Trusted Advisor

Story Time: Innovation, Trust, and the Freedom to Fail

Andrea P. Howe — Tue, 22 May 2012 10:00:53 +0000

Our Story Time series brings you real, personal examples from business life that shed light on specific ways to lead with trust. Our last story proved that he who eats with chopsticks wins. Today’s shows how trust can impact innovation, productivity, and staff retention.

A New Anthology

When it comes to trust-building, stories are a powerful tool for both learning and change. Our new book, The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust (Wiley, October 2011), contains a multitude of stories. Told by and about people we know, these stories illustrate the fundamental attitudes, truths, and principles of trustworthiness.

Today’s story is excerpted from our chapter on making the case for trust. It vividly demonstrates how providing the freedom to fail, take risks, and build on others’ ideas increases a team’s ability to innovate.

From the Front Lines: A Trust-Based Business Unit

In 2005, Ross Smith became Director of an 85-person software test team within Microsoft. His team had great technical skills, passion, and excitement, but felt underutilized and unchallenged. Ross set out to improve innovation and productivity. Exploring options, they ran across a University of British Columbia study by John F. Helliwell and Haifang Huang that equated the impact of high organizational trust to significant pay raises in terms of creating job satisfaction.

The team suddenly realized that innovation required freedom to fail, risk taking, building on others’ ideas—all behaviors grounded in high trust. That cognitive snap, that a high-trust organization would address underutilization and latent talent, was the beginning of the solution.

In a high-trust organization, individuals could apply their skills, education, and experience at their own discretion. They could take risks and change processes themselves because managers would trust them. The question was this: how to do it?

Ross asked the team to identify behaviors they felt influenced trust, positively or negatively. They realized that trust was subjective, situational, and very individual, and there was no single behavioral answer. As a result, the team put together a detailed playbook describing simple principles with discussion about how to implement.

They also modeled risk-taking and trust-building by using games to approach problems; everyone was allowed to play, experiment, and fail.

Microsoft is a heavy user of metrics, for Ross’s team as well as throughout the company. The first noticeable difference was a higher-than-normal level of retention. After two and a half years, other things started to change dramatically—new test tools and new techniques were developed, and a high level of collaboration and partnership was working. Productivity numbers started to rise. As the project finished, the team was rated at or near the top across virtually every Microsoft productivity metric.

When Ross and several others from the original team moved to another division, they set out to introduce the trust-building ideas and practices which had worked so well before. Once again, they saw a high retention rate, a broader application of talent, and higher productivity numbers.

The metrics followed the changes in mind-set and behavior—not the other way around.

—Ross Smith (Microsoft), as told to Charles H. Green

Find out more about Ross’s experiments in management innovation and trust, or read his blog on productivity games.

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Read more stories about trust:

This post was written by Andrea Howe
Andrea Howe is an Associate with Trusted Advisor Associates LLC, and founder/CEO of BossaNova Consulting Group. Read more about Andrea at http://trustedadvisor.com/consultants.andreahowe/ You can follow Andrea on Twitter @AndreaPHowe

How (Not) to Ask for Recommendations, Referrals and References

Charles H. Green — Mon, 21 May 2012 09:59:27 +0000

I recently met a first-time author, who gave me a copy of their book. Shortly after, I got an email from the author’s publicist, saying:

“…We’d appreciate it if you would post your 5-star review of the book on Amazon…”

Now:

I don’t mind being asked to post a review of a book (though this ask was poorly done)
I don’t mind being asked by a publicist, as opposed to the author, if it’s done well (this was not)
But what frosts me is being told by a publicist what rating to assign the book – without even asking whether I’d read it, or even intended to read it.

Let’s break it down: what are the rules governing recommendations, referrals and references? And how many did the publicist violate?

How to Ask for a Favor

Rule Number One: Don’t ask for a favor – ask for the repayment of a favor already done.

The ideal way to promote your book is to start 6 months in advance by deciding whose help you’re going to want – and immediately start promoting them. Comment on their blogposts; tweet their material; introduce them to others.

That way, when it comes time for your ask, they are simply discharging an obligation of etiquette, a favor they are more than happy to grant. (And lest this sound coldly utilitarian, note this is a description of what friends do for friends).

