What’s Your Trust Quotient? Announcing a New Self-Assessment Online Tool
You may know your IQ (Intelligence Quotient). You have some sense of your EQ (Emotional Intelligence).
But what about your TQ — your Trust Quotient?
I’m excited to announce here the launch of an of a new online self-assessment tool: The Trust Quotient Self-Diagnostic to answer that question. It’s been in development for several weeks now, and I’m sharing it first only with readers of Trust Matters.
The Trust Quotient Self-Diagnostic consists of 20 questions, based on the the Trust Equation1:
(Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy)
_____________________________
Self-Orientation
The Trust Quotient Self-Diagnostic measures your Trust Quotient Score—your TQ—and compares it with all other test-takers to date. The database will get better as it gets larger, but early returns suggest it fits very well with commonsense assessments.
The Trust Quotient Self-Diagnostic also then gives you practical advice and suggestions on how to leverage your strengths, and how to address on your weaknesses.
Please go to TrustedAdvisor.com/TrustQuotient to take The Trust Quotient Self-Diagnostic . Tell your friends.
And if you don’t mind, drop us a note to say what you think of The Trust Quotient Self-Diagnostic, including how to make it better and more useful.
1see The Trusted Advisor, by David Maister, Charles Green, Robert Galford; Free Press, 2000
Charles–
Great self-assessment tool! I would be interested in knowing how many people would give their clients this to fill out on them as well, since we are all legends in our own minds.
Thank you.
Jeri
Excellent and thought-provoking tool, Charles, thanks.
While I was taking your assessment, I wondered if the kind of unsavory folks you likely shouldn’t trust would lie on the test and thus score well.
Does that make me devious or simply curious?
In any case, I’ve linked to your tool in my blog today.
Both Jeri and Roger are pointing out an interesting aspect of trust and surveys like this: the bias involved in asking someone to assess themselves on an issue that involves how other people see them.
I think Jeri’s suggestion is a great one: use this for your own mini-360 with a colleague, friend, loved one. Scary? You bet it is: having to compare one’s self-view with the judgment of reality has got to be gulp-producing. But it can lead to a very valuable conversation.
How about using this as the basis of a group 360 exercise? Talk to me.
Roger may or may not be devious (I doubt it) but he’s justifiably curious. Will devious people lie on this survey? Sure they will; though you have to ask, who in the world do they think they’re kidding, other than themselves?
And I suspect it isn’t so much lying as wishful thinking, willful self-delusion. Again, it isn’t easy having to come face to face with others’ judgment of us; we prefer to map the world in the mirror of our own choosing.
That said, I think this sort of instrument can at least challenge our thinking, and to begin–in a non-threatening way–the valuable process of asking, "just how trustworthy do I think I am–and how close is that to what others would say about me?"
I’d like to amend my comment above.
The Trust Quotient Self-Diagnostic, as presently formed, really only works for oneself, not as a 360, since the comparisons are based on others doing self-analyses. In fact, mixing one use with the other just messes with the integrity of both.
That said, the 360 idea is a terrific one, and I’m looking at ways to adapt it to the online format. Interested parties can email me or just subscribe to the blog, I will be announcing it when that gets developed.
In the meantime, potential clients interested in using the model in offline setting uses can speak with me directly as well.
Hey Charlie –
Interesting tool. Fun to take.
So I was never meant for sales. With a score of 4.8, my future is bleak.
I’m intrigued the scores aren’t bell shaped — they are definitely skewed upward: perhaps as a factor of the audience taking the test, and perhaps as a factor that all the answers seem to need to be at the upper end of each questions’s scale — I don’t believe there were any questions for which a "never" would have been the "right" answer. True? I also notice there’s a fairly long upper tail to the distribution. Both of these factors say the test results may be biased by whatever. It will be interesting to see if the curve moves towards a more normal shape as the number of takers increases.
I tried to be rigorous with my answers and look what it got me. But what would cheating have gotten me other than a fine score? Answer: a guilty personal memory.
Jim
I have been working with my field team utilizing the Trusted Advisor as a guide. I would like to core comp them during my next team meeting at the end of October. Is there a printable TQ that I can use on the group to get an understanding of where they are. Also looking for role play examples that provide opportunity to use what we have learned