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Getting Up Close & Personal with Trust Tips

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We’re about halfway through our countdown of Trust Tips leading up to the release of  “The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust,” a new book written by the two of us—Charles H. Green  and Andrea P. Howe—to be published by Wiley Books, on October 31, 2011.

We try to keep our tips applicable to nearly every workday. That way you can apply them now and see positive results quickly.

You can get the Trust tips delivered straight to your Twitter feed by following us directly (@CharlesHGreen and @AndreaPHowe) or by searching with the hashtag #TrustTip.  I’ve really been enjoying the thought-provoking discussions we’ve been having and I would encourage you to join us.

But as Twitter isn’t for everyone and as we don’t want to leave anyone out in the cold we also keep a running list of the tips here on the site—see below:

If you need to catch up, see our recaps of Tips:

Below are the most recent, Tips #80-75

#80: Two sure trust-killers: a tendency to blame, and an inability to confront

#79: Name one trigger or fault you have; decide how to coopt it

#78: Don’t interrupt. If you do, apologize. Even if you’re a New Yorker.

#77: Did you just name-drop? Why? Who did it help? Check your motives

#76: Call your client once in awhile just to find out how he/she is

#75: Reduce your APM count (acronyms per minute)

#74: If you can’t present it without PowerPoint, go work on your presentation skills

#73: Spend time in your client’s shoes–imagine what it’s like to be him/her; role play with a colleague

#72: Cultivate an attitude of curiosity–think in advance about what questions you want to ask

#71: Try doing your thinking out loud; with your client. Don’t hide it away.

A Couple of Our Favorites

#72: Cultivate an attitude of curiosity–think in advance about what questions you want to ask.

In much of our professional life, our dominant attitude is one of self-focus.  We may be worried, or excited, or intent—but in all such cases, we are self-absorbed.  But the key to success in much of our professional life is to be outward-facing, customer-focused, other-oriented. Fine, you say—but how do you do that?

One way to do it is to cultivate an attitude of curiosity. You can cultivate it by intentionally setting aside time to wonder—wonder why this situation is so, and why things work that way, and where this other thing first came from.  Wondering can lead to questions, and once you have questions, you have a great basis for an other-oriented conversation.

You can make curiosity a habit that way; a habit that results in an attitude. And an attitude results in behaviors that are client-focused.  Your clients will notice.

#80: Two sure trust-killers: a tendency to blame, and an inability to confront

Phil McGee coined this one, and we love it.  Blame—the tendency to deflect bad news onto others, while disproportionately taking credit ourselves.  Blame violates several principles—it is greedy and self-oriented, but it is also deceitful, since it incorrectly assigns responsibility.

The flip side is an inability to confront.  If you can’t constructively confront issues, you can’t speak the truth.  And if you can’t speak the truth, you can’t be trusted.  Note that you don’t have to be brutal to be a truth-teller, that’s not much better than sugar-coating.  But with good intent and careful communication, you can nearly always speak to any issue truthfully.

If you can do that, you can be transparent, open, and have direct and powerful conversations with everyone.  And if you can constructively confront, by the way, there is no longer much reason to blame.

 

Zooming In on 9 New Trust Tips

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We’re lighting up the twittersphere with a series of daily Trust Tips, counting down the work days until our upcoming book, “The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust” is released–October 31, by Wylie Books.

The Trust Tips are concise, practical, and free. They’re published every Monday through Friday, providing easy-to-implement ways to increase your trustworthiness and build better relationships.

Find snippets of insight on Twitter by using the hashtag, a.k.a. pound sign, followed by TrustTip, like this: #TrustTip.  Or go straight to the source by finding us on Twitter at @AndreaPHowe and @CharlesHGreen. We’ve had some good discussions on Twitter and would love to hear from you. We also keep a running tab of all the Trust Tips right here on our site.

See our prior Trust Tips recaps:

Trust Tips Recap: #89-81

#TrustTip 89: Extend yourself—e.g. invite your client to meet you outside of work, share a meal.

#TrustTip 88: Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.

#TrustTip 87: Find out how your project team defines success & how you can help them achieve it.

#TrustTip 86: Don’t jump to problem-solving–slow yourself down by counting, taking notes, vocalizing expectations.

#TrustTip 85: Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself; it’s thinking of yourself less. Be humble.

#TrustTip 84: Being right is vastly over-rated; we don’t care if you’re right unless you’ve first heard us.

#TrustTip 83: Be self-deprecating, it is a form of graciousness.

#TrustTip 82: Confront issues as they arise—being preoccupied w/ them keeps your attention on your own preoccupation.

#TrustTip 81: Answer direct questions with direct answers.

Closeup on Three Favorites

#TrustTip 89: Extend yourself—e.g. invite your client to meet you outside of work, share a meal. A lot of people confuse intimacy in business relationships with being social, when they’re not the same thing. This tip is less about the meal and more about expanding the scope of your relationship beyond typical professional boundaries. It’s easier for someone to trust you when they can relate to you. Let others in. Talk about something other than what’s on the work agenda. Be a person, not just a pro.

