CM 288: Charles Feltman on a New Understanding of Trust

We can be like some of the people I've met in my travels over the years who are what I consider exceptional trust builders, which is to say that they...

build trust easily and naturally and well. They maintain it. They actually work at it. They know what to do to maintain it. And they can repair it if it's been damaged. And beyond that, they can create the conditions, the context in which other people around them can also build trust with each other with as much ease and capability as they build trust. Welcome to Curious Minds at Work. I'm your host, Gail Allen. On the surface, trust seems simple. You either trust someone or you don't.

That's why I was so intrigued by Charles Feltman's book, The Thin Book of Trust, an essential primer for building trust at work. Charles is a leadership coach and trust expert, and where others view trust as binary, he sees it in four dimensions.

He describes what each dimension looks like and explains how to assess the gaps. Then he talks about how we can address those gaps in ourselves and with others, including our managers. I'm able to see trust in a completely different way now and think you will too. Before we start, one quick ask. If you like the podcast, please take a moment to leave a rating on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. Your feedback sends a strong signal to people looking for their next podcast.

And if you're wondering what I'm curious about this week, be sure to listen to the end of the episode. And now here's my interview with Charles Feltman. Charles Feltman, welcome to the podcast. Charles, reading your book gave me a... Big aha moment. It helped me see that I've been thinking of trust in such a binary way as, you know, I either trust this person or I don't.

You've given me a bigger perspective on trust, one that I am sure my listeners will want to learn as well. So let's dive in. To start, how do you define trust? Well, the definition actually comes in a way from the academics who do actual research on... trust from various fields that you know economics psychology sociology neuroscience so i define trust as choosing to risk making something you value

vulnerable to another person's actions. You know, when I read that in your book, I was so struck by that, that idea that trust is really about vulnerability. Yes, when we trust someone, we're vulnerable, whether we like it or not. We don't usually like to think about it that way. But that's in fact the case. even with someone whom we know and have known for a long time and and we feel like we can pretty well predict their you know what they're gonna do they may do something um

surprising that could actually damage what it is that we value that we've entrusted them with. Maybe not intentionally, but it could happen. And so even... in the most safe conditions we still are making ourselves vulnerable so it's important to understand that that we're that vulnerability and trust are deeply interwoven Instinctively, we know we need trust to do good work, but we might not know why. What do we miss out on when we don't have it on our teams and in our leadership?

Oh, my gosh. What do we miss out on? Well, so, you know, when I've... been able to observe teams which i do through my work observe teams that where their trust is low for whatever reason they don't cooperate, they don't collaborate, they withhold important information from each other. These are just, I mean, they don't always, the people on teams don't always do all of these things, but these are things that happen. They'll either be silent. You know, how many times as a team?

Have you seen a team leader ask a question or propose a topic or whatever? And it's silent. Nobody says anything. That's because they don't trust. They don't either trust the other team members or they don't trust the leader. They don't trust the situation. So basically we miss out on all the things that allow groups of people to do really good work together.

And it sounds like to enjoy it too, which is always possible when you have good trust. Absolutely. Charles, you share in your book a much more nuanced view of trust. Specifically, you give us a four-part framework. We're going to discuss the parts in more detail as we continue. But to start, what are these four flavors or features of trust that you talk about in your framework?

Well, let me just back up a little bit and say that if you go back to the definition, it's choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person's actions. It's a risk, right? So I'm going to be making a risk assessment about the trustworthiness of the other person. So each of these four flavors you're talking about really is...

more of a risk assessment in a particular domain. So that's why in the book I call them trust assessment domains. So the four that I talk about are care, sincerity, reliability, and competence. So we can trust other people. And those domains do overlap a bit, but they're also separate enough. that in each of those domains, there are particular behaviors that we can sort of identify that either build trust or can damage trust.

uh we have these four different domains that we actually make risk assessments if you will about trusting someone else and also other people are doing the same thing when they choose to trust us or not so there you know there's this whole risk assessment process going on but to as to your point um in terms of your big aha about trust being not being binary if we think of trust as binary either it's you know all or nothing and i just trust someone a little bit

in some domain, but my understanding of trust is I have to write them off on all other domains because I don't trust them in this domain. I've really lost something. in doing that. I've lost the opportunity to be able to work with that person well in many ways, even though I distrust them in one particular domain.