What’s true for books is true for referrals. Haven’t done any favors for others lately? Then you’re going to come up short when you start trying to ask for favors. Life is like that. Favors earned are favors granted.

Think that’s not fair? Wrong: it is very, very fair. It’s the essence of the matter.

Rule Number Two: Assume absolutely nothing.

Remember the saying, “Assume makes an ass of u and me.” Do not assume the person has the time, or the interest, or the inclination, to do you the favor you want.

In fact, make it clear you have no clue whether what you’re asking is reasonable. Say something like, “I realize this may be an inopportune time, or more complex than I realize, or there may be other reasons you can’t do this, and I assure you I don’t mean to be asking for an unnatural act on your part….”

By explicitly saying you’re not making assumptions, you give the other person all the degrees of freedom. You grant them several outs, should they choose to take them; you willfully give up the guilt-trip approach; and you humbly recognize that you are not in a position to judge them.

Let a favor be a favor, not a guilt-tinged, calculated script. A favor freely given is worth vastly more than an extracted behavior.

Rule Number Three: Don’t over-specify the favor. “Would you consider writing a review on Amazon?” is a perfectly reasonable statement. Asking that my review contain five stars is just insulting: it implies either that my ratings are for sale, or that I needn’t read the book to determine its value, both of which rankle the would-be favor giver.

“I’m not sure what the right next step would be, but would you mind having a look at Joseph’s resume?” That’s fine. Compare it to, “I’d appreciate it you’d take Joseph’s phone call and meet with him, just for a half hour or so.” That’s over the line.

(A tour guide on the canal in Bruges, Belgium, after a delightful ride, said to me, “May I remind you the ten-franc tip is not included in the admission price.”).

Rule Number Four: Treat it like a big deal. Because presumably it is. Which means, you won’t often ask it unless you’ve earned some favors in the favor bank already (see Rule Number One).

And if you have earned some favors – say so. You want to convey very clearly words to the effect of, “I value our relationship; it is strengthened by our mutual collaboration and reciprocal favor-doing. I don’t ask this favor lightly – and I don’t want you to treat it lightly. If you agree you can return this favor to me – or do this favor and I’ll owe you big-time – then we will be that much closer going forward. That’s how I look at this favor; how about you?”

Of course, those are not the words you’ll use; you’ll use words that are right for you. But they’d better convey that kind of intent.

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A favor asked and given is an invitation to a deeper relationship. Don’t be cheap in granting favors; and don’t be promiscuous in asking for them.

Referrals, references, recommendations; all follow another “R” word – reciprocity. What you give, you get. What you don’t give, you won’t get. To get, give. Pay it forward isn’t some dumb movie line – it’s how it all works.

This post was written by Charles H. Green
Charles H. Green is founder and CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates LLC; read more about Charlie at http://trustedadvisor.com/cgreen/You can follow him on twitter @CharlesHGreen

Trust Tip Video: The Single Biggest Sin in Sales

Charles H. Green — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:00:37 +0000

A lot of things can go wrong in sales – and often do. But there’s probably one thing that stands over all the other as the Ur-error of selling. This particular error is baked so deep into our behavior that you might call it the “original sin” of selling.

In this week’s Trust Tip video, I examine what that error is, and why it’s such an egregious mistake. Fortunately, the solution is not that hard – as long as you remember to use it.

If you like the Trust Tip Video series and you like our occasional eBooks, why not subscribe to make sure you get both? Every week we send you selected high-quality content. To subscribe, click here, or go to http://bit.ly/trust-subscribe

Announcing eConsulting and eCoaching

Charles H. Green — Tue, 15 May 2012 10:46:39 +0000

Starting today, I am offering a direct consulting/coaching service – one-on-one with me personally, via email – to a limited number of people.

Read more about the program at trustedadvisor.com/econsulting

All the detail is contained at trustedavisor.com/econsulting, but here are a few FAQs:

FAQs

Q. How does it work?

A. Up to one email interchange per day between you personally, and me, Charlie Green, for 8 weeks.

Q. What do you mean, you, personally? Doesn’t your team develop the answers?

A. Oh no. I mean me, Charlie Green, 100%, personally, individually, writing every email response with my own key-tapping fingers. Me. No one else.