Jim Peterson (@rebalancejim) had an interesting take on this Trust Tip. His suggestion: “Do better–invite your adversary.” There’s a boundary-breaking idea!

#TrustTip 88: Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. I borrowed this from a heading in Charlie’s second book, Trust-Based Selling. It’s one of my very favorite lines. Often we mistake being trustworthy with being perfect, or with doing and getting things right most of the time. While it’s certainly important to be competent for people to trust you, it’s equally if not more important to be trustworthy by being authentic. I know I’m more likely to trust someone who’s genuinely flawed—with the confidence and humility to admit it—than someone who comes across as faultless, or who tries too hard.

Consider the business value of integrity—being who you claim to be at all times to all people.

#TrustTip 84: Being right is vastly over-rated; we don’t care if you’re right unless you’ve first heard us. Trust and influence go hand-in-hand. The more someone trusts you, the more likely he is to be influenced by you. In the business of advice-giving, it is not enough to be right—you have to earn the right to be right. The key to getting your advice taken has little to do with the content of the advice you give and everything to do with the context of how you listen to others. Fundamentally, you earn the right to be right by listening first. The act of listening itself creates relationship and trust.

That’s my take, anyway. What’s yours?

Share the wealth; tell others about #TrustTip—new tips posted every weekday at 8:30AM, every week until book publication.

Trust Tips: A Deeper Look

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The countdown continues until “The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust,” (from Wiley Books) hits shelves everywhere. As we eagerly await publication, my co-author, Andrea Howe, and I are posting a series of daily Trust Tips.

These brief yet insightful tips can be found on Twitter by using the hashtag #TrustTip. Or,if you prefer, you can go straight to the source by finding us on Twitter at @AndreaPHowe and @CharlesHGreen.

Not keen to leave those of you out who haven’t jumped onto the Twitter bandwagon, we keep a running tally of all the Trust Tips right here on our site.

We do recommend you take a second, or third, look at Twitter though. We’ve been having some great discussions over there about the tips and more. We’d love for you to chime in.

The Tips

The tips are published every workday as a means to give you a quick method to heighten your trustworthiness and build stronger work relationships.

If you need to catch up, see our recaps of Tips #144-135; #134-115; and #114-105.

Trust Tips #104-90

#104: “Trust but verify.” = blowing smoke. If you have to verify, it’s not trust.

#103: Acknowledge uncomfortable situations: try “I’m probably the only one wondering this, but…” You won’t be.

#102: Name and Claim the Elephant in the Room. Candor drives trust; it’s controlled risk taking.

#101: Don’t gossip or promote relationship “triangles.”

#100: Think it through: how will your client react to what you’re thinking of saying?

#99: Don’t think “I can’t trust yet, it’s too risky;” risk is what creates trust. Take the first risk.

#98: Possibly the best sales/client/relationship question is: Tell me more–please.

#97: Be the same person to all people at all times. That’s a good definition of integrity.

#96: Practice asking difficult questions or making difficult statements before you deliver them

#95: By being willing to have a Point of View, you help everyone else crystallize theirs

#94: Hold others accountable; letting others off the hook lets them live down to your expectations

#93: Write your next proposal with your client; sitting next to them; on the same side of the table

#92: Talk more with your eyes, ears & body, and less with your mouth

#91: Be empathetic: the benefit-to-cost ratio of empathy is nearly infinite.

#90: Next time something great happens, pin the credit on someone.

A Couple of My Favorites:

#93: The normal routine for writing proposals just reinforces the separation between ourselves and our clients (or customers, or partners). We say, “good meeting, I’ll get back to you with a . PDF document by Friday, and ship you hard copy as well.”

Instead, try saying, “Let’s book the conference room again this Friday, and write this proposal together, sitting on the same side of the table. We’ll each bring all our questions and data and we’ll make sure we come up between us with the best possible approached. Of course it’s still a proposal, I know we may not win–but it will be the best possible proposal the two of us can possibly produce.”
#90: We’re pretty good at pinning the blame on others. And we’re often quick to take credit. Taking responsibility is a good antidote to blaming, and ‘pinning the credit’ is the cure for hogging it all to ourselves.

Next time something good happens and you start maneuvering to look like it was your doing, stop–and pin the credit on someone else. They’ll appreciate it, and it’s a good way to practice lowering your self-orientation.

A #TrustTip Highlight Reel

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We’re counting down the days until “The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust,” a new book written by myself and Andrea Howe (to be published by Wiley Books, hitting the shelves on October 31) by lighting up the twittersphere with a series of daily Trust Tips.

You can find these snippets of insight on Twitter by using the hashtag (or pound sign) followed by TrustTip, like this: #TrustTip. Or, if you prefer, you can go straight to the source by finding us on Twitter at @AndreaPHowe and @CharlesHGreen.

We’ve had some good discussions on Twitter and would love for you to put your two cents in.

For those of you still averse to Twitter, we keep a running tab of all the Trust Tips right here on our site.

The Tips

The Tips are concise. They’re published every work day, helping to increase your trustworthiness and build better work relationships.

If you need to catch up, see our recaps of Tips #144-135 and #134-115. Below are #114-105.