Yeah, and I'm stuck, right? I can't move forward with that relationship. I've sort of cut them off. And with your framework, and we're going to get into this as we go along, with your framework, there's opportunities to hone in on. what the real issue is with another person, to work through that relationship, to strengthen it, to get unstuck. And we're going to talk about those things, but I was curious.

As you mentioned, this is an assessment. It's a risk assessment. And people are doing it with us as well to determine our level of trustworthiness. What are one or two questions that we might ask to assess? either one or some of the trustworthiness in ourselves or in others

So if we want to self-assess or if we want to look to someone else and kind of do a risk analysis, what are the kinds of questions? You put these in your book, and I wonder if you could share one or two of them to help us think about this. I guess, in the domain of reliability. A question I could ask myself is, are there times

when I've failed to meet the commitments, the specific commitments that I make to other people. And what's, you know, what's that doing to my relationship with that person, that person's trust in me? In pretty much all of our work environments, you know, people run into that because there's so much going on. We're asked to do so much in such limited time with reasonably fairly limited resources.

So we often have to make trade-offs about, you know, we have 20 commitments out to different people, and sometimes we can't. do them all. So we have to make trade-offs. So one question is, where are we making those trade-offs and how? What's our thinking process behind that? Are we... actually letting the person who we're going to trade off, if you will, are we letting that person know that we are not...

going to fulfill the commitment that we made to them. We have to renegotiate our commitment with them. Are we doing that? We're going to go into that a lot more. Reliability is such a key piece, especially at work.

everywhere, but there's a lot of good things to uncover there and work on. So let's start with one that I think might be the most obvious one around trust, and that is care.

What does it look and feel like when we know a colleague cares about us? Just give us a couple aspects of that. It's basically the domain of care is that I trust that this other person has my interests in mind, as well as their own, of course, but that they actually have my interests in mind, that they intend good for me, that they're supporting of me. So what does that feel like? It feels like I can be myself around that person, that I can be pretty honest and open.

that if I make mistakes, it's okay. That person is... You know, they're going to work with me around those mistakes. They're not going to just go, OK, that's the third time you've made that mistake. And, you know, but it's OK. They're going to actually.

be honest with me about the impacts of my mistakes, but I can take that from this person because whatever they're doing or saying, their intention is good or benevolent towards me. So it feels... uh safe and in fact i would say that if there's that sense of trust in the domain of care that's really the foundation for psychological safety on a team

If I trust that each of the other team members and my team leader cares about me in that sense, that they have my interests, my best interests in mind. they intend good for me, then I feel safe to be me, to ask questions, to occasionally say something that may not be the brightest thing I've ever said.

Sincerity is another feature of trust. It's another domain in your framework. When you describe it, you use words like congruence and alignment. What do they look like when we trust someone and we know that sincerity is there? I can believe this person. When they tell me something, I believe that what they're telling me, that they're being honest with me, that what they're telling me is true or...

Or if it's an opinion that's backed up by something. And another part of it is that their actions align with their words. Well, let's just say as a leader, I say to my team, hey, I want this to be a high feedback.

team i want us to give each other feedback that's you know supportive but that's on and that's honest at the same time so that we can all learn and grow from each other and then when people do offer feedback to each other, and even to me, I take that feedback, I listen, I give it credence, I may... disagree with it or may not fully act on it but at least i am clear that i listen to it and consider it that's the word i'm looking for that i consider it

So from the perspective of someone who assesses that their team leader cares, or sorry, that their team leader is sincere, when the team leader makes a declaration about... how they want things to be or what they want to be or where they're going or what we're doing or all of those kinds of things, they're actually going to act in alignment with that.