Q. Is this a replacement for your existing coaching offerings?

A. No. We continue to offer excellent traditional coaching services through Stewart Hirsch. This is via email, more concentrated, more transactional, more action-based; read the full eConsulting page for more insight.

Q. Who is it for?

A. People who want very fast, very practical, very personalized advice on specific situations from me personally. Got a key client meeting or sales call coming up in two days? That’s what this is for. It’s all in the full eConsulting page.

Q. How many openings are there?

A. A one-digit number of slots; this will take time, and I’m not giving up my day job.

Q. How much does it cost?

A. Read through the full eConsulting page; it’s there, I promise you.

Awarding Sales

Charles H. Green — Mon, 14 May 2012 10:01:19 +0000

A few weeks ago, I was included on a list as a Top 50 Sales & Marketing Influencer for 2012.

I appreciate that. I’m going to put it on our website’s front page for a little while, and I want to thank the good people at TopSalesWorld.com who put together the list.

I also want to say a few things about awards, about who’s on awards lists – and about selling.

Who’s On the List

I’m not a full-time sales guy. There are folks on this list who have devoted their lives to furthering the cause of sales, and I’m a little sheepish about being included in their company.

I’m not just talking about heavyweights like Tony Alessandra, Mark Benioff, Jeffrey Gitomer, Seth Godin, and Neil Rackham (Neil gets my nod for uber-guru).

I’m also talking about some really talented thinkers and doers. Do not consider this list exhaustive, because I’m only going to mention some whom I personally know fairly well, and therefore can personally attest to being great:

Ian Brodie

John Doerr and Mike Schultz

Anthony Iannarino

Jill Konrath

Dave Stein

Paul McCord, a senior statesman also on the list, noted to me the conspicuous absence of Zig Ziglar. I myself note the equally curious absence of David A. Brock.

Still, let’s not get all tizzied up. No list will suit all preferences, else there’d be no need for a list. But what’s interesting is the idea of sales as a topic for a list.

Being Great at Sales

Selling is a fascinating application of human social behavior. It can be done in an anti-social manner (which is where we get our universal negative stereotypes about pushy, greedy, hard-sell salespeople).

But sales is also the locus of some of the best of human behavior. Sales, done rightly, is the art of improving other people’s lives, while getting paid a living for doing so.

I’m aware that this definition also includes therapists (potentially), as well as lawyers, accountants and consultants (again with the caveat). Rightly so.

Human beings interact with each other both well, and badly. Most of us manage many examples of each in the course of a day.

Bad interactions are usually based on fear and blame, and manifest as attempts to get others to do our bidding
Good interactions are usually based on beneficence and curiosity, and manifest as attempts to help others.

Because we interact on the basis of reciprocity, bad behavior begets more bad behavior, and good begets good. (Anyone detecting a parallel with spirituality here goes to the head of the class).

Which means: the best sales result from motivations that are the opposite of self-interest. I ask you: is that not a fascinating paradox?

Why Sales is Fascinating

Many salespeople are fond of saying, “Nothing happens until someone sells something.” This I find mundane.

Much more interesting is that sales is the theater where we act out our most human roles in the business world. Not finance, not manufacturing, not administration: sales. Sales is quintessentially human in its struggle to overcome our own limitations, and to become better people.

The really great authors know this. Neil Rackham wrote The Book about the necessity of listening before suggesting solutions. Jill Konrath writes about respecting the pressures on our customers’ lives. Ian Brodie lives the principles of the curious and gracious salesperson.

I really am honored to be included on this list, and that’s no sales pitch.

Trust is Not Reputation

Charles H. Green — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:00:09 +0000

I trust my dog with my life – but not with my ham sandwich.

That is but one of dozens of humorous ways to indicate the multiple meanings we attach to the word “trust.” It’s remarkable how good we are at understanding the word in context, given its definitional complexity.

One interesting aspect of trust is its relationship to the concept of reputation. This issue is coming to the fore in the so-called “sharing economy” or “collaborative consumption” movement.

Who can you trust on the Internet to deliver the goods they said they would deliver (think eBay), to leave your apartment in good shape if you lease it on Airbnb, to not be a creep if you offer someone ride-sharing?

