The symptoms of a breakdown of trust - Trusting yourself

Yes, it's been a while, and yes, I've been frustrated with myself for not getting on with the job of blogging! Sometimes there is solo much I could be blogging about that I get stuck and can't move. Lots of very kind people email news articles, notes, magazine clippings, about all sorts of things, saying 'You should write about this!' Yes, I should, and yes, I am working my way through my strategy of what I do, what I can do in the time that I have, with the resources I have, that will have the most impact. 

One of the projects that I tried to kick off a few years ago that has popped back up is TRT Global - which is Trust Response Teams. This is teams of people who are part of the International Movement of Trust, who have done the training to become accredited coaches, or Ambassadors for Trust, who can help by responding to issues that concern them, but in a positive, trust-building way. This is the only way I can replicate myself and properly pay attention to the myriad breakdowns of trust around our world on a daily basis. 

While that training continues in different countries, and while we establish the foundations of TRT Global, I need to get on with the business of blogging, sharing my own stories and helping more and more people discover the power of The truth about trust! 

Trusting yourself, your individually crafted and designed purpose for being here on this earth, at this time, in this place, with this family, in this culture, in this country....seems to be one of the hardest things to do, for most people around the world. I do hope that this next series addressing the symptoms of a breakdown of trust, the horrible feelings we have when we have, yet again, lost trust in ourselves, helps even one person to learn to trust themselves more. 

Watch this space!

Vanessa

Leadership in Business Symptom #6: Confused: Not clear about purpose and mission

 

 

It was clear once, but now it’s just a blur.  You used to know what you stood for, you would have fought for it, but now you can’t remember why you are doing what you do.

That sense of confusion, of blurred vision, is extremely unproductive, it’s frustrating, and demotivating – but it happens to the best of us.

 

Just like knowing when it’s time to get your eyes checked, it’s important to know when it’s time to get clarity about your vision, your purpose, your mission in business. And that time when it’s all getting blurry and when you are losing focus.

 

It’s interesting, I find, that one of the first questions that children ask is ‘Why?’. As human beings, we have an innate need to understand the reason behind things, the purpose, the ‘why’. Depending on how that question was answered when you were a child will have an impact on how often and to whom you now ask that question today.

 

There are a number of great questions that you need to spend time pondering, sitting and answering in a journal, or taking a long walk and really thinking about. They include:

 

1.    What are you really good at?

2.    What do you love to do?

3.    What do other people say you are good at?

4.    What really gives you a buzz?

5.    What did you love to do when you were a child?

6.    What do you want to be remembered for?

7.    If money was not an issue, what would you spend your time doing?

8.    What do you believe God’s purpose is for you?

 

I believe we are all born for a purpose and we are given a mission – trusting that, being clear about what we can expect of ourselves, how that can meet our needs and what we need to promise ourselves and keep, is critical to gaining that clarity and clear vision for where we are heading.

 

But remember that we may not always understand, it may not always be clear how something will work out, and that’s where trust kicks in at a whole new level!

 

Leadership in Business Symptom #5: Unmotivated: Lacking a sense of achievement

 

It really does suck – when you are busting a gut and you just seem to be going around in circles. When you look at your ‘to do’ list at the end of the day and there are more things on it than when you started the day!

 

When the alarm goes off you hit the snooze button, and then lay there trying to think of the most valid reason to not go to work today – except you are the Leader! You’re supposed to be the one motivating everyone else. You know people are watching you, but you are conflicted. Do you ‘fake it’ and walk in with a smile and pretend it’s all OK? Or do you reveal all, and risk scaring your people?

 

Often what happens is we get out of alignment with the goals and purpose of the organisation. We either forget why we joined in the first place, or something has changed – with them, or with you, or maybe both.

 

Sitting down and really reflecting on what this organisation is all about, what its purpose is, what it is trying to achieve, and then determining if you share that common purpose is the first step to finding the solution to your motivation, or lack of!