I think so often that comes through in how a leader follows up or follows through, right? We have these ways that we tell people, you know, about big changes or things we're committed to or things we'll do on behalf of the team. And then, you know, will we actually make good on them?

So I really appreciated this one coming up in the ways that you've described it. One of them that we've talked about a little bit is reliability. I wanted to do a deeper dive on this one. You refer to something with reliability called the cycle of commitment. Can you tell us about that? That's one of the things that when I work with teams in particular,

The domain of reliability is usually the first one that comes up as a domain in which trust seems to be low. Not all teams, but many times teams. they're not as reliable with each other as they would like to be. So the cycle of commitment is a kind of language and... and linguistic technology, if you will, that allows people to coordinate action as effectively as possible. And it does ask people to be...

to be somewhat rigorous in the language that they use when they are making requests of each other. So if I want you to do something, I'm going to make a request, something that I can't do or don't want to do, but I think you can. um i'm going to make a request of you will you please do this so my request needs to be clear enough and complete enough that you have a very good picture of what I want you to do and what done looks like.

So there's some specifics in there that I could get into, but I'm not going to right now. But then on the other side of that, there's also if I make a request of you. And it's clear and complete, so you have a really good idea of what I'm looking for. done looks like to me then you can make an assessment yourself of oh well let's see um do i have the capacity to do that

exactly as I'm asking you to do it. Do you have the time? Do you have the resources? Do you have the knowledge, et cetera, to do that? And if so, if you say yes. can you meet the commitment then that you are making because when you say yes you're making a commitment or a promise so your response to me and as if you do that is yes I'm going to do exactly what you are asking me to do. Big breakdowns happen in there. You can just imagine.

Well, let's start with one of those. You give some great examples of how we may think that we're being really clear and complete with a request, but we really aren't. We could get better at this. Share a little bit more about that. So I'll give you an example. Recently, I had a client who is he has a number of people working for him, one of whom is a VP of sales. And so he. He was asked by the executive committee to bring a document, a presentation actually, about the sales.

activities related to a particular sales campaign that was part of the strategy for this new product, for getting this new product to market. So he asked his direct report to put this presentation together. And then he was very upset when the presentation came to him. And it was... way too technical and not, it didn't give the data.

that the executive committee wanted it wasn't it wasn't focused on particular metrics it was more focused on hey this is what we did and this is sort of what happened so he was upset but when i asked him to tell me what he'd specifically asked for when he made the request of his direct report. None of that was in there. He didn't say, hey, I want you to make...

come up with a presentation that addresses these specific metrics and how they were met or not, and why, if not, what the person was thinking. And so... There's a breakdown right there. The breakdown was in the request itself.

And we forget that the request needs to be a dialogue at some point, right? Unless I've worked with the person for a long time or they have, you know, identical expertise, I need to turn to you, Charles, and say, Charles, I'm asking you to do this.

what do you think this looks like? You know, so that you don't insult them. Maybe if they have a lot of experience, like what's your way that you typically do this so that we can have a dialogue and then, oh, you do this, this, and this. Okay, here's what I'm going to need.

Here are some of the similarities. Here are some of the differences. And then I'm assuming at some point you've got to put that in writing so the person can work from it like a spec. Yeah, it could be that or it could be depending on.

how you've worked with this person, like you said, how long you've worked with this person and so on. Sometimes there's enough information that needs to be communicated in the request that... you do want to write it down and like a spec as you said other times there's not so much but there is it's still important to be clear and include all the information what are what i call your conditions of satisfaction

what it is what done looks like paint that picture here's what will satisfy me that you've done what i've asked you to do you talk about this too when it comes to responding to a request so if i'm asked to do something And let's say I am given variations on clear and complete. But at some point.

