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When I give seminars or training sessions, I often begin by asking for participants’ expectations. And reliably, at least one of the first two will say, “I’d just like to learn some tips and tricks to become more trusted.”

Tips and tricks to become more trusted.

Of course, my first reaction—which I’ve learned to stifle—is to think, “Who do you think you’re kidding! You’re not going to get anyone to trust you with some slick trick!”

Occasionally, if I’m feeling testy, I’ll ask the participant, “Tell me—when was the last time you went to a session like this where you actually got a great “tip” or “trick”—and what was it?” Usually, I get a panicked, blind stare.

But the truth is, who am I to get sarcastic? Because I do the exact same thing myself.  And the most popular posts on this blog have been my Wednesday "trust tips" series. 

When I listen to others’ DVDs or speeches or articles, I too am looking for that one little “aha!” that will give me some kind of great insight. And if not a great insight, I’ll settle for something that gives me an incremental nudge in the right direction.

Something that’s pretty easy to do.

So, it would seem that my attendees and I are all looking for the same thing. Ideas that are low investment and fast payback. In fact, we value those over high return. Fast, easy, and directionally right beats ROI, if it requires high I.

But I’m not sure I’ve got it right, and I don’t want to give in easily to the desire for “fast, easy and directionally right.” Not entirely anyway.

I do believe that becoming trustworthy is at least as much about mindset as it is about skillset. You actually have to change your attitude. You can’t fake it ‘til you make it, or just act your way into good thinking.

But since I’m guilty of the same desire—let me take the cotton out of my ears and put it in my mouth, and listen to you.

What’s the role of tips? What are some great “tips” you have heard? What made them great? And what is the right balance between serving up “tips” and the harder work of becoming trustworthy? Let’s get some dialogue going.

What do we all do before the sales presentation, the big pitch, the final report? Usually, we rehearse until the last minute, fine-tuning and tweaking, building energy and adrenaline, all geared to peak at the final event.

Don’t go there.

By the time of the event itself, about 95% of the outcome has been pre-determined—you just don’t know the answer. The slideset will do what it will do; the political alliances are all in place; personal chemistries are what they are; and if there’s a fix, it’s in.

In fact, trying to wrestle that last 5% to the ground is more likely to annoy than impress the client. You’ve got precious little upside, and a lot to lose.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Next time, try something different.

Next time, stop for 15 seconds in the hotel room. Or in the restroom before the meeting. Or even just outside the meeting room itself on your way in.

Stop, and let this thought take over: “Let me check my ego at the door; let me be a channel for the great things I can offer this client.” Then walk in the door—with no concern for the outcome.

Things are what they are at this point. The event itself is either a ceremony or a scripted play (which you didn’t write). You now have very little power to alter the outcome.

So—give it up. Detach from the results. Stop trying to control things. Let your mind think simply, what can I do in this meeting to be of help to these people? I know lots of great stuff; how can I best channel it to them?

If you think that way, your 95% odds will surely get no worse—and you will get fewer ulcers worrying about the result. Whatever flexibility is left will work in your favor if, at this late date, you’re seen to be helpful rather than shading that last little point, tweaking that last little comment.

If you’re religious, call this a prayer. If you’re spiritual, make it your mantra. If neither, then just call it a pre-flight checklist.

Check your ego at the door. Be a channel. And when you’re done, walk out with a feeling of graciousness that you behaved with class.

 

I was on the afternoon Amtrak Acela Express from Boston to New York.

I got on at the Back Bay stop in Boston (the second stop), and went to the next-to-last car, designated as the Quiet Car. It has signs posted asking customers to talk quietly, and to not use cell phones.

After a while, a genteel-looking woman seated in front of me began to talk on her cell phone. The woman seated next to her clearly made some annoyed gestures, and a man two rows further up turned and glared at her. The call ended.

An hour later, her phone rang and she began to talk again. Again, the gentleman turned and glared. Her seatmate said, “this is supposed to be a quiet car,” and pointed at the no cell phone sign.

“The conductor told me when I got on that since the train was pretty full, we didn’t have to be quiet in this car,” the lady responded. Though she did get off the phone.

45 minutes from New York, the conductor came through, and the lady asked him, “didn’t you tell me we could ignore the quiet sign in this car?” Her tone said she expected vindication. Her seatmate and Mr. Two-Rows-Up turned in anticipation of the ratification of the policy and to watch Ms. Violator get her come-uppance.

“That’s right lady,” said the conductor, “we were pretty full, so talk all you want.”

He left. Unspoken emotions of triumph on her part. Sullen resentment on everyone else’s part—including me.

The lady wasn’t at fault here, the conductor was. He must have overruled the policy on the way out of South Station, but never mentioned it to those getting on at Back Bay, 128, Providence etc.

The point is not to be rigid about policies. They’re made to be broken. The point is, if you’re going to break them, say so.

One of the most fundamental requirements for trust in the workplace—with customers, employees, partners—is to be clear. Clear about intent, clear about roles, clear about expectations. That doesn’t mean rigidity—it means be clear about change.

I still love the Acela, though. The conductor may have been sloppy at trust-based customer relationships, but if I let it ruin a nice train ride—well, that would be on me.

Bear with me: this one’s going to get all abstract on you before it comes back to earth.

Tiha von Ghyczy is a fellow of the Boston Consulting Group’s Strategy Institute, and teaches at Darden Business School. In the current issue of BCG’s long-standing Perspectives series, he writes about the concept of space in strategy:

"In strategy…the ultimate objective is to change human behavior."

"Thought must precede strategy."

