Pushkin. Hay Slight Changers will be back in your feed with new episodes soon, but in the meantime, I wanted to share an excerpt from an audiobook I think you might enjoy. My colleague at Pushkin, Rachel Batsman, is out with a new book called How to Trust and Be Trusted. Rachel's an Oxford University professor who studies trust. I love how Rachel thinks about trust as being the glue for
human connection. In her book, she debunks all sorts of misconceptions about trust, for example, the idea that more transparency is always better, or that relying on your gut intuition is a good way to decide who or what to trust. She also gives us actionable advice on how to get better at trusting others and ourselves. The best part she talks about how getting better at trusting can help you take more risks, be less controlling, and cope better with change.
My favorite lesson, and the one you're going to hear about today, is about how you can be a more trustworthy person. So here's Rachel Batsman reading from her book, How to Trust and Be Trusted.
How do you get someone else to trust you? It's a big question that affects so many different areas of our lives. Here's the thing. We can't make another person trust us is ultimately not in our control. But we do have the power to make ourselves more trustworthy. I'm going to give you some tools to help you've become a more trustworthy person in ways that you might not expect, and I'm going to teach you how to earn the
trust of other people. Understanding how trustworthiness works is incredibly empowering. I've witnessed just how much it can transform people's careers and relationships. We're going to begin by unpacking how trust between people really works. Over the years, I've been asked a lot of questions about trust, but the most popular question is how do I build more trust? The question
in itself is revealing build more trust. When I'm teaching leaders and students, I ask them to put a coin in a jar every time the words building trust are mentioned, and it's for within a couple of hours. Let me explain why the problem with building trust is. It's a power over way of thinking about relationships, a traditional, pretty top down concept of leadership. If I tell others what to do, they will follow, but trust is earned through
what's known as a power. With dynamic, you have to be trustworthy and then people decide whether to give you their trust. So the trust giver is the person with the power to decide. Try to think of trust not as a fixed thing, but more like energy, fluid and flowing, something you have to continuously earn. So let's commit right now together to making a small but important language change. I want you to replace building trust with earning trust.
I know this might sound like I'm being nitpicky, but this shift in language is a key step towards other people trusting you. Let's do an exercise together. Please think of someone at work who really trusts you. You got it. Now, write down a few words that best describe why you think they trust you. I'm going to guess some of the words that might have come up. Perhaps you wrote down reliable, supportive, caring, or honest. Or perhaps you don't really know why people trust you, you just feel it.
Let's meet someone who knows a thing or two about earning the trust of other people at work. In fact, they're kind of an expert, and that's because they have to earn the trust of a very distrustful group.
Teenagers saw it La Radastits. They're Oregon, Illinois.
Kim Radistits, or as her student's call her, Miss Rad was named the twenty twenty two Teacher of the Year in ill Illois. She has taught Spanish for sixteen years to more than a thousand high schoolers, and what she's learned is before she can begin to teach her students Spanish, she first has to earn their trust.
I don't believe students really care what you know in terms of content until they feel like you care about them as humans first and that they can trust you.
And in learning a foreign language in particular, like learning Spanish, they need to trust that it's okay to make mistakes and it's okay to feel silly, and that they're in a safe space, because I think that psychological safety is important when you're trying something new, especially as a fourteen year old, when you're trying to look cool in front of your friends.
It's Rad gets to work on earning her students trust before they even enter the classroom.
I have looked at my rosters of students that are going to be in my class this upcoming year, and I have identified students that struggled in eighth grade, and I have started to do some background research on what it was that put that student in that position. Is it a student that struggled with Homer completion, Is it
a student that had adverse childhood experiences. I'm talking to their teachers from last year already to find out what kinds of things were happening with that student, because I want to make sure that every single one of my students when they walk into my room is known.
On the very first day of school, ms Rad sets clear expectations about how the class will go.
What I do is a lesson where I introduce myself completely and totally in Spanish. I purposely will choose vocabulary that sounds like words in English, and from there I talk to them about how with language learning, there are going to be times where they're going to have to take risks, and there are going to be times that they feel silly, but I will know ever ever put them in a situation where they're completely lost.
And then she keeps working to earn her students trust. Throughout their first week. She has them fill out questionnaires about their lives and incorporates those details into her lessons, she opens up and shares personal stories about how as a child she visited Mexico, where her mother was born, but that she struggled to communicate because she wasn't fluent
in Spanish. And she also praises her students at every small success, and after just five days she usually gets a sign that all that work is starting to pay off. It happens during a school sports festival called Red and White Night.