I like how you talk about this. Again, a lot of shades of nuance for us to recognize what we're doing. You know, at that point, am I going to commit to this? Am I going to decline it? Will I counter offer? And am I committing to commit? And those are very different things. And again, that sends a signal to the other person. So the other person might assume, but they really can't.

Talk a little bit about that. Responding to a request is equally important. And if we're the person responding, we should be very thoughtful about our response. Absolutely. So first of all, If you are the person whose request is being made to, and the person who's making the request hasn't given you all the information you think you need, then it, like you said.

it's a time for a dialogue wait a minute could you just explain exactly what you mean by that and um what's you know you haven't given me a time frame uh as soon as possible is is you know what i Don't even know what that means. Does that mean tonight at midnight? Does that mean the end of the week? What are you looking for? So once all that information is there, then it's my. My job as the recipient and the performer in this case is to make an assessment whether I have the capacity to say yes.

And if I say yes, like I said a moment ago, that means I'll do exactly what you're asking me to do. If I say yes to something and I don't really know what it is I'm saying yes to because I haven't gotten a complete request. then I'm setting myself up for potential failure for sure. But if I have got all of that and I say yes, then I just need to go off and do the work. However, if I've got...

so many other things going on. Let's say in this case, the boss has asked me to do a couple of other presentations. I'm supposed to be... filling out some other forms about something. I'm obviously needing to do my regular work that includes managing my salespeople or whatever it is. I may not, I may assess that I don't have the capacity. that I can't really do it without, you know, needing to renege on some other commitments that I have made or...

you know, burn the candle at both ends, whatever it is. So I can actually, I can say no. That's typically not something one's going to say to their boss. But in other circumstances to other people within the organization, it may be appropriate to say no. You know, no, I can't do that. I have too many other things to do, and I will not be able to do what you're asking me to do. Or, as you pointed out, I can counter offer. I can say, hey, boss.

So please help me prioritize this along with the other four things that you asked me to do in the last two days, because I don't have time to do all of them. Well, so what's what are my priority? What are the priorities? And and or, you know, can I you know, I can't. do all of what you're asking me to do by Thursday afternoon, but I can do this much of it. Will that work? Can we find someone else to do the other parts of it or whatever it is? So there's this counteroffer.

and then the third thing that you you uh mentioned was um what i call a commit commit to commit which is essentially saying You know, I don't know if I can commit to this and give you a firm yes. a trustworthy yes at this point i need to go talk to you know a couple other people on my team and somebody else on somebody else's team because i'm going to need information from them and and so on so i need to um

Before I actually say yes to you, I need to get some more information. So I commit to getting back to you by four o'clock this afternoon with either a clear yes, a counteroffer, or maybe possibly a no.

In this interview, leadership coach and trust expert Charles Feltman gives us the tools and understanding to build more trusting relationships. if you'd like to learn more about trust especially how to increase others trust in you at work check out episode 211 of curious minds for my interview with liz weisman

author of the book Impact Players. She shares concrete steps we could take to demonstrate trust. A lot of what we're hearing right now is, hey, figure out what's important to you. Follow your passion. Like, do what's essential. for you and build your life and your career around that. And these impact players think about that a little differently. Instead of just following their passion, they figure out what is important to the organization.

How do I channel my energy and my passion toward that? Now let's get back to my interview with Charles Feltman. I think one of the ways that we can sometimes prove ourselves to be less than reliable actually comes up because we're so concerned about being reliable and that is what you call revoking and renegotiating.

