Manage-Wise

Acceptable behaviour is in the eye of the beholder

You might be the most trusting person on the face of the earth. That’s no guarantee, however, that anyone trusts you.

No pro quo of confidence exists. Some people are so innately distrustful that they withhold their trust under any circumstances. For example, they keep money under the mattress because even the banks seem suspect. Others trust only in certain circumstances, or for reasons they’re not aware of. Trust can be a one-way train. You can’t demand someone’s trust; that person has to give it to you.

Your way of being, however, can either engender or undermine trust in you on the part of others. Let’s take a look at two cautionary tales about trust.

Tale Number 1

A few years back we were hired as consultants to oversee all the training programmes for a great new venture at a big health-care company. We conducted training for managers, internal sales staff, external sales staff, group presenter sales staff, and several analysts. Once a month we spent four days in a row with people whose job it was to sell a terrific idea to consumers.

The general manager of the venture hired us. We’ll call him Jim. He had impeccable credentials. After graduating from a top-flight MBA programme, he worked for one of the premier consulting firms in the country. Jim was brilliant—and a darn nice guy, to boot.

Over time, as we worked with the people Jim managed, we became aware of something that confused us. They thought that the programme was good, but they questioned whether or not it would ever get implemented. They were also convinced that the company would somehow botch things up.

On the surface, it seems like the sales staff ought to have been eating out of Jim’s hand. We used to teach them six different ways to create rapport, and he unconsciously used them all. He was likeable, friendly and supportive.

Later, after the training was complete, we were called in for a special meeting on conflict resolution. At that point, we finally figured out what was going on. Jim’s sales staff didn’t trust him because he didn’t have predictable, acceptable behaviour—what we called PAB. In fact, unknown to us, Jim’s track record was so poor that he actually had the near-opposite of PAB.

For instance, the company’s accounting system had been delinquent about cutting commission cheques. Jim said he’d take care of it. Perhaps he tried to do so, but by the time we came on the scene, some cheques were more than a year late. Jim represented the company in his employees’ minds, and their experience was that commissions were being botched up. The sales staff felt as though they weren’t being taken care of, so they didn’t trust the company to take care of its customers either. No wonder they dragged their feet a little in the sales process.

Jim also had a history of implementing changes, then revisiting the plan before implementation was complete. Sometimes, he’d change the plan before the first set of changes were even implemented. No wonder the staff doubted that the new programme would ever be put in place.

Jim’s staff loved going to workshops with him. He was fun to be around. He was an incredible speaker. However, when push came to shove, his behaviour wasn’t predictable and his results weren’t acceptable. They knew they couldn’t trust him to stick with the plan he outlined.

The moral of the story? PAB is an important part of cultivating trust. This story speaks volumes about how important predictable behaviour is to trust. If you say something’s going to happen, it had better happen. Two steps have to be in place before it does, though. First, you’d better know how to make it happen by having the basic competencies for the job you’re doing. Second, you’d better follow through so it does. Jim’s employees didn’t trust him. His lack of PAB was so stressful for them that despite how much they liked him personally, they were relieved when he was eventually asked to leave the company. Now imagine they’d been clients, not employees. They would have left long before he did.

Tale Number 2

Sue, a coaching client of ours, recently lost a client whose account was worth an annual $125,000 in income to her. Sue had had this client for years, and she lost the account very suddenly.

After moving his account to another financial advisor, Sue’s client said, “You just don’t seem like you have time for me anymore, so I’m going to try somebody else.” His investments were fine. Something went sour in the relationship.

On reflection, Sue had an insight into what happened. “The last time I talked to him, I was systematically calling all my clients. He was just on a long list of calls I had to make. My company is also changing in ways that are putting new stresses on me. I feel tense, and he noticed that. I’m not the person he thought he knew.”

The message of this tale is that predictable, acceptable behaviour is about much more than job competencies. It’s about how you relate to people too. Another point of the story is that, like beauty, acceptable behaviour is in the eye of the beholder. Contact alone wasn’t satisfactory for Sue’s client—he wanted personal contact.

Excerpt from Clients Forever by Doug Carter with Jenni Green. Reproduced with permission. © 2004, Tata McGraw-Hill