The true currency is trust.
Do you have trust in life?
Do you take the first step in a new direction — in your personal or professional life — trusting that the steps you take are the right ones and that it will work out for you?
In my opinion, trust has a lot to do with basic confidence.
- Have you experienced and lived it?
- Was it demonstrated to you as a child?
- Or did you grow up fearful — with the illusion and the fear that you could lose everything, that you won’t ever be happy inside without certain things from the outside world?
Truth be told, I know about these thoughts and I have to admit to you that I’ve had some pretty strange thoughts as a kid — the kind where I really didn’t want to get excited about something because I always thought it wouldn’t work out in the end.
This pattern, or dogma, still sticks with me in certain areas of my personality. I’m aware of it, I am consciously working on it and believe that I’m moving forward a little bit every day in order to deal with it better.
Trust is not just a qualitative subject, but also the most important business matter.
Nothing works faster than trust. In a trust culture, there are shortcuts, quick decisions, and corresponding efficiency in the workplace. A trust-filled working environment is characterized by collaboration rather than by the ego trips of individuals.
In a culture of distrust, the process of decision making can become, overcomplicated; agreements take more time than necessary and the consensus is accordingly slow and costly.
Trust is the basis of all stable relationships and in this respect, there is no difference between the private and professional life.
It is the one single element that changes everything and makes constructive and goal-oriented living together possible. Trust and confidence are special forms of appreciation as well as a sign of loyalty and affiliation. People you trust in turn develop a much stronger commitment. Moreover, loyalty can also serve as a source of tranquillity during turbulent times.
Trust can be compared to the slow and tedious development of a huge glacier, which is massively stable, but can melt over the course of a single summer, due to the changing climate.
In this context, we can also talk about the principle of a trust account. Similar to a bank account, you pay into it and withdraw from it.
- What do your deposits and withdrawals look like?
- How much do you have to pay into this account before you can withdraw a certain amount?
I claim that there is a special conversion system and you have to pay in a lot more often than you are able to withdraw.
For a balanced account, I recommend you pay into it at least five times for each time you withdraw. The currency of trust has a conversion rate of 1:5. This means that in order to get trust from others, you need to give trust first.
This is often pushed to the side or forgotten when it comes to personal relationships.
Guard and take care of trust like it is a huge treasure — it is one of the most precious things that you need in order to lead a fulfilled and successful life.
“Trust is an oasis of the heart that can never be reached by the caravan of thinking.” – Khalil Gibran
When leading employees, we can also equate trust with security. People want and need to feel secure. Among others, this is an aspect of our evolutionary legacy. Being part of a group was some kind of life insurance for our ancestors.
Without a group, survival was pretty unlikely. This is an evolutionary filter which is called “belonging“ — we need to belong and if so, our body rewards us with the release of serotonin one of the key happiness hormones.
Not to belong has the exact opposite effects, we cannot grow, we feel uncertain and stressed due to the fact, that our bodies release adrenalin and cortisol, our perception switches into the “survival mode”
These patterns apply the same way today, and I am convinced that if we take a look, we will find significant trust deficits in a lot of companies.
How do we feel when we feel insecure?
How do we feel when we don’t know if we will still have a job or our current position tomorrow?
Every one of your employees is someone’s son or daughter. What does this mean for you as an executive and leader? This means you have to assume the role of a mother or father of your team. And always ask yourself, what your “children” need.
Appreciation, recognition, authenticity, and trust.
From a business viewpoint, the following thought is relevant and helpful.
If your employees aren’t feeling right, over the long term, your customers will feel it too, and your business will suffer. Even though we’d prefer to define ourselves via numbers, data, and facts — the soft facts are what truly matter.
Normally, the following applies: where the mood is right, business is right. To create trust, you have to trust — to spread trust you have to have trust in yourself.