I think a lot of us could do that better. We get so caught up in not wanting to disappoint the other person or not to look as less than in their eyes that we can really struggle with going back and... revoking and renegotiating when needed. Tell us about that and how we could do it better. Well, just doing it at all is important. True. Very true. A lot of times people, you know, okay.

uh i've got this you know i'm supposed to give this to my boss i'm supposed to give this to one of my fellow team members i'm supposed to give this to hr i'm supposed to do this for one of the people that that uh you know all these things going on and i suddenly realized i don't have the capacity to do one of them so uh

So I've got to reset my priorities and there's something I have to not do in time. So one of the things that happens for people, and I've literally talked to people like this, they go, Well, why didn't I go back and talk to them? I thought something might happen that I might be able to finish it. You know, maybe some miracle might happen. And in fact, the opposite happens. In fact, suddenly the phone rings or an email comes through asking for yet more stuff that the person has to do.

is required as soon as you know that you might not be able to deliver because of something outside of your control or even something that is under your control, but you, you know, your capacity has run out. You need to go back and tell that person, look, I'm not going to be able to deliver on time. And now it's open for a renegotiation. We need to renegotiate this. So can I deliver you on time?

less than I initially promised? Would that be useful? Can I push it back two days? Would that work? What can we do to make this right? And the sooner you can do that... So there's a sort of decay in trust as you get closer and closer and closer to the actual due date before you say something. And once you've crossed over the due date...

and you still haven't said anything, but you just don't show up with whatever it is you promised to do, then trust really starts to tank. And it's quite impressive, actually, to do the opposite. The person might not be happy that you have to revoke and renegotiate, but the fact that you've come to them early shows, wow, I think it goes back to one of the other domains. It shows you care. You care about the project. You care about them. You care about their reputation, what they need.

So the last domain is competence. And I think this one's pretty straightforward. But is there something you'd like to say about this one before we dive into some of the things we can take action on? So if you and I are on a team and... I'm doing some work, and you're doing some work, and they need to fit together. You're looking at my work and you assess that I am not competent enough to do the work the way that you think it should be done. In other words, by your standards.

then you're not going to trust me. But the problem there that often comes up in teams is that there has not been any kind of conversation about what the standards are. So... Competence is to a great degree, or an assessment of competence is to a great degree dependent on standards. What's the standard you're using to assess my competence at whatever?

So that's one piece that's really important, having those conversations. What is our standard of competence for this kind of work, this kind of job, this kind of project, whatever it is? So then there's also an important piece. So I can generate trust in my competence by doing. what I've said I'm going to do, and doing it well. And it's particularly important that everybody understands the standard that I'm...

aiming at what well means, doing it well means, but, you know, demonstrating that I can do the work well. But competence, trust in one's competence can also be... strengthened if that person when they don't know how to do something or when they are less than competent says something about it acknowledges it you know i i don't know if i can do this i've never done it before i'll give it my best try but i don't know if i am competent enough in this area to really you know do this well

I need some help. Can I get so-and-so to help me? Or can I get some training in this? Or whatever it is. So that... I can actually become sufficiently competent in it and do it well. The other side of it, too, is when I do something and I think I'm delivering. um at the level of competence that other people uh would say is good but in fact the feedback that i get is that it isn't as good um if i blame

things out, you know, blame other things, other people, situation, whatever, that's going to damage people's trust in my competence. However, if I say, you know what, you're right. I screwed. I didn't do this as well as I can. I do need help. don't know how to do this even after the fact saying i yeah um i don't didn't know how to do this as well i did gave it my best shot i clearly need to learn something thank you for the feedback

That also will tend to build trust in that domain. Charles, because we have these four domains and because through the resources in your book, we can assess more deeply with more nuance. where and how we trust other people. It gives us an opportunity to open up a dialogue if we're feeling like the lack of trust in one of these domains or a few of these domains.

it allows us to pinpoint what's really going on in the relationship. And so it allows us to sit down and think to ourselves, okay, now I think I want to engage in a conversation with this person because I want to let them know. because it's having such a negative impact, let's say, I want to let them know this is a trust issue for me and I want us to work on it together.

How do you prepare for a conversation like that? What are some steps? Your book goes into a lot of detail about the steps, super helpful. But if you were to give us a way to get started on preparing for that conversation, what would you advise? What assessment domains you're concerned with? Is it care? Is it you concerned that you don't trust that person in a domain of care, that they don't have your interests in mind?

