“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them”, Ernest Hemingway 

In this article, we want to shed more light on trust in personal life but also in the professional environment. Trust is a word that is almost always present and accompanies us in all areas of life. Trust is necessary for society to function and it can play a large role in happiness.

Trust is the act of placing confidence in someone or something else. It is a fundamental human experience. Trust is not an either/or proposition, but a matter of degree. How often do you read sentences, such as “We treat each other with trust”, in brochures and on company websites? Trust has almost become a buzzword. Every company wants to broadcast it because it is important to be trusted. But what is really going on behind the scenes? Is there really a trusting working atmosphere in the office or is this just wishful thinking?

We can also read every day in the media, questions like “Can you still trust the vaccine?” or “Has President Smith gambled away his trust?” In the course of the past economic crisis, there was the talk of a “crisis of confidence”. If studies are to be believed, we are living in a decade of mistrust. And in times of fake news, sharing non-factual messages or half-truths, polemical messages and so on, via social media, a little caution and discretion in trusting all messages, is really helpful.

Mistrust on the other hand, encourages constructive scepticism, enables healthy suspicion but can cause fear, confusion, and anxiety, all of which make it difficult for building healthy relationships. This can lead to poor social support, isolation, loneliness, paranoia, scepticism, anxiety, anger, and/or self-doubt.

If we didn’t trust anyone, we would be left to our own capabilities, be very lonely and could hardly make a difference to others. As human beings, we strive for social networks, relationships and the ability to create and achieve something meaningful in life. All of that is not possible without trust, neither in our personal life nor consequently in our professional life. As a very social being, humans have a strong desire for trusting others.

Trust: We either have it or we don’t? We trust ourselves, trust other people, or institutions and organizations. To the sociologist Marek Korczynski, trust is “the confidence that the other party will not take advantage of one’s own vulnerability in an exchange.” Hence, trust always needs two parties.

Some life experiences can impact a person’s ability to trust others. If we encounter too many negative experiences in our lives, we might lose our ability to trust others. Self-esteem also plays a large role in a person’s capacity to trust. People with low self-esteem may be less likely to trust others. Those with higher self-esteem may be more self-assured. Traumatic life events may also cause issues with trust and safety. This may then lead to unhealthy behaviours, because we are constantly checking and controlling, causing others to feel insecure. We can hardly involve our partner or colleagues in our decision-making process. We often do everything ourselves, which will lead to overload of tasks and stress on our end but also for a reputation of being a non-team player, non-collaborative and difficult to manage.  

How is trust built?
At the beginning of a relationship between two people, there is a “leap of faith”. Imagine you are meeting someone in the gym just around the corner of your street and you start talking to each other. She asked if you wanted to join her for a drink in the Pub next door after your workout. There is a leap of faith needed to say yes. In another example, imagine that you are responsible for hiring a new team assistant and that you have a one-hour interview with a candidate. The interview is positive and you decide to offer this person the job. By hiring him/her, you take a leap of faith. Now the ball is in this new team assistant’s court, to return the trust placed in him/her, in doing a great job. Think of this as if you are building or losing trust like you would, with a bank account. 

The “trust account”
Imagine the following scenario: You entrust your team member with a task that is important to you. If he/she fulfills this task to your complete satisfaction, a credit of trust is developed between the two of you. But what happens if the team member does a poor job? Then you lose your confidence in him/her. Same happens if you entrust one of your friends with a task supporting you, like helping you to move to a new house. If your friend is there on the day of the move and working hard the entire day, your trust in your friend grows. If your friend doesn’t show up on the day, you have lost confidence in your friend.

Coming back to the first scenario with the positive outcome, your team member has now gained a credit of trust that he/she can further develop on. He/she can lose the trust again if he/she disappoints you. On the flip side, you can gain even more trust and confidence in him/her through further trust building actions. Something similar would happen in the second scenario. After your friend’s help with your move, you may even trust him/her to babysit your kids.  

In contrast, if you had a negative experience with trusting your team member and he/she has often disappointed you in the past, your trust in him/her is broken and he/she cannot build up a credit of trust anymore. In the best-case scenario, your team member can make up for your loss of trust in him/her. The same would happen from your own private life if we lost trust in our friends or partner. We would split up or stop the friendship and only after a while we could maybe re-establish some connection again.

It is also important to remember that every trust account has a “lower limit”. If this limit is reached, the trust is broken or destroyed. In contrast, there is no upper limit; there is “unlimited” trust. Our trust account is, of course, not openly monitored, the evaluation and the build of that account takes place in our subconscious.

How do you convey trust?
The good news is: people can relearn trust. With the scenario of a trust account, it may be obvious that trust can be built up and broken down. In the following section, we would like to show you how you can convey trust and thus gain credit of trust in your relationships.  

Openness and reliability are the basis for a stable foundation of trust. It is important to establish transparent information and communication “rules”. People who only receive half of the important information, feel left out. It is also crucial that promises made are kept.

An example for the professional life could be: Managers should not promise a promotion if they cannot safely offer it to the employee, e.g. due to reorganization measures. Or to pick an example out of private life: Tell your partner why you don´t want to go on an adventurous holiday trip because you are concerned about losing your job or that you would need the money for an investment. This will help your partner understand your rationales instead of thinking you don´t want to go on holiday with him/her.

If people feel accepted, respected and valued by their partner, friends, parents, superiors, etc. more trust is built at the same time. A genuine interest in the individual and support in their personal development, are also helpful. Actively listen to your partner, friends, employees, etc. If you take them and their problems seriously, you will be trusted. But always keep in mind that the trust you have placed in them must also be “real”. Do not “play games” with them. People want authentic partner, friends, colleagues, managers, not actors. So it is not rocket science to instill trust with the presented rules of conduct.

The benefits of trust
Trust is wanted and needed, but what is the benefit of a trusting cooperation? Trust makes a lot of things easier. The greater the trust between “sender” and “recipient”, the smaller the loss of information in communication. For example, if you trust your partner, you will both split the daily tasks and routines between the two of you or according to the strengths of each individual. This will lead to less duties for yourself and free up some of your time to spend in a more relaxing way with your partner. It can also lead in professional life to faster and more efficient work processes and an improvement in the work atmosphere. The more the employees trust their executives, the higher the motivation and the effort put into work. This in turns generates higher profit. So, trust pays off – in two ways.

However, trust is not only of great importance between the manager and the employee, but also between the employees themselves. Teamwork is not possible without trust. Trust is the link between team members and the basis for successful cooperation. So it’s clear that exuding trust is a strong competitive advantage. In times of intense competition, it is the responsibility of managers to establish and convey trust in their company.

But why is trust so difficult?
If everyone has this wish, why is it not fulfilled? Why is there more and more distrust? If the trust has often been violated, a protective mechanism is set up which manifests itself in mistrust. This mistrust is often generalized and therefore applies to every person.

Trust is about control. In addition to the actual task, you also delegate competencies and responsibility for the result. In any case, a minimum of control is necessary. The lower your confidence in the skills or in the individual themselves, the greater the controls become. This in turn can lead to a domino effect that can completely destroy trust. This balancing act between control and trust is not easy and it is important to master it in all areas of life.

Measures for confidence
An important step towards more trust is to raise awareness of this topic. Make yourself aware of the importance of a trusting cooperation again and again, and try to live it in everyday life. Trust creates confidence, decreases uncertainty, fosters openness, supports psychological safety, and encourages knowledge sharing and joint problem solving.