How do you know who to trust?

I’m currently heading up to Kuala Lumpur for the launch of the SBGs for Whoosh Malaysia. It’s going to be an exciting trip because it will open up fresh new perspectives as to what will be possible to help grow the culture of the Patterns of Excellence in Malaysia. Already, the group is feeling high with energy and with different ideas and directions.

As I’m waiting for the plane, I think about Whoosh 17 (which ended at 6am, incidentally – the record breaker this round) and about “trust”.

How do you know that someone can be trusted? I know a number of people who are truly trustable. I understand their character. And they have an intrinsic sense of congruence. Unfortunately, when there is incongruence, people appear to be less trustable. It’s a psychological truth. I feel that trust is formed not just through simple processes of rapport building, but a literal blending of minds. I developed a process of creating common ground through rapport building in my dissertation for my counseling training. It basically outlines how we need to blend and establish common ground across all levels of our being. If you are just an acquaintance, you are merely establishing rapport on the environment and behavior level. When soul mates interact, however, they are engaging at the mission and spirituality level. This means that patterns of trust and credibility are not seen just in the individual’s change, but the individual’s interaction.

A trustable person for me peels apart themselves and reveals as many layers as possible. When this happens, each layer allows another person’s understanding and therefore, common ground can be created. For instance, we do this by pacing and leading through body language – that’s creating common gorund through the behaviors and the environment. Yet, we know that we can create connections through other things. When we establish contact with people on an emotional level, we bond and the self-disclosure enables us to feel safe with each other.

The problem here is when people either have hidden agenda or have misunderstood intentions.

In hidden agenda, we cover an intention at the Belief/Value level and as a result, the behaviors turn out incongruent. If this is the case, people experience you, they don’t reach inside as deeply as they need. When this happens, people are “psychologically perturbed”. It engages their resources to begin to interpret the hidden agenda as non-trusting. Whenever we are not given information that we believe to be free-flowing, we tend to feel negatively aroused toward it. I say to person A ‘Hey, I know where I can find $100 free but I won’t tell you’, that merely creates curiosity. ‘Hey, your wife is in danger, but I won’t tell you about it’. See the difference.

Hidden agenda and unclear intentions often drive us to think in one way, and our actions may turn out another way. I think that even if we dislike or hate another person, we ought to be direct. At least, in the minds of your ‘enemies’, you are above board and direct. It may even be a pleasure to spar with you. I can’t quite say why I dislike the lack of directness today, but I know I’ll find an answer sometime soon.

I think I have learnt to trust people more, and at the same time, distrust people. Being in-between no longer poses a conflict – it is a realization that all things co-exist together, and the inherent paradox of life, is that we came here to die. So, by the same token, the person you trust most is the person you will be betrayed by most, yet, your worst enemy might turn out to be so predictable that you can trust the consistency of their behavior.

Consistency is such an important trait. If we turn out unpredictable, we may be construed as having an inconsistent behavior. Imagine if our intentions are misunderstood. We may be consistent, but people may think that we are not, simply because they did not understand why we did certain things. To make things worse, if you fail to cover all ground in anticipating the issues that come up relating to the stakeholders of your choice.

Stakeholder considerations are going to be the next important evolution of a coach or trainer.

Don’t just “create” trust. Be it. Exude it. Demonstrate it. You may find that people may hurt you because you are trusting. But anticipate that. Not everyone is trusting all the time. But it’s worth the bet!