They don't intend good for you. Is it sincerity? Are you concerned that you can't really trust them or that they are not being congruent? between their speech and their action and so there's a concern about trust there or is it a reliability issue are they not keeping the commitments that they make or is there a concern about their competence there their experience, their expertise, that kind of thing.

So just even identifying what domain or domains. Now, one of the things that I, you know, if I'm working with a client and they say to me, hey, I can't trust so-and-so, and I ask them what. What domains are you concerned about? And very often the first thing you'll say is, oh, all four of them. And so it takes a few minutes to go through and say, okay, well, let's talk about this a little bit more.

and kind of digging in and finding out where the pain is, if you will. So let's say the pain is in reliability, since we've done a deep dive on that one. Where would you start if the person is making commitments to you, but not necessarily following through? Or maybe... A couple times they have revoked, but they have not renegotiated. What are you going to do there? Well, I think the first thing is to really identify the specific.

specific situations and behaviors and actions. So let's say that for the last four times that this person has made a commitment either to me or to someone else on the team and then has not followed through has not either done it on time or done it to the um to the specifications, if you will, that they committed to. I want to note that down because I don't want to talk to them about trust in general.

or even lack of trust in the domain of reliability in general. I want to have specific incidents that I can talk about with them that they... can't really refute. Is there a particular way that you would open up that conversation or frame it or set it up? Yeah. So I guess I would... start the conversation by saying something like, we work together a lot, or you're a really important member. What you do is important to our team.

At this point, I'm beginning to struggle with something that keeps happening, and I would like to talk about it with you. Would that be okay? We don't need to do it right now. In fact, I think we should set a time and place where we can have that conversation, where neither of us are distracted, where we can really focus. Would that be okay?

And let the other person respond. And hopefully they just say, sure. Yes, absolutely. And then in the conversation itself, I want to again start out and reemphasize what you do is really important to me or for the team. I need to be able to trust that you can come through, you can follow through. In this case, we're talking about reliability, that you will actually follow through. Here's the thing.

the last four times that you made commitments to me to do something by a particular time that didn't happen um you delivered whatever it was, at least a day, and in a couple of cases, three days late. And I really can't, first of all, that doesn't work for me. because I've got commitments to other people that I need to keep. And if I'm not getting stuff from you in a timely manner, you know, and so on, you kind of keep going down that line. But then I want to stop and say, so.

Tell me from your perspective what's going on, because I don't want to just barrage the other person with all my stuff. I want to hear from them what's going on. In the case of reliability, so often the conversation actually leads to the person who's failing to come through acknowledging that they take on too much. that they have created too many things for themselves, too many commitments that they can't keep up with. And so they may need help.

It may turn out. They may need help in managing their own capacity. If I'm a colleague of theirs, I can offer some ideas, suggestions. whatever that is if i'm their boss i can offer some maybe some more beyond just suggestions but the the point is that we have a conversation about it and then of course at the end of that conversation

I want to nail down a commitment about the future. And you go into great detail with terrific examples in your book about what it could really look like multiple times with all four of these domains. to both prepare for and then have these conversations. So a lot of great examples that can build on the example that you just shared to kind of get us started.

I wanted to shift gears for a minute and talk about our brains. What is happening in our brains when we feel trust versus distrust? I do read a lot of... neuroscience research articles, just because I'm interested in it. I'm not in any way an expert in that field. So I don't consider myself... competent to really dive into a deep level. But what I've said in the book and what I say to people when I'm working with them in a team setting or whatever leadership development program.

is that essentially our brains have two networks related to trust. There's what I call a trust network, which uses certain... um if you have a an fmri and you can see what parts of the brain are light lighting up when trust is present The network uses certain brain structures and certain neurotransmitters and hormones are sent out into the brain and the rest of the nervous system.