It’s tempting to look at the concept of reputation as the scalable, digital badge of trust that we might append to all kinds of transactions between strangers, rendering them all as trustworthy as your cousin. (Well, most cousins.)

Tempting, but not exactly right. Because trust, it turns out, is not reputation.

Greenspan’s Folly

William K. Black has written about the dire consequences of Alan Greenspan confusing trust and reputation, saying:

Alan Greenspan touted ‘reputation’ as the characteristic that made possible trust and free markets. He was dead wrong.

Greenspan believed that Wall Streeters’ regard for their own reputation meant that markets were the best guarantor of trust – because they would perceive their own self-interest as aligned with being perceived as trustworthy.

Unfortunately, Greenspan’s belief was probably based more in ideology than in history or psychology, as the passion for reputation was overwhelmed by the passion for filthy lucre, immortalized in the acronym IBGYBG (“I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone – let’s do the deal”).

Early Social Reputation Metrics

Think back, way back, to November, 2006. A company called RapLeaf was on to something. Here’s how they described their goal:

Rapleaf is a portable ratings system for commerce. Buyers, sellers and swappers can rate one another—thereby encouraging more trust and honesty. We hope Rapleaf can make it more profitable to be ethical.

You can immediately see the appeal of a reputation-based trust rating system. And with a nano-second more of thought, you can see how such a system could be easily abused. (“Hey, Joey – let’s get on this thing, you stuff the ballot box for me, I stuff it for you, bada-boom.”)

Then there’s Edelman PR’s pioneering product, TweetLevel. It does one smart thing, which is to avoid a single definition of whatever-you-wanna-call it. Instead, it breaks your single TweetLevel score into four components: influence, popularity, engagement, and trust.

Edelman says:

having a high trust score is considered by many to be more important than any other category. Trust can be measured by the number of times someone is happy to associate what you have said through them – in other words how often you are re-tweeted.

According to TweetLevel, here are my scores:

Influence 73.4
Popularity 70.1
Engagement 56.4
Trust 46.9

So much for my trustworthiness.

Guess who owns the number one trust score on TweetLevel: it’s Justin Bieber. Now you know who to call for – well, for something.

The KLOUT Effect

It’s easy to poke fun at metrics like TweetLevel that purport to measure trust; but in fairness, because trust is such a complex phenomenon, there really can be no one definition. What TweetLevel measures is indeed something – it’s not a random collection of data – and they have as much right to call it ‘trust’ as anyone else does. Indeed, I respect their decision to stay vague about what to call the composite metric.

KLOUT raises a more specific question: it directly claims to measure Influence, and is clear about its definition, at least at a high level:

The Klout Score measures influence [on a scale of 1 to 100] based on your ability to drive action. Every time you create content or engage you influence others. The Klout Score uses data from social networks in order to measure:

True Reach: How many people you influence
Amplification: How much you influence them
Network Impact: The influence of your network

I find that to be a coherent definition. If I’m a consumer marketer, I want to know who has high KLOUT scores in certain areas, because if they drive action, I want them driving my action.

Note that Klout doesn’t mention reputation at all – just influence. Where does trust come in? Klout says, “Your customers don’t trust advertising, they trust their peers and influencers.”

Well, I wouldn’t go there. On TweetLevel, the top three influencers are Justin Bieber, Wyclef Jean, and Bella Thorne. Influencers – definitely. People to be trusted? What does that even mean?

Trust Metrics

One problem with linking trust to reputation is that it can be gamed. One problem with linking trust to influence is that notoriety and fame are cross-implicated. Bonny and Clyde were notorious, so was Bernie Madoff and the Notorious B.I.G. – that doesn’t make them trusted.

Take Kim Kardashian. Is she influential? You betcha: her Klout score is a whopping 92. Does she have a reputation? I bet her name recognition is higher than the President’s.

But – do you trust Kim Kardashian? Well, to do what? (By the way, TweetLevel gives her a 70.1 trust score – way higher than mine. Now you know who to ask when you need a trustworthy answer; I’m referring all queries to her).

So here are a few headlines on trust metrics.