Trust Tips Redux: #114–105

#114: Do you know your main customer’s kids’ names? Should you?

#113: Be relentlessly discreet; honor confidentiality

#112: An expectation is a premeditated resentment; stay curious and bemused

#111: Sign up for a Google alert on yourself and your firm: See yourself the way others see you

#110: Send a hand-written note of acknowledgment/thanks

#109: In conversation with your client, occasionally wait half a second longer before talking

#108: Offer to take notes in a meeting

#107: Tell your client something you appreciate about him/her

#106: The great thing about always telling the truth is you have only one version to remember

#105: The easiest, safest and most durable way to make others trust you is to actually be trustworthy–worthy of their trust

A Couple of My Favorites:

#112: An expectation is a premeditated resentment; stay curious and bemused

We all have ideas about what’s going to happen in the future; we couldn’t function without them. But when those ideas turn into expectations to which we become attached–when we start rooting for an outcome, twisting the evidence to support or even encourage a particular result–we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. Just down the street from disappointment lives resentment; and resentment poisons everything.
Be light on your feet. If the home team loses, hey, it happens. If the sale didn’t come through, don’t let it ruin your sleep. If you didn’t get what you wanted, be grateful for what you got. Learn for the future, but don’t let the learning ruin today.

#109: In conversation with your client, occasionally wait half a second longer before talking

Sometimes we can be too eager to answer a question or solve a problem. Next time, don’t you be the one to fill that silent hole in space. If what you say sounds too rehearsed, even if it isn’t, trust begins to erode. Pausing, even for just a moment, can make a noticeable difference. Indicate that you’d like the other person to speak next. Not only will you seem more thoughtful, but you will be more so. And you’ll hear stuff.

Which tips did you find most meaningful?

We’ll be publishing more Trust Tips next week and every week to book publication. Share the wealth; tell others about #TrustTip—new tips posted every weekday at 8:30AM.

144 Tips on Trust: The Great # Countdown

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Last week we announced “The Trusted Advisor FieldBook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust,” a new book written by myself and Andrea Howe in partnership with Wiley Books.

As part of the build-up to the book, we started a series of Daily Trust Tips, one per business day, counting down until publication day, October 31. You can access these daily trust tips on Twitter, by using the hashtag (or pound sign) followed by TrustTip. Like this: #TrustTip


Andrea Howe and I alternately publish the tip du jour every weekday at 8:30AM EST; then whichever isn’t tweeting will re-tweet within the hour. You find us on Twitter at @AndreaPHowe and @CharlesH.Green. Or, you can simply do a twitter search on #TrustTip. That way you can easily spot the whole series at any time.

The Tips

We try to stay away from platitudes. They’re meant to be precise and provocative, things you can apply today to enhance your trustworthiness and build stronger, more trusting relationships.

And if that still isn’t enough to motivate you to get on twitter, then every two weeks or so we’ll publish the most recent TrustTips here on this blog. Here they are, plus a few bonus thoughts.

Trust Tips Redux: #144 – #135

#144 Find out what your client’s customers like best about your client.

#143 Subscribe to 7 Google Alerts: some about your customers, some about their industry.

#142 Develop 5 great customer questions: Ask a partner to pick the top 3 from your list. Use them.

#141 When you present, practice in front of the mirror 4 times. Seriously! 4 times! You’ll get more relaxed.

#140 How much personal time: Hours, $: will you invest this year in you?

#139 Find out where you best customer went to high school. Don’t flaunt it; just learn it.

#138 Host an event that brings key stakeholders together; you be the moderator.

#137 When the customer asks you the price, tell them. Straight away. No hem, haw, wait. Answer the question.

#136 When you tell a story: refer to 3 of the 5 senses in telling it. It’ll make it more memorable.

#135 Don’t walk in without a point-of-view. It doesn’t have to be right; it does have to be thoughtful.

Here’s a couple of my favorites:

# 140, for example. Part of Google’s success clearly lies in happy, engaged employees. If you don’t work for Google, that doesn’t mean you can’t get a little google for yourself. Reinvesting in yourself gives you a break from the daily grind. Feeling comfortable with your position, your team, and your bosses allows you to be more relaxed when faced with difficult situations. When your job is more than where you punch in and punch out, you can be there for your customers. Customers will then look to you as someone who has their best interests in mind—and begin to believe that you might actually care about their goals.

# 137. Almost all price problems are of our own creation. Every reason we concoct for being reticent—don’t quote price until they’ve heard value, etc.—just resonates with the client as obfuscation and avoidance. What’s he hiding? Why can’t he answer a direct question? Any financial planner will tell you, clients find it easier to talk about their sex lives than to talk about money; and any salesperson who appears hesitant is immediately causing suspicion. It’s so easy: just answer the question, and if they don’t ask it, put it out there. It’s a relevant fact; and oddly enough, you get credit for being forthright in mentioning it, simply because no one else will!

Which ones did you find most meaningful?

We’ll be publishing more #TrustTip next week and every week to book publication. Share the wealth; tell others about #TrustTip—new tips posted every weekday at 8:30AM.