I say to students, how many of you are going to be at Red and White Night? And you see all the hands go up like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited to go tonight. I said, if you see me tonight at Red and White Night, what are you going to say? And the kids, I'm like getting emotional thinking about it. They get so excited. They're like they either say, well, if we see you at the volleyball game, we're gonna say when I was side of this, But if we see you at the football game, we're gonna
say when I's not just like, that's absolutely correct. When I get to the game, you see students going out of their way. It's like playing where's Waldo? But they're like, where's miss rad They're like looking for me because they want to be the first student to get to use their Spanish that night. So that's when you see, like, Okay, if they're willing to take their learning outside of the classroom, then I'm pretty sure the trust is there.
How did Miss Rad un that trust? It's incredible to consider that we're never taught what makes people trustworthy. The good news is that there is a proven way to learn how to be a more trustworthy person and how to cultivate more trusting cultures. Just like Ms Rad's classroom, The answers lie in a framework known as the traits of trustworthiness. It comes from decades of social scientists studying
how people make trust decisions. I've taught the traits of trustworthiness to thousands of people, from university students to CEOs of fortune five hundred companies, and now I'm going to share it with you. Here's how it works. At its highest level, trustworthiness is made up of two parts, capability and character. Capability traits are about how we do things. Character traits are about why we do things, or I like to think of it as doing things and doing
the right things. On the capability side, the most important traits are competence and reliability. On the character side, the most important traits are empathy and integrity. These two characteristics influence whether people feel like you want to support them, that you're on their side. This is how we start to form deep trust. So you might be thinking, what's the right mix or balance of traits. It's a great question. This goes back to a key point from chapter one.
Trust is highly contextual. So say you're trusting a surgeon to perform a heart operation, Undeniably, their competence is the most important trait. They might lack a bedside manner, but be the most experienced in skilled surgeon. If you're trusting a teacher like miss Rad to educate your kids, their competence is probably really important to you. And this is something that miss Rad has picked up on without even realizing it.
When I first communicate with parents, I do low the competence route. You made me think about that, in that the very first communication that I have with parents is me flashing my I mean, truthfully, like flashing my credentials. I am a graduate of Northern Illinois University who studied Spanish language and literature, and I've visited Mexico every year you.
Know, while Miss Rad ends trust from the parents by flashing her credentials, she earns trust from her students. Who's showing them she cares about them. And one way she does that is by all always wearing this apron.
So I wear a waitress apron while I have a dozen of them, actually, but the signature one has lamas on it, very very fancy. But it has eight pockets, so I have lots of pencils in my apron. In addition to that, I carry sticky notes that I utilize as reminders for students, like reminders on behavior or missing assignments, but also sticky notes of praise. So if a student is shy and doesn't like it when I provide them with praise publicly, I can write hey, nice job on
that and stick it on their desk. I mean, I have a spare schedule because students always ask questions about the schedules and there just little things like that.
Miss Rad gets in space that trust is earned through micro moments and not grand gestures, through consistency, no intensity. She also gives her students a lot, but doesn't initially expect trust in return.
I will that one thing that I have learned to never do is to make the comment I have gone above and beyond, or I have done everything, and you won't meet me halfway until wag your finger at a student, you know, because then to them, I think the message is that everything that you have done up until that point has been transactional. You've done that thing because you wanted me to do this. I don't believe that's how a good relationship should work.
Our frame around trust should always be relational, not transactional. So now let's learn about each of the four traits in more detail and how you can put trustworthiness into practice. We'll start with the first trait that makes someone capable, and that's the trait of competence. Imagine you're pitching to win work from a new client. It's a job you really want. You're up against two competitors, both do exceptional work. You want to demonstrate that you can be trusted to
do this job and do it really well. So how do you convey your competence to the client? I want you right now to take a moment and think about how you would do this. How would you demonstrate your competence? So what did you come up with? Well, let me share with you a couple of key things to convey when it comes to demonstrating your competence. Firstly, you have the skills, the knowledge, experience, resources, and time to do
what you say you're going to do. And secondly, you are honest about what you can't do or don't know. Pretending you can do everything actually hurts trust, but humility is rocket fuel for earning trust. Highly competent people set clear expectations around what they can do and what they can't do. The same can't always be said for overly confident people. Yet so often we can flate competence with confidence.
