Continued from "Broken Trust Happens: Part 1"
WHEN YOU HAVE LOST THE TRUST OF OTHERS
Whether you lose the trust of others through a conscious act of betrayal, poor judgment, an honest mistake, a failure of competence, or a simple misunderstanding, the path to restoration is the same-to increase your personal credibility and behave in ways that inspire trust.
However, understanding how trust was lost in the first place is an important key to understanding how to apply the Cores and Behaviors in attempting to restore it. Generally speaking, a loss of trust created by a violation of character (Integrity or Intent) is far more difficult to restore than a loss of trust created by a violation of competence (Capabilities or Results). Violations of Integrity are the most difficult of all to restore in all relationships, whether they are personal, family, professional, organizational, or in the marketplace.
Keep in mind that when you talk about restoring trust, you're talking about changing someone else's feelings about you and confidence in you. And that's not something you can control. You can't force people to trust you. You can't make them have confidence in you. They may be dealing with other issues in their own lives that make the challenge more difficult for them. Or they may have interpreted a breach of competence on your part as a breach of character, which significantly complicates the issue. The point is that you can only do what you can do. But that's a lot. And even if you're unable to restore trust in a particular situation or relationship, by strengthening your Cores and making habits of the Behaviors, you will increase your ability to establish or restore trust in other situations and relationships throughout your life.
So keep in mind that we're not talking here about "fixing" someone else. You can't do that. But you can give to others someone who is credible and worthy of trust and behaves in ways that inspire trust. And experience shows that this kind of example over time will do more than anything else you could do to restore trust.
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An excerpt from my book, The Speed of Trust. Copyright (C) 2006 by CoveyLink, LLC. Reprinted by permission of Free Press, a divison of Simon and Schuster, Inc.
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Comments: 5
Poor President Bush hasn't lied to the public, but because public information (believing that Husein was capable of mass destruction) proved to be wrong, his credibility is tarnished. He is not popular with the press, nor is his belief in God as a born again Christian popular. His core value means "do not lie".
I think our society is more willing to be lied to if there are short term rewards. Working toward long term goals require one to face difficult truths.
A family was set to go on a long distance tour and I was to deliver them the tickets and the money at the station. The family trusted me absolutely. I went to the station well in advance giving some allowance for extra time. But the extremely overcrowded platform, lack of proper indications for the particular compartment and lack of prior understanding of the exact point of meeting, which contributed to my locating them just minutes before the departure of the train. The family members were very nervous, and so was I, and in their nervousness they couldn't help having wild thoughts of being let down.