As leaders, when we share a common goal, a common purpose with the organisation we are leading, then we can determine the following:

 

1.    What are their Expectations of me that help them achieve that?

 

2.    What are my Expectations of them that help me achieve that?

 

3.    What do they Need from me that helps them achieve that?

 

4.    What do I Need from them that helps me achieve that?

 

5.    What do they need to Promise me to bring it all together?

 

6.    What do I need to Promise them to bring it all together?

 

It’s all about ENPs® - Understanding what we Expect and Need from each other, and what we can Promise each other to make it all work. This is the dynamics of trust. If it doesn’t stack up, if you simply can’t Promise to meet their Expectations and Needs of you, then frankly, you are in the wrong place. But when this is aligned, when you can build trust on a common ground, then your sense of motivation and achievement will flourish.

Leadership in business – Symptom #4 – Frustration: I’m leading but no-one is following!

‘If you think you’re leading but no-one is following, then you are only talking a walk’. Afghan Proverb

 

 

One of the great things about leaders is that they are prepared to step out, to ‘go where no-one has gone before’. The more entrepreneurial they are, the more that applies.

 

The problem with that is that they can forget they are meant to be leading others, not taking off on their own.

 

The bigger the idea, strategy, plan, product or service, the more help leaders need to get it up and running, and to sustain it. If you are a leader with a BIG vision, you cannot do it on your own. You need a team of great people around you, who believe in you, who trust you, and who you need to nurture and build trust with so that they perform at their peak, do their best, and help make your vision a reality.

 

That feeling of running for the vision, that BIG goal, slogging your guts out, and there you are, exhausted but you can see the finish line up ahead and you turn for a moment, only to realize that you are running the race all by yourself. ‘Where did the team go?’, you wonder. At what point did you even lose them? You get frustrated because you thought you were all in this together, but guess what? They got tired. They really like you, but they no longer trust you or the vision, because you’ve forgotten to take them on the journey with you. I know, I’ve been there, and more than once!

 

This is a massive challenge for visionaries, and one that is worth sitting for a moment and considering.

 

The thing is, whilst you might actually be able to get that thing across the line, now it is totally up to you to keep it going. You are on your own. You can’t stop. You can’t take a break. That holiday you were planning – forget it. You realize that you have locked yourself into the very thing that you thought would bring you freedom.

 

However, if you can take others on the journey with you, you might take that little bit more time, or even a lot more time, it might not look exactly how you thought it was going to look, but what you get is the amazing satisfaction of watching your team celebrate together as you all cross that line.

 

You need to find out what they expect from you as a leader, what they need from you, and you need to promise them those things that are most important to them that will keep them there, 100% committed to the end goal, and trusting you and the journey.

Leadership in Business – Symptom #3 – Conflict: The Management Team Keeps Clashing

 

You’ve sat in those meetings when everything starts to get heated. The fingers start pointing, everyone is blaming everyone else. As the CEO or leader of this group you’re thinking ‘Come on guys, aren’t we on the same team here?’

 

‘If this was a football team here, and we were in the middle of a game, the competition would have simply run around us all and just scored a goal!’

 

In fact, that’s exactly what IS happening. When there is constant conflict and clashing at the Management Team level, that’s when your eye is off the ball and your competitors are taking advantage of that.

 

So, what is really going on? Why is there so much conflict?

 

When trust breaks down between teams, when each team or division cannot rely on the other to deliver on what was Expected, what is Needed and what was Promised, teams go into a huddle and start working on their own agenda – the very people you are supposed to be working with become your internal competitors. It's dog eat dog now. 

 

When teams start working on their own plans in isolation of the rest of the business, you get silos, you get conflict, and you get poor performance. At the end of the day, the organisation is structured in such a way that each team or division specializes in some aspect that is critical to the success of that organization, and therefore all must work together for the whole thing to succeed.

 

The thing that pulls all the teams back together, that settles the conflict and clashing, is to get back to the game plan. What is the Common Ground here? What are we ALL working towards? Why are we ALL here?

When your Management Team gets clear about that, and can determine their role in achieving that, when they can begin to communicate clearly what they Expect, Need and can Promise each other to achieve that, that is when it all comes together and they all start working together, performing, and scoring goals way ahead of their real competitors.

Leadership in Business – Symptom #2 – Sad: It’s just not going the way I thought

 

I’ve been there. Literally on my knees, or sitting just like this picture, in complete despair. All the planning, the strategizing, the getting people on board, and then the whole thing just seems like it’s falling into a heap. You start to question yourself, your ability to lead. Your life seems to be collapsing in on itself. What do you do?