It's a trap that's so easy to fall into. The person who speaks louder, the person who speaks first, the person who seems to know everything about well everything, the person who always shouts about their achievements. As I once heard it put, some people are just more glitter than glue. So when it comes to being trusted, don't let confidence outweigh competence. Be honest about your abilities and commitments. The second key ingredient of capability is the trait of reliability.
Reliability has a lot to do with our relationship to time. How responsive I'm respectful of time we are, and it's all about how consistent we are in the way we show up. Being reliable means people can depend on and ultimately trust you because they know what to expect.
So I have one rule and one rule only, it's hard to screw it up.
Again. Let's mis wrap the Spanish teacher.
And the rule is that I have a wireless doorbell in my classroom, and the students know that when I ring the bell, they have to stop whatever it is they're doing, whether it be a game, whether I'm having a conversation, if they're up out of their chairs, they have to stop what they're doing, and they need to listen for directions. And by having that one rule and one rule only, students aren't confused as to what the
rule is. I make sure to practice the rule throughout the week to reinforce when they get the rule correct. But I'm really able to use that bell to redirect any other kind of negative behaviors that might be happening in my class, and it really just takes that one.
Ms Rad's one rule is an example of the power of consistency. Consistency is the stabilizing force that enables people to read your reliability. It allows people to know where they stand and what they can expect from you. So let's try a quick exercise to reflect on your own reliability at work. Now, I'm going to ask you five questions, and I want you to rate yourself one to five on each one being needs work and five being stell up.
Now be honest. If you've got a pencil, then grab it and write your numbers down as we go along. Question one, how often do you reschedule meetings at short notice? Question two? Do you consistently show up on time? Question three? Do you run calls and meetings within the time set? Question four? Are you responsive to people within a time frame they expect and find me? Question five? Are you consistent in your mood, energy, and behavior and how you
sharp at work? As I'm asking these questions, you might be thinking, Hmmm, I do often move meetings at the last minute. Hmmm, I do always find myself always running just a few minutes late, or I find it really hard to respond to everyone's request on time. Don't worry. People tend to describe themselves as a late or always on time person, But reliability is ann inherently tied to your personality. It's a skill. When we look at reliability
through this lens, it's something you can work on and improve. Now, this next part may seem a bit scary, but it can really help. I encourage you to ask your colleagues the same five questions and for them to rate you. The revealing thing is not the total score, but if there is a gap between how reliable you think you are and how reliable others think you are, remember this is something you can work on. Even if the gap is big, you can work towards closing it, and that
will only earn you more trust. So let's do a quick recap on the capability side of being trustworthy. To become more trusted around your capability or how you do things, it's important to demonstrate both competence and reliability. First, be clear about what you can and can't do. It's closely tides being realistic about the commitments and promises you make. Second, be responsive and respectful of time. And finally, be clear
and consistent with your expectations. This can be as simple as letting people know when you respond to an email and when you won't miss rad is a master of expectation setting with her one rule. Now to the other side of trustworthiness. These are the character traits of empathy and integrity. Learning how to put empathy into practice can be hard, but it's key to earning trust at a
much deeper level. Now, something that often confuses people about empathy is this idea that we should put ourselves in someone else's shoes. I get it. Is it really possible to relate to the lives and the diverse experiences of everyone you work with? I've also heard from managers and leaders that they struggle with empathy along similar lines. Everyone keeps telling me I need to be a more empathetic person, But how can I truly know how someone is feeling?
Or I just don't have the time to listen to people's problems. Saying I feel for you can be comforting to hear, but what comes after that? Let's reframe empathy as being curious as to how you can best support someone. A simple but significant shift is to move from the language of feeling to the language of acts. How you feeling or are you okay? Becomes how can I help you? I know it sounds basic, but it works. Wonders for
earning trust in the workplace. MS rad has always been an empathetic person, but there was one student who really helped her learn how to better practice empathy.
I met a young man at freshman orientation who told me that night that he hated school, there was nothing that I could do about it, and that he wasn't going to learn any expletive word Spanish. And what I learned was that this young man suffered from a lot
of advers childhood experiences. He had a parent that was incarcerated, his grandparents had fostered him, and his grandfather had died the year before I met him, and so this young man was just really angry, and he was in a really bad place, to the point where there was a the school district was considering perhaps putting him in an alternative placement, And as a young teacher, I decided that I was going to do everything in my power to prove him wrong.
