• We ask our patients to put their trust in us when they visit our office.
• We ask our employees to trust us to provide the support, skills, and tools they need to perform at their best each day.
• We leave our shirts at the dry cleaner and trust that they will be cleaned, pressed, and ready at the agreed time.
• We trust people to show up for a luncheon meeting or a date.

When people do not live up to the trust we have put in them (or we do not live up to the trust they put in us), the consequences are costly. In chiropractic offices, broken trust results in frequent employee turnover, poor decision making, and less than optimal performance.

Building — or rebuilding — trust requires willingness, sincerity, competence, reliability, and intent:

• Willingness. In terms of trust, first ask if you are willing to examine your own trustworthiness and to what degree you are committed to enter into trusting relationships.

In other words, are you willing to do whatever it takes to build trust — even if that commitment means you will have tough conversations that could potentially be painful?

• Sincerity. Trusting relationships need sincerity in order to grow. How can you trust if you fear the other person has motives detrimental to your success?

Alan Sieler, in his book Coaching to the Human Soul, describes sincerity as “a match between the public conversation and private conversation associated with the commitment — saying ‘yes’ out loud means ‘yes’ in their head.”

When you assess that private and public conversations are in alignment, it is easy to trust.

• Competence. Before you make a request of another person and place your trust in him or her, you assess that person’s competence.

You ask yourself: “Does this person have the skills, experience, desire, and ability necessary to complete this request?”

A new employee proves competence over time. Keep your own competence up. Recognizing areas for new learning keeps you on track when you are building trust.

• Reliability. Being able to rely on people is indispensable for developing constructive and productive relationships. Reliability is a function of meeting required standards of performance in a timely manner. When this does not occur, mistrust is generated and the relationship is potentially compromised.

• Intent. Intention sets the stage for all of these points. Without a clear intention to cultivate trust, it is easy to get off track. Once you set your intention, and declare, “I am trustworthy and my actions are aligned with this declaration,” any situation you encounter becomes an opportunity to cultivate trust.

REBUILDING TRUST

Trust can be broken at any time. To believe that trust is as solid as stone is to set yourself up for disappointment.

What do you do when one or all of the elements for building trust is missing?

• Assess what caused it to be broken. Which element(s) were disregarded?

For example: You make a request of your CA to handle a project and have it completed by a specific time. When the deadline arrives, you find the project was not completed and your CA presents numerous excuses about why the work was not completed, such as: “I didn’t have enough time,” “I did not understand,” or “I have never done that before.”

Trust in this situation is broken. Your employee’s competence and reliability are at question.

• Address the problem. To rebuild trust in this situation, engage your employee in a conversation about reliability and competence and how these missing elements have affected your relationship.

• Get commitment. Help the employee identify how to avoid breaking trust in the future, and get commitment that it will not be done, with an action plan, if necessary.

For example: If a lack of know-how was the cause for not getting the project done, decide with the CA how he or she can acquire the knowledge so that the problem will not reoccur.

The five elements of trust give a practical tool to build, cultivate, and maintain trust in the workplace as well as among family and friends.

Amy Heffron is the director and executive coach at ChiroCoach, www.chirocoach.net. She can be reached at 541-382-9364 or by e-mail at amy@chirocoach.net.