What makes trust so hard to create and maintain?

Trust is as vital to the health and success of relationships as it is complex.

Trust can transform our relationship with our self, with the people we live and work with and even with the organisations and systems we work within. It has the power to connect people, to increase capacity and to foster collective wisdom and competitive edge. At best, its absence can cause artificial harmony and at worst, dysfunction or outright destruction. 

If trust is so vital to our relationships, why isn’t it prioritised more? And why haven’t we mastered it already?

Fear sells:

Multi-billion-dollar industries rely on fear to sell products and services. Countless organisations employ fear as a leadership strategy or performance tactic. Fear is the fastest way to motivate people. It may be a short-term tactic but it’s a powerfully primal one.

Trust is dynamic:

Human behaviours and emotions are complex and constantly shifting, so trust isn’t static. Instead, it is a daily dynamic of belief and behaviour, of expectation and evaluation. Our beliefs about what trust and trustworthiness looks and feels like shapes our behaviour. Our expectations of how others ‘should’ behave to earn and keep our trust, is subject to constant re-evaluation. We are always alert and gauging who, and how much we can trust.

Trust is a personal choice:

It is given and withdrawn – sometimes without our knowledge - at least until its presence or absence becomes unmistakable. We can’t assume others will trust us, nor can we make others trust us, we simply have to earn it, value it, and continually nurture it. 

Trust is an individual experience:

We are all a unique (and evolving) mix of personality preferences, life experience, upbringing, and culture. So what is acceptable to one person, may be confronting to another. Sometimes surprisingly so. While some of us are more open and ready to trust than others, others need more time to warm to one another. One is not better than the other, both are natural and worthy of respect. Expecting people to trust us faster - or to act the way we would - can slow trust down or undermine it altogether.

Trust requires vulnerability:

Trust, in its purest (and its most rewarding) form, requires us to make ourselves vulnerable in the face of perceived risk. Yet vulnerability-based trust is elusive and deeply challenging; giving others the opportunity to judge, reject or abuse our vulnerability makes us hesitate, or stop altogether. Achieving this deep level of trust requires a leap of confidence.

Trust needs space:

Trust isn’t built at speed, or when we’re talking tactics or engaging on a surface level. It is built in the course of having bigger, deeper conversations about crucial and often challenging topics. Conversations that are often avoided in favour of artificial harmony, or derailed by a lack of time or a reluctance to contribute – and to challenge - without hesitation. 

Trust touchpoints are everywhere:

Touchpoints where trust is tested, built or broken permeate our work and private lives. We all navigate conversations and events daily that test us - even in relationships which have previously felt high trust. Our success in maintaining or strengthening trust along the way (whether we are aware of it or not) hinges not just on the context surrounding those events and conversations, but on our emotional, social and conversational intelligence.

Trust is contextual:

We may trust people in some situations but not all. We may extend trust more willingly or feel more open to trusting in environments where we feel safer (our own homes, close relationships or secure workplaces) and less so in environments that make us feel insecure (new relationships, new workplaces, moments of high stakes or close scrutiny).

Trust is both fragile and flexible:

Because we’re each unique and trust is so personal to each of us, we can behave in ways that are innocent to us but challenging for others which means trust can be easily - and unexpectedly - tested. A foundation of mutual understanding and appreciation in a relationship gives trust the flexibility to bend under strain. When we’re with people we believe understand and appreciate us, we drop our assumptions and defences and engage from a place of positive intent and curiosity rather than assumption and judgement. 

Negative behaviours are often more common than high trust behaviours:

Whether you’re aware of it or not, the effects of trust, or proof of its absence is always being felt and as social creatures, we can sometimes fall into bad habits purely through trying to fit in. Rather than encouraging openness and collaboration in groups, we join the quiet sidelined conversations in the background. We avoid the difficult conversations rather than engaging in spirited debate that results in better understanding and wholehearted support.

Trust is a whole-body experience:

Our brains are on alert 24/7/365 for signs of safety so we can adjust our behaviour in order to sustain our survival. Our bodies are always fully engaged in the process of listening, sense-making and response so we’re ready to react appropriately when the need arises. And that need is assessed and responded to swiftly - whether the stimulus is real, or perceived. Trust is dynamic and all encompassing; it’s instinctive, intellectual, emotional and behavioural.

At the macro view, changing the culture of a society or an organisation can feel like a big place to start. While it’s certainly easier to facilitate change from the top down in any system, you can play a role no matter where your place in that system is.