They’re contextual. You can’t say you trust someone without saying what you trust them for. I trust an eBay seller to sell me books, but I’m not going to trust him with my daughter’s phone number.
They’re multi-layered. Both Klout and TweetLevel correctly recognize that social metrics can’t be monotonic – a single headline number is useful, but it had better have nuances and deconstructive capability.
Behavior trumps reputation. You can get lots of people to stuff the ballot boxes for you; it’s a lot harder to fake your own behavioral history. Trust metrics based more on what you did, rather than just on what people say about you, are more solid.
Good definitions are key. When people say ‘trust’ and don’t distinguish between trusting and being trusted, they’re not being clear. There’s social trust, transactional trust – it goes on and on. Good metrics start by being very clear.

So what’s the link between reputation, influence, and trust? There is no final arbiter of that question. Language is an evolving anthropological thing, and as Humpty Dumpty said, words mean what we choose to say they mean. So job one is to be clear about our intended meanings.

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Full disclosure: I have a small interest in a sharing economy company, TrustCloud. I have written more about the sharing economy and collaborative consumption in a White Paper: Trust and the Sharing Economy, a New Business Model.

Customer Death by Survey? Or Just Bad Surveys?

Charles H. Green — Thu, 10 May 2012 10:00:45 +0000

I recently wrote an article in RainToday called How To Annoy Your Client Without Really Trying, about the excess of customer satisfaction metrics.

Wouldn’t you know it – someone disagreed with me! I know, hard to believe…

But in this case, the someone was pretty interesting and had some good points to make. So please meet Erich Dietz, of Mindshare Technologies.

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Charlie: Erich, welcome. Let’s jump right in. Consumers are getting surveyed to death… but how can one argue that the solution is as simple as changing the survey script?

Erich: You’re 100% right that every time a consumer turns around they are getting hit with surveys – surveys from every business they have ever interacted with. It’s a painful exercise that feeds a market research propeller head in an ivory tower somewhere who never shares what he/she knows; that’s what the problem is.

Which means I also agree with you that the solution is not as simple as changing a survey script.

Charlie: Well, now we’re getting somewhere!

Erich: This is one of those cases where dirt-simple solutions just aren’t realistic. Businesses must change their mindset – from surveying customers to engaging them.

Engagement derives from demonstrating respect for the customer’s time, showing that feedback is actually being used, and using surveys as part of a meaningful, recurring dialogue.

Charlie: So, it’s one of those mindset things: back to ground zero.

Erich: Did you really think otherwise? Me neither.

Unfortunately there will always be businesses that survey in a customer-unfriendly way. But I don’t think anyone is seriously proposing legislation to regulate or ban bad surveying.

What’s important is not how bad most surveying is – what’s important is how a smart company can take advantage of that. Let me suggest that if your business surveys the right way, then out of the 1,000 survey-invites the customer gets in a day, yours will be the one they elect to take. And that’s huge.

Charlie: That is pretty big, actually, and what you’re saying is the bad surveys actually make it easier for the really good ones to stand out.

So let’s jump to the question that begs: how does a business go about surveying the “right” way?

Erich: They increase their focus and commitment to structure, communication, and engagement. Let me start with structure.

Too many surveys are written for the surveyor; they end up long and rigid. Reduce the length of the surveys, focus more heavily on allowing customers to share their experiences, wants, interests, etc. in their own words. This is a radical change from asking the customer to conform to their rating scales or menu choices on every data point.

Transactional surveys should be no more than 2 minutes, and should set accurate expectations with the invite (e.g. “please answer 4 brief questions”).

I strongly recommend that, wherever possible, businesses compensate customers for their time. Think about ways to compensate the survey customer that can actually drive incremental revenue back into the business.

Charlie: Cool! What about communication?

Erich: When did you last feel that your feedback went anywhere meaningful? Most businesses miss the simple layup – tell the customer when they make a change based on customer feedback! You have to show customers you’re listening to – and acting on – the feedback they’ve spent their valuable time providing. Show them their time was not spent in vain.

Charlie: Common sense, even though it’s not common. Engagement?

Erich: Use surveys to enhance and deepen customer conversations. When a surveyed customer indicates service lapse, make sure the front line is empowered to follow up – personally.