 

Personally, I pray! J Then I start to work through a series of questions. The thing is, if it’s all falling apart, then the trust that people have in you as a leader, and/or in your project, or business, is breaking down. Now let me state very clearly here – this is NOT a personal attack. There are things that are not stacking up and the ‘wall’ is breaking down (see The Simple Truth about Trust to visually see what I mean by the Wall).

 

So, here’s what I unpack and try to understand:

 

Expectations

What did they expect?

What did I expect?

Where did they come from?

Were they realistic?

 

 

Needs

What do they need?

What do I need?

Is this the best way to have that need met?

 

 

Promises

What did they promise?

What did I promise?

Have those promises been kept?

What needs to change?

 

One thing I can promise you is that this process will take your out of the despair and will help you see the whole situation objectively. Focusing on ‘the relationship’ between you and the people you are leading, rather than on any one individual, yourself included, is a healthy way to get to the bottom of what is going on.

 

The other thing I can promise you is that you will begin to see why things are the way they are. Once you understand that, you can get up off your knees, lift your head out of your hands, and start serving again, restoring trust in yourself and rebuilding trust between you and the people you lead.

Leadership in Business - Symptom #1 - Angry: Lack of delivery

 Area – Business

 

Category - Leadership

 Symptom #1 - Angry: Lack of delivery

 

Andrew Smythe, CEO of ‘A Company’, could feel the heat rising inside him. His fists were clenched, as was his jaw, as he listened to his executive team give him yet another round of excuses as to why the organisation was not hitting targets, had blown the budget for the 5^th month in a row, and now they were all blaming one another. Andrew thought ‘I don’t get paid enough to deal with this, seriously!’

The Head of Sales was blaming the Head of Marketing for poor leads. The Customer Service manager was flicking through the complaints and pointing the finger at both of them, and the CFO was running his fingers through his ever-thinning hair. Andrew had to front up at the next Shareholder meeting and explain what was going on – the problem was, he didn’t know what was going on himself!

This is a typical scenario in many organisations when a combination of things are happening.

Here are a few things to note:

1.    Anger – this is simply a warning sign that ‘the wall is crumbling’, in fact, in this case, Andrew is fearing the worst. Deep down he know that trust has broken down on multiple levels, although he won’t necessarily have made that connection. His trust in his senior team is shattering, they don’t trust each other, and he know that the shareholders are going to lose trust in him is he can’t pull this together.

So, our emotions are simply warning signs to tell us the level of risk our trust is at.

 

2.    Lack of delivery – despite having a great product, if everything else is not aligned throughout the organisation, the whole system can and will collapse. Often what happens is that Marketing will have a great campaign that draws customers in, Sales people are great at getting customers over the line, but the back office, customer service and the people responsible for delivering the product or service are often clueless as to what was promised. So, the customer experience does not match what was promised. Complaints rise, repeat sales drop, and that bottom line sags as quickly as the fingers come out and start pointing the blame.

Ensuring everyone in your organisation is aware of what has been promised to the end user, your customer, and ensuring that they can deliver on that promise is critical to your organisation – to its success, to its bottom line, and to the emotional state of your leaders, employees/ volunteers, customers and shareholders/funders.

The WARNING SIGNS - Stop treating the symptoms, and start treating the cause

A series of blogs and case studies to show how trust is the foundation on which all good businesses, homes and families, and communities stand

In a numbered ‘symptom #x’ approach, this series of writings/blogs/case studies will be focused on awareness raising and proving that trust is NOT the ‘soft’ skill that most leaders think it is, but absolutely delivers results – in business, in homes and families, in communities, in society.

 

The series will run along the same categories that entente explores in ‘The Truth about Trust in Business’, in our coaching programs, in the truth about trust certification training for coaches and consultants, and training for ‘Chief Trust Officers’.

 

You can download and read The Simple Truth about Trust here, which will give you the basic model for trust that I’ll be exploring in this series.

 

Let me know your thoughts, questions, and share with me your own experiences of these warning signs and symptoms as we travel through the many faceted world of trust.