Instead of waiting for him to trust her.
I showed him that I trusted him, And I think that part was huge. I think that he just had this assumption that adults didn't like him and that adults didn't trust him, and so I actually put him in a couple of leadership roles throughout the school year, and that's a little bit of success that I don't think he experienced in any other content areas.
And just like miss Rad learned from the student, the student eventually learned from miss Rat.
He ended up finishing Spanish one, even though he said he wouldn't learn it. He took Spanish two his choice. He graduated high school in four years despite concerns that he wouldn't. And now he's doing really really well in our community, and I still hear from him. We've known each other for eleven years. I still hear from him at least once a month. So I think the trust is there, to say the least, because he doesn't have to talk to me anymore now that he's not in my classroom, but he chooses to.
Miss Rad had to give him trust.
To earn the trust, you have to show them that you trust them before they give you their trust. So it's a leap of faith. I mean it is in his case. It was a leap of faith for me. But I believed that he could be a better version of himself that he had than he had showed other people, because I saw glimpses of it throughout the year, and so I just trusted that we would get.
There miss Rad's curiosity about how she could really support hers. You created what's known as a trust loop. You show your trust to someone who finds it hard to trust back, and you don't expect anything in return. But over time and they do start to trust you, you recognize it and reciprocate by showing more trust, and so a powerful and beautiful trust loop forms. Okay, and now for the final trait of trustworthiness. It's a big one. Integrity. It's
hard to forgive or forget decisions that lack integrity. It doesn't matter whether you're leading a small team, a big team, a sports team, at school team, or an entire country. Everything starts and ends with integrity. Ultimately, practicing integrity comes down to one word alignment. Doctor Zeus summed up integrity well when he wrote, I meant what I said and said what I meant. So let's reflect on a few ways integrity is put into practice at work. Do you
always do what you say you're going to do? Do your values align with how you live your life? Do you keep the promises that you make? And the big one, are you honest about your intentions and interests with your clients and colleagues. These questions are a powerful compass for deciding what to do, but more importantly, what not to do. Decisions around what not to do can take courage, but
they are critical to earning trust. Consider an employee who stands up and says, we should not work with that client, no matter how much they're going to pay us, because our values just don't align. When you think of times when trust has broken down, it's most lead you to some kind of misalignment of intentions. On the flip side, if you have an alignment of intentions and interests, that's
when deep trust forms. In the end. Miss rad is such a great teacher because her students understand that she is on their side.
When you feel known and you feel veiled, you take pride in your work and you want to you're motivated to do the work and to do the work well. And I think that's what happens in my classroom is that my students know that I'm endlessly rooting for them, and as a result, they're kind of They're not kind of, they are they're taking ownership of their own learning so that they can show it off and that we can celebrate that together, and that's a beautiful thing when you can get to that point.
In other words, Ms Rad's intentions are beautifully aligned with the best interests of her students. Ultimately, earning trust is at how we interact and behave with people over time. Are we able to clearly communicate our capabilities? Can we demonstrate our character? Do the people we work with and for know what to expect of us? The traits of trustworthiness, I promise will help you earn trust with all different kinds of people. So let's recap what we've covered. First,
think about the context. There's that word again, context. What is the most important trait I should be demonstrating and leading with in this particular context. Second, it can be easy to conflate competence with confidence. To avoid this, make sure you're clear about what you can and can't do. Third, being reliable is a stabilizing force in any relationship. How clearly and consistently do you convey your expectations? What's your
equivalent of Miss Rad's bell or even her apron. Fourth, if you're struggling with empathy, I'd recommend changing your frame. Think of empathy as being curious and make it action orientated. Instead of asking how are you feeling? Ask how can I help? And finally, when practicing integrity, keep one word in your mind alignment. Are my interests really aligned with the other person? And if they're not, should I be
taking this action or making this decision? Now? I'd love for you to identify one thing, just one thing to put into practice or to do differently to be more trustworthy. And let me leave you with one question as we head into the next chapter. Can you think of a time when you've had your trust broken?
We hope you enjoyed that lesson from how to trust and be trusted. You can find the audiobook at pushkin dot Fm, slash Audiobooks, Audible, or wherever you get your audiobooks. We'll be back with another episode of A Slight Change of Plans on February twenty fourth. Until then, thanks for listening. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive
produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson Morgan, our producers Britney Cronin and Megan Luvin, and our sound engineer Erica Huang, Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks to everyone there, and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee
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