Conversely, for those customers who indicated positive experiences – reach out, frequently, just to say thank you.

Charlie: Erich, those are eminently sound recommendations. If all survey designers took your advice – well, that’s an interesting thought-experiment. It occurs to me the effect would be massive. Thanks so much for taking time with us.

Erich: A pleasure, Charlie.

Trusted Advisor? Or Just Not a Crook?

Charles H. Green — Mon, 07 May 2012 10:00:37 +0000

The term “trusted advisor” has been around a long time. Recently I wrote about how the phrase has undergone “trusted advisor inflation” and become far more casually used.

When Maister, Galford and I wrote the book The Trusted Advisor back in 2001, one of our aims was to debunk the idea that trust was mainly about competence, credentials and cognition. We said:

..becoming a good advisor takes more than having good advice to offer. There are additional skills involved, ones that no one ever teaches you, that are critical to your success…you don’t get the chance to employ advisory skills until you can get someone to trust you enough to share their problems with you.

The theme of this book is that the key to professional success is not just technical mastery of one’s discipline (which is, of course, essential), but also the ability to work with clients in such a way as to earn their trust and gain their confidence.

We went on to say:

The trusted advisor is the person the client turns to when an issue first arises, often in times of great urgency, a crisis, a change, a triumph or a defeat.

Issues at this level are no longer just seen as organizational problems, but also involve a personal dimension. Becoming a trusted advisor, the pinnacle level, requires an integration of content expertise with organizational and interpersonal skills.

That was then (2001). To my astonishment, it appears that not everyone in the world has read our book and committed it to memory. (Imagine that.)

Thin Trust

That’s not the way a lot of the world has come to use the term “trusted advisor.” The following quotes are taken from current promotional literature:

Full disclosure of conflicting interests is the only way to build and keep trust with your clients.

For decades, CPAs in public practice have laid a foundation of trust with clients by competently handling confidential financial data and performing core services such as tax preparation.

There has been much talk about how accountants should embrace value based, business improvement services so that they can step up and truly embrace their trusted advisor status. Yet little has been written on how to go about doing that in a way that sits firmly within the accountant’s heartland – the numbers.

A trusted adviser offering objective solutions in wealth structuring based on XYZ Research and industry leading global resources…who understands clients’ specific investment needs, structure and area of interest…the trusted advisor is complemented with a team of financial experts and corporate resources.

As your trusted advisor, XYZ delivers a wealth strategy service to manage the financial complexities in your life.

Your loan closing is just the beginning of our relationship. Annual mortgage reviews and rate watches are just a few of the benefits XYZ provides to their clients. That is why __ will not only be your mortgage Planner, but your Trusted Advisor as well.

I’m deliberately not providing links here because I’m not trying to embarrass anyone, but rather to make a simple point: the idea of a “trusted advisor” as synonymous with nothing more than competence, credentials and procedural compliance clearly lives on.

Who should you trust? According to these views, someone who’s been vetted by the industry, many will tell you. How will you know you can trust them? By the number of letters after their name, or by the stress tests they’ve passed. Or in some cases, by the way they are paid (via fees, rather than transactional commissions).

Let’s be clear: basing trustworthiness on whether or not one structurally faces financial temptation is a pretty low hurdle. It reminds me of Nixon’s famous utterance, “I am not a crook.”

Barring someone from temptation doesn’t create deep trust in them. While avoiding conflict of interest is a good thing, it’s entry-level stuff. We reserve deeper trust for those who face temptation, and who nonetheless rise above it through ethics and character.

The bar for being a trusted advisor is higher than not being a crook, being competent, and passing industry equivalents of drug tests.

Reclaiming Trust

A few years ago, we wrote a White Paper: If You Think Competency Sells, Think Again. In it we provided research proving what Maister, Galford and I had claimed a decade earlier: that the dominant factors driving trustworthiness are not competence, business acumen and procedural rigor.

The more powerful drivers of trustworthiness are, in fact, the ‘softer’ side of things: the “intimacy” and “other-orientation” factors we identified in the trust equation.

It may have become fashionable to deny it, but human wiring has not changed in the last decade; we are still prone to trust those we feel secure confiding in, and those whom we feel have our best interests at heart.