"Strategy is a particular form of social coordination across scales of space and time that can be bridged only by articulated and shared thought…"

"…segmentation [that is] driven more by the availability of data than by strategic inquiry and conscious spatial construction…is merely a deceptive simulacrum if the thought process that could influence other minds and give rise to more thought has been absent."

"In strategy, the proof of the soufflé is in the making."

Now, the Boston Consulting Group is one of the world’s premiere strategy consulting firms. They view their job as applying brainpower to issues of corporate (usually competitive) strategy, and they are very good at both—brainpower and strategy.

But with all due props to von Ghczy and BCG—they overrate the role of the intellect. And that’s not good for strategy or business in general.

The insistence that “thought must precede strategy” exactly parallels a common mistake among scientists and social scientists: the belief that in order to predict something, you must be able to explain it.

Both beliefs fly in the face of common sense.

Take explanation and prediction first.

A lot of people believe the severity of a winter can be predicted by the length and color of a caterpillar’s “wool,” by the thickness of apple skins, and by the thickness of animal fur and corn tassels (all of which, by the way, predict a mild winter in the US this year).

Suppose those measures had a 50-year track record of 95% accuracy; would you reject the predictions because you didn’t understand the biochemistry of caterpillars?

How about an old man whose bunions always hurt before a rainstorm. Should he doubt his predictions because he doesn’t understand why they’re right?

Mankind for millennia observed that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, and for millennia they had either no explanation, or ones that were wrong. Yet, I suspect, no one bet against the sun rising in the morning.

For any given phenomenon, an infinite number of explanations can be generated. (The late Sidney Morgenbesser, philosophy professor at Columbia, said, “take a bachelor up in a plane. Push him out. How fast does he fall? 32 feet/sec/sec. There you have it—the law of falling bachelors. Now take a spinster…”) None may be right, and none are required to predict.

Commonsense tells us that trees fall in the forest when we’re not there; that facts are independent of our knowledge of them; and that the brain is not a necessary requirement for doing some very smart things.

Now let’s move to strategy and the intellect.

McCrory Stores was a US Five and Dime store founded in 1882 that lasted for 110 years—a very long time for a retail chain. If one chose to measure success by survival (e.g. “Built to Last”), it’s a good candidate. Its strategy, I would suggest, had nothing to do with an internally thought out idea. In fact, it was driven by an instinct for local—at the neighborhood level—adaptation. As a chain, the company had almost nil brand presence, but superb survival instincts. Nobody articulated that as their strategy. The strategies they did articulate died in the face of the corporate culture—and thus the company survived.

Take the Japanese auto industry. At a macro level, the fact that Japan is an island nation made it dependent on exports, and gave them a view of the market as large and global, with their share being small. This naturally led to a growth strategy—precisely the strategy for success in a global market. It came from a "mindset" but not so much from the cognitive activities of the mind.

By contrast, the US industry worked from the unconscious assumption of a fixed market (about 220 million people, betwen the Atlantic and the Pacific, between Canada and Mexico, speaking English. etc.), within which the US players had significant shares. That led them to think margins, competitive supplier relationships, and "trading up." None of which served them well, despite buying a lot of strategic thinking.

The Japanese success had to do with cultural values like a passion for perfection and an export mentality; the auto companies were probably larger consumers of manufacturing consulting than of strategy consulting.

Japanese corporate strategies—unlike strategy in the US and Europe, dominated by the “thought comes first” view of strategy—traditionally evolved through finely tuned social interactions, communicating very effectively at a detailed level, driven by common norms, without the requirement for abstract thought to lead the way.

Thought does not have to precede strategy. An insistence on explaining things doesn’t mean things "must" be explained. (This viewpoint parallels that of philosophers like Hegel who end up saying things like the Real is the Mind. There are virtues of that branch of philosophy, but alignment with commonsense is not among them.)

Values-driven organizations succeed without much conscious strategy; and the right values can be selected as much by instinct as by intellect.

This cult of cognition is not driven by strategists alone. Brain-worship is a cultural affliction largely of the business intelligentsia of the US and Europe, manifested also in the academicization of business schools and the popularity of quantitative analytical techniques both where they’re useful (e.g. Wall Street) and not (e.g. human behavior).

It’s the same bias that leads us to dehumanize human relationships in business. It is a trend that mitigates against emotional intelligence, feelings, and relationships.

Oh yeah. And against trust. Toldja we’d get there.

Thank you very much to everyone who read, commented or linked to these posts.

Trust Tip 14: More Hard Talk about Soft Skills
Everyone knows you’re supposed to listen with your complete attention.  But how can you do that if you’re thinking about what you’re going to say next?  The answer is, you can’t.  Here’s how to stop thinking about what you’re going to say next, so you can actually listen.

A Little More Outrage, Please!
Roger Parloff, Fortune’s Senior Editor for Legal Affairs suggests in a column that the cost of the options backdating scandal isn’t as high as people are making out.  Not only does that smack of making excuses, doesn’t it miss the point of why executive fraud deserves outrage?

Trust Tip 13: Hard talk about a soft skill
There are a lot of methods fro improving your listening skills, but they all miss the point.  If you’re trying to catch someone’s body language, or your next question, then you aren’t actually paying full attention.

Charles Handy vs. Web 2.0
There are a number of social software services, like LinkedIn, Opinity and Rapleaf that attempt to use social networks to determine if someone is trustworthy.  Can trust be turned into an algorithim this way, or is it, in the end, about something human which can’t entirely be measured?

Trust Tip 20: Stop Closing the Sale
Other than perhaps price, the most important part of making a sale is closing.  The odd thing is that trying to overcome resistance to a sale makes it harder to close a sale than not trying to close a sale.  Seem odd?  Read the post!

If you’d like to share your thoughts on any of these posts please jump on in!