And that's what I call the trust network. And then there's another network that we have, which I call a distrust network, uses different brain structures, different hormones and neurotransmitters. they do different things in our body, in our brains. The trust network and these two networks, if you will, have both... they both exist they've both been evolutionarily honed to do their jobs and do them fairly well the trust network is there to help us

coordinate action well with other people cooperate build things together um collaborate uh the kinds of things that it creates in our brain and bodies, the feelings, the thoughts that allow us and support us in working together with other people. feeling safe in doing that, feeling excited and wanting to do that. So that's the trust network's job, essentially. The distrust network, as you might imagine,

is there to keep us safe. And so its job is to warn us if there's something unsafe that we need to pay attention to. And so its job is... doing that and they both can function they both exist they're there for reasons and they can both be active at the same time i mean we can have we can have a sense of trust in someone but then

the distrust network might be picking up on one particular thing that says, uh-oh, danger, danger. And so we are immediately paying attention to that. And so it turns out that our... prefrontal cortex and other aspects of our thinking brain, if you will, have to mediate or can mediate. I mean, we could just fall into the distrust network because it's... it's lightning fast and very compelling and so we could just fall in that direction but our thinking brains can really help us and that's why

using these four trust domains as kind of an analysis tool, we can really think about this. Do I, should I distrust this person? is there some there are some good reasons let me look at this let me think think it through it would be so much better if i could trust this person we could work together it's more fun that way And I need to be sure, or I need to be as sure as I can be. So using the four assessment domains as a kind of diagnostic tool, along with the...

definition that I use. You know, what is it that I'm, you know, remember it's choosing to risk trusting something I value. Well, what is it that I value here? And is it really important? Are the stakes high enough that I really need to pay attention to those signals that I might need to distrust this person?

Charles, there are two questions I always ask to wrap up the podcast. The first one has to do with the theme of the podcast, which is curiosity. What are you most curious about today? Wow. Right now, I'm actually kind of playing with the concept of self-trust. And I've gotten really curious about what that is and what happens.

how it supports us how we can activate greater or build greater self-trust fundamentally i think it has to do with being Being able to or having the assessment that I can deal with what the world throws at me. that's a real rough cut, but there's a lot under that. And so that's one of the things I'm very curious about right now.

And then my last question, there's so much in your book, we couldn't get to all of it. Is there anything, any one thing that you'd like to leave us with? Or is there anything we haven't talked about that's a nugget you'd like to share? Yeah. And I say this in different contexts. The ability to build trust, not only build it, but maintain it and repair it if necessary. That whole set of...

capabilities is a competency, which is to say that we, well, we do learn it. We learn it when we're young in our families. And so when we first enter the work world. We have whatever competencies, skills we have in that domain that we brought with us from childhood, but we can get better at it. If we're not super good at it, we can improve. It's a competency. We can learn, we can practice, and we can get really good at it so that...

We can be like some of the people I've met in my travels over the years who are what I consider exceptional trust builders, which is to say that they... build trust easily and naturally and well. They maintain it. I mean, they actually work at it. They know what to do to maintain it. And they can repair it if it's been damaged. And beyond that.

they can create the conditions, the context in which other people around them can also build trust with each other with as much ease and capability as they build trust. Charles, I can't thank you enough. It's been such a pleasure to speak with you. And this book is just such a gem.

It's, like I said, a real aha moment for me and certainly something that I've already been bringing into my work with clients. I can't thank you enough, and I really appreciate your coming on the podcast. Well, thank you. It's been a great conversation for me as well, Gail.

Really appreciate it. Curious Minds at Work is made possible through a partnership with the Innovator Circle, an executive coaching firm for innovative leaders. A special thank you to producer and editor Rob Macabelli for leading the amazing behind-the-scenes team that makes it all happen. This past week, I reengaged with Michael Bungay Stanyer's book, The Coaching Habit.

michael is masterful at helping leaders get to the heart of what good coaching looks and sounds like for their employees his ideas can change teams and organizations what a powerful resource