“Trust” by Neal Sanche, Creative Commons license, Flickr

Trust is fragile. Experience demonstrates that a bond of trust, once broken generally makes re-establishing a relationship tougher. The challenge is to identify those behaviors and attitudes to avoid that can fracture the bond of trust. These examples are generally pretty obvious, yet happen far too often:

The Lexicon of Trust Busters – Part Two

1. Deception:  Misleading intentionally through omission, commission, negligence, or incompetence.  In a relationship, deception creates a feeling of separation and distance.  Deception also creates a sense of disappointment because the individual, product, company, or organization failed to recognize that, at the very least, there should be a sense of candor between the parties no matter what the circumstance.

2. Denial:  When mistakes are made, errors in judgment occur, a product under-performs, or there is a negative surprise, failing to promptly come forward and relate the circumstances candidly, with empathy for those who are affected, changes a relationship of trust into one of suspicion and caution.

3. Disparagement:  Any time you hear the phrase, “They have their own agenda,” or “He’s uninformed,” or “They’re just looking to raise money by their action,” or “It’s politically motivated,” or “They just don’t understand,” you immediately suspect that the exact opposite is true, and you’re likely to be right.  All critics and opponents have friends elsewhere.  Some of those friends are your friends as well.  Victory is never achieved through disparagement.  Disparagement causes suspicion, damages relationships, and creates permanent critics.  Enemies accumulate.

James E. Lukaszewski, ABC, Fellow IABC; APR, Fellow PRSA, BEPS Emeritus

If you have questions, or would like to dive more deeply into the subject of this blog, you can reach me 24/7 at jel@e911.com; 203-948-7029 (voicemail, email, text). I look forward, as a friend and colleague, to helping you achieve the objectives you’ve set for yourself for having a happier, more influential, successful and meaningful career.

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