Trust Is Like Wifi
Have you ever had a bad wifi connection?
Maybe at a coffee shop or inside a conference center. Or at your mother-in-law's house (eek!).
For me this never happens when I'm just trying to catch up on the news, it's always right as something important has happened: My wife needs me to look at something, or I have an important client note to get out.
Sometimes that bad connection just slows things down a little, making things just a little less convenient. But sometimes that faulty connection is catastrophically bad.
Everything just STOPS.
That idea, that the strength of the connection determines the ease of communication, is exactly the same as Trust.
Trust is Like Wifi. We are sending and receiving signals all day, in every interaction. Those signals can demonstrate exactly how much we can be Trusted and they will certainly determine how quickly.
How do you signal that you are trustworthy?
Think back to a new relationship that you were keen to develop. It could be a romantic interest, a potential client, or employer. If you’re like me you have a mental checklist of all the ways to show trustworthiness.
That checklist creates a constantly running inner dialogue for me:
Firm Handshake
Make eye contact…but NOT too much eye contact {don’t make it weird}
Don’t forget name
Don’t interrupt
Ask a thoughtful question to show interest
And on and on….
That internal dialog is my brain working overtime to manage what Signals I am sending about Trust, really about who I am and how I want to be perceived.
What are Trust Signals?
Trust signals are the information we are constantly sharing, sometimes by design (and frequently not) that inform how others decide to give us their Trust.
Go back to that wifi idea - for a wifi connection to work, information has to constantly flow back and forth. Trust flows between both senders & receivers.
The information is flowing simultaneously.
Think about all of the information flows you are sharing in a conversation:
The words you say and their meaning to you.
Your facial expressions and eye contact
Body language like shoulder position and hand motions
Tone of voice, volume, and cadence
Really this is just the tip of the iceberg —each of these information flows are then filtered through personal experiences and cultural norms. We don't get to process these signals individually, they are happening simultaneously. Even more complicated — we are sending and receiving at the same.
SO MUCH INFORMATION.
Why Does This Matter?
Trust Signals inform how we develop Trust with each other, but I’ll save some of that discussion for another time. For now it’s worth considering that in every relationship (especially in the professional world) we should ask ourselves two questions:
Are my Trust Signals conveying the messages I want them to?
Am I interpreting the Trust Signals I’m receiving appropriately?
Trust is Hard; it’s contextual and fluid. If you want to Become Trusted you need to think about how your signals are helping or hurting that effort.
There isn’t a perfect answer to developing Trust.
There isn’t a 1-2-3 How To guide.
I can’t give you a neatly, perfectly packaged ‘done for you’ Trust plan.
But here is what I can promise:
If you start thinking about the Trust Signals you are sending, and how they are being interpreted you will naturally start establishing Trust better and more deeply.
Have you ever considered how Trust works in the criminal world?
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