How Do You Establish Trust When Building Relationships?

"How Do You Establish Trust When Building Relationships?"

Since early 2009, I have been asking 60+ Capture Your Flag interviewees questions just like this, gathering their answers and building up a library of knowledge. This knowledge library exists to support you on your own journey. The videos serve as reference material to help you compare and contrast your experiences to the experiences of other people just like you who may be a stage or two ahead of you in their career or in their lives. We call this a Near Peer Learning experience. This experience is about trust and to begin, you need to answer the question yourself.

How do YOU establish trust when building relationships?

Creating, managing and cultivating relationships - both personal and professional - is a fundamental theme of the conversations I have with our Capture Your Flag interviewees. At all levels, from meeting someone romantically to finding the right person to hire for your company to building that bond that will take your partnership or friendship to new levels, our conversations always seem to come back to trust and what it means to build trusting relationships.

Do you see trust as something that is earned over time, that can be assessed and given in an initial encounter, or that should be assumed at the onset of a conversation or relationship? Do you treat it differently for family, friends and/or colleagues or are you consistent in your approach?

It is clear that trust can develop in many ways.

In asking dozens of Capture Your Flag interviewees this exact question, we have learned a tremendous amount about ways to think about and go about establishing trust when building relationships. Since trust is such an important element in relationships, it is my hope you will find it useful turning to the knowledge library for relevant content on establishing trust. One example I would like to share with you in this post comes from Professor Ben Hallen.

Ben Hallen is an Assistant Professor at London Business School where he teaches entrepreneurship and strategy. His research focuses on how relationships develop between investors and startup founders. Through extensive research, Hallen has developed insight on how trust develops between two parties, which goes far beyond business and right to the heart of every relationship we know in our lives.

In his response, Hallen covers four ways to establish trust.

1) DEVELOP TRUST HISTORICALLY THROUGH REPEATED, ESCALATING INTERACTIONS

Hallen notes "[If] I were to give you the textbook answer, trust develops historically over time. That’s one way, through repeat interactions, escalating interaction, where each person opens themself up a little bit and the other person opens themself up more. Each contributes a growing amount. It builds slowly - you do put yourself out there, you have to put yourself out there - but it’s through ongoing interactions that trust then really develops over time. So it’s not something you necessarily want to try to rush, but you do want to put yourself in the positions that trust can develop."

2) DEVELOP TRUST VIA SIGNALS

Hallen then shares that "[another] way that trust can develop is through signals where you have a reason to believe that the other person is credible, or trust can be transferred through a third party." Signaling often comes about when two parties see there is both a competency to contribute to a trusting relationship and a commitment to allowing that trusting relationship to exist over a mutually acceptable period of time.

3) DEVELOP TRUST VIA A SINCERITY TO UNDERSTAND AND SERVE

In describing his third method of developing trust, Hallen notes "At a very personal level, when I try and develop trust, I think its root is sincerity, that you’re very open, transparent, about what you’re looking for, and you couple that transparency with looking to add value. How can you add value to someone else? You make it more about them first, and so there has to be a real sincerity about looking to build up someone else and to work with them. You know, how can I create value?"

4) DEVELOP TRUST WHILE FULFILLING YOUR CURIOSITY TO MEET NEW PEOPLE

Lastly, Hallen takes his personal point of view one step further, saying "I don’t think it arises from the goal of creating trust but I think it does help with that process, believing that others are worth knowing, just for the very sake of knowing others, that there’s something inherently valuable and important about that."

We found this point of view from Professor Hallen helpful and insightful and hope you found it helpful and insightful too. 

For more videos from our Establishing Trust series, including all answer to this question and more, please visit the Establishing Trust theme page on our website or our YouTube Page Establishing Trust Video Playlist.

- Erik

To What Do You Aspire?

"To what do you aspire?"

This is a fundamental question I ask my interviewees and it seems apropos to be the first question I ask you.

To what. Do you. Aspire?

It's a big question. It's no softball, to lead things off and get you warmed up. And in that answer is not the answer but rather an establishing point that can unlock wave after wave of follow-up questions to understand how past, present and future come together and form, well, your wonderful story. 

The larger context is about story and that aspiration question really kickstarts the conversation. 

To what do you aspire?

It's not about trying to best the other answers. If it were, then I never would have chosen to interview up-and-coming professionals or to ask you. Instead, I would have gone "Full Charlie" (Charlie Rose style) and asked world leaders, industry titans, and celebrities about their aspirations. 

And they would have reflected back or told me about future plans that, frankly, any normal person like you or me would have a difficult time embracing or even understanding. Hello, Mr. Bill Gates. Hello, Mr. Warren Buffett. 

But a Capture Your Flag story is a story that is a bit more approachable because we have so much in common with it. Let's take Shaheen Wirk as an example. As we have seen in our videos since 2009, Shaheen is working his way to find meaning in life and focus in career while managing all the moving pieces life presents - from deepening personal relationships to pursuing cultural enrichment to developing professionally to making a greater difference in the community. Shaheen's story is the Capture Your Flag story. As is the Matt Curtis story. The Clara Soh story. The Slava Rubin story. The Audrey Parker French story. 

It is your story. 

To what do you aspire?

Do you aspire to be a loving parent? Is your answer tied to securing resources - financial, intellectual, relational - that allow you to be happier, safer, smarter? To be more powerful? To be more respected? To be more loved? To be more charitable?

Perhaps you see eye to eye with Ross Floate and aspire to be a good person. Or else you share common ground with Garren Katz or Ramsey Pryor and aspire to live up to your potential. It may be that you identify most with serving others, such as Jullien Gordon or else you find yourself setting an aspiration to find that purpose a la Gabrielle Lamourelle that will allow you to make the greatest difference. Like Professor Ben Hallen, you may aspire to create an impact as a teacher or, like Idan Cohen aspire to leave a legacy for future generations. Your aspiration may match that of Julie Hession where you aspire to find a career where you use your passion every day.

There are so many possibilities! 

Since starting Capture Your Flag in 2009, I've had the pleasure of a lifetime to be able to sit down with these interviewees each year and talk to them about how the decisions they are making and the experiences they are having shape how they plan, pursue, and achieve life and career aspirations. 

In that time, through research, experimentation and testing, I have honed my approach to take the answers to the aspiration question and build it into a sharable methodology or model that you can use to “capture your flag” in your life and career.

To what do I aspire? 

I aspire to help you live a richer and more rewarding life, not by providing advice from celebrities and experts, but rather sharing real stories from real people living their lives as best as they can. In this blog, I'll ask you questions and provide you with a very detailed set of comparable experiences via our videos.

This instructional model (which we’ve termed Near Peer Learning) presents you with stories from people very similar to you, going through many of the same challenges as you, and brings you their evolving story year after year, so you have a virtual mentor resource rich with examples to support you on your journey.

This week you are going to see many people. Your children. Your spouse. Your parents. Your friends. A neighbor. A colleague. Your spiritual leader. Ask them the question: "To What Do You Aspire?" and start a conversation around what it means to “capture your flag.”  

- Erik