They’re only beginning to teach that at business schools (Bill George is an exception). And you will not find it by mastering documented procedures or by improving your business acumen.

Trust Tip Video: It Takes Two to Do the Trust Tango

Charles H. Green — Wed, 02 May 2012 10:00:25 +0000

Establishing a trust-based relationship has always been a two-way street. Like a good Argentinean Tango, there has to be a routine where risk and reciprocation are involved. What can you do to build a more trusting relationship? How do you know which role you play in the trust tango? When should you lead, and when should you follow?

In this week’s Trust Tip Video, we discuss the difference between trusting and being trusted. The two work together cohesively; there is no trust without risk and no trust-based relationship without a first step.

If you like the Trust Tip Video series, and you like our occasional eBooks, why not subscribe to make sure you get both? Every 2-4 weeks we’ll send you selected high-quality content. To subscribe, click here, or go to http://bit.ly/trust-subscribe

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Many Trusted Advisor programs now offer CPE credits. Please call Tracey DelCamp for more information at 856-981-5268–or drop us a note @ info@trustedadvisor.com.

Greed, Love, and a Portrait for Sale

Stewart Hirsch — Tue, 01 May 2012 15:40:57 +0000

The news is much about greed. Greed dominates the headlines, not to mention the content, of what we read in all media. Are we perhaps at the point where the truly sensational stories are ones of generosity and relationship-building?

You be the judge.

Love and Life

Phil and Sue met in 1969 – on Valentine’s Day. They were near-instant soul mates, marrying 4 years later. They hired a photographer to shoot a photo of Sue for the newspaper wedding section.

It was a good photo. The photographer enlarged it and hung it as an example in his studio. But being young and broke, Phil and Sue couldn’t buy a portrait-sized version for themselves.

Life ensued. Phil and Sue moved away, and lived a full life around the world. Sadly, after 38 years of marriage, Sue succumbed to cancer.

A few months later, in 2012 – on Valentines Day – Phil returned to their old town, and to that studio, hoping to find the wedding portrait of Sue, and to buy it.

The portrait was still on the wall. Next to it was a portrait of man who was the Bishop at the time Phil and Sue married. The shop had a new owner, whom Phil recognized from high school as the original photographer’s daughter. She was willing to sell the portrait to Phil –but only with her 95 year-old father’s permission. She agreed to ask him.

A Signpost?

While Phil waited to hear the decision, he went for lunch at one of his and Sue’s old haunts. As he ate, he wondered whether the Bishop was still alive. And as he wondered – the Bishop himself walked into the luncheonette.

Phil was moved. After all these years, it was wonderful to see the bishop. At the same time, it reminded him of the loss of his wife.

A coincidence? A sign? Whatever, it gave Phil hope that he’d be able to get the portrait.

The Portrait and the Loss

When Phil returned to the store, the old photographer had given his permission. The photographers – both generations – knew Phil’s story. She could have charged him anything for the portrait and he would have paid it. Instead, she charged him almost nothing.

Lessons Learned

There was no greed in this story, only generosity. There were relationships that transcended years. There was the empathy – that of the store owner, and the others in his life – and now me.

I first met Phil about 25 years when we worked together at Hills Department Stores. He was the risk manager, I was a staff lawyer. We haven’t seen each other in over 15 years, though we reconnected on LinkedIn, and now stay in touch a couple of times a year. Yet he shared his story with me without hesitation.

There are lots of Phils in our lives. They each have stories. They can be colleagues, friends, clients, even family. Taking the time to listen can strengthen the relationship and bring people closer. And yes, it can also lead to deeper friendships and business opportunities. Because often people like to help those they feel close to.

I am touched that Phil shared his story with me, and that he allowed me to share it even further. Among other things, we are also enhancing our business relationship. Phil is now a senior executive at a large company and has been a valuable resource for my own clients and friends.

Funny how that works. When there’s no greed about it.

This post was written by Stewart Hirsch
Stewart Hirsch is an Associate with Trusted Advisor Associates LLC , and heads its Trust-based Coaching practice. He is founder and owner of Strategic Relationships. Read more about Stewart at http://trustedadvisor.com/consultants.stewarthirsch/. You can follow Stewart on Twitter @stewartmhirsch