to let your team produce the solutions that drives the organization towards the outcomes, even if it's not your solution. And that's okay.

Yeah. Yeah. That's just beautiful. Beautiful, Colleen?

Sure.

I would say practice what you preach. If you say you want to develop trust with a colleague or with your team, then you need to demonstrate trustworthiness in your personal behaviors and in your conversations that you hold with your team every day.

So I love that. And, you know, kind of eating our own dog food is critical. And all three of you have leaned into this space of empathy. How can I be empathetic towards the people that I am, that I have been given in my career? That is very hard. And sometimes if it's a big deal, especially I love the way Joe started a conversation with somebody one time that I observed. It's his live, and no names will be named. And he said, I'm upset about this situation, and I feel responsible because I did not do enough for you to let you know the significance of this situation. It was like he immediately changed the conversation with that human being. He didn't say, you screwed up. You did this wrong. I'm going to kick your ass. Just the opposite. He shared the responsibility for whatever the particular incident was, and it was significant, had dollars attached to it, et cetera, et cetera. That's power in that ability. And I love the way you guys talked about this, too. Be careful of judgment. Judgment. Walt Whitman said, curiosity is much more important than judgment. Be curious about why something happened, not immediately put up the power fists and get into a battle. This was wonderful, you guys. You were absolutely terrific today. Thank you so much for this. Remember, this is JLC Media. I hope you enjoyed these. If you did, let us know. If you didn't write to the White House and they'll give them a note. And I'm sure they'd appreciate knowing that you didn't care for this one, but I bet you did like it. You guys are marvelous. Thank you so much, everybody, for being here today. Listeners, thank you for giving up one of your big assets your time. Take care. Sincerest thanks for listening to this episode.

Of the Everyday Leadership Conversations podcast. The Jorgensen Learning center offers a variety of programs for individuals and organizations to enhance their communication and leadership skills. To find out more about programs and upcoming webinars, check out our events page@gojlc.com.