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CHAPTER
6

HOW WE TRUST:
THE CAPACITY FOR TRUST ATTRIBUTES

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How do we trust? Trust in our relationships with others begins with trust in our relationship with ourselves. Some of us have a well-developed trust in ourselves. We view ourselves as reliable, dependable, and consistent in our behavior. We trust that we will find our way through even the most difficult of situations. Others of us feel more vulnerable and less likely to trust in ourselves, particularly in situations that are new to us, that involve us with people with whom we have limited experience, or that remind us of painful experiences in which we were deeply hurt.

Our capacity for trust influences our willingness to take risks, accept the word or promise of another at face value, see the multifaceted aspects of a situation, or appreciate the differences in people. In short, our capacity for trust influences the way we practice transactional trust (contractual trust, communication trust, competence trust) behaviors, the behaviors that build trust. The nature of how we trust in ourselves and in others is best understood through a study of what we have come to call the Capacity for Trust Attributes, which we describe in the following section.

UNDERSTANDING CAPACITY FOR TRUST ATTRIBUTES

We all make decisions about whether or not to trust in a person or a situation. Yet we are often unaware of these decisions. The more unaware we are of how we trust and behave, the more vulnerable we are to letting others down unintentionally or even betraying them. By raising our awareness of ourselves and how we trust, we put ourselves in the strongest position to make conscious choices about how we behave, even in low-trust situations. By choosing to consistently practice trust-building behaviors, we are more able to be seen as trustworthy by others.

The capacity for trust attributes explored in this chapter help us become more aware of our predisposition to trust, the decisions we make in relationships, and how they influence the way we practice transactional trust behaviors. Four attributes influence our capacity to trust a person or a situation: realism, abstractness, complexity, and differentiation.¹ (Please refer to Figure 3). We will look at how each attribute affects our decisions to trust a person, group, or situation and how those decisions influence our behaviors.

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These characteristics we call the Capacity for Trust Attributes develop from an individual’s life experiences and are influenced by each unique situation. In other words, a person’s degree of trust in another person or a situation depends on her developmental capacity (predisposition or conditioning). The more self-aware an individual is, the less she is affected by her predisposition or conditioning and the greater conscious choice she has in her decisions to trust others.

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Most situations require some kind of behavior; the behaviors a person practices may be the result of a conscious choice based on his awareness of his predispositions and conditioning, or a knee-jerk reaction based only on his conditioning. The person’s behavior may build or break trust depending on his awareness of his inclination to trust and the appropriateness of his behavior in the situation.

These characteristics mirror the developmental process in our capacity for trust. As our capacity expands, we develop attributes that are increasingly realistic, abstract, complex, and differentiated.² People with less developed attributes may exhibit a minimal level of self-trust. They also may use a self-centered model of the world as a yardstick in making decisions about trusting others. People with more highly developed attributes may tend to include the “other” as a significant source of meaning: they are capable of understanding others’ values and perspectives and have a more developed sense of self-trust. We tend to trust others (and the world) in proportion to how much we trust ourselves.

We will examine each of these attributes separately, but you must recognize that they are complexly interrelated. Change in one attribute often affects change in one or more of the others. Ultimately, the capacity for trust is a function of the combination of attributes rather than merely the frequent use of one attribute. In other words, it is the interaction of realism, abstractness, complexity, and differentiation that increases capacity, not simply “being very realistic.”

Each of the four attributes can be best understood as comprising a continuum from low to high, reflecting the contracted to expanded nature of our capacity to trust.

Realism

Realism indicates the extent to which a person places an unreasonable or reasonable amount of trust in herself or others. It influences how a person takes risks, collaborates, engages with others, and deals with her perfectionist tendencies.

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A person with a tendency toward high realism may take calculated risks and develop trust in incremental steps. She is apt to assess the risks involved before placing confidence in others and is willing to check out her assumptions and reevaluate the judgments she forms about others and the situations with which she is dealing.

When we are in a relationship with an individual with a higher degree of realism, we experience her as giving us room to do our job, giving us new opportunities to be engaged in projects that stretch our skills and abilities, and asking us questions about our views rather than making assumptions about them.

A person with low realism may take unreasonable risks with a customer’s project, believing it possible to overcome insurmountable challenges and that he can “pull it off at all costs.” He may trust himself more than he trusts others to do important tasks. Or he may have an extremely low sense of self-trust and not take action for fear of punishment for failure to perform up to standards.

Either way, this person may fail to let others know of the risks involved in a situation; consequently, teammates may not have the full picture. Further, he may lack the skills or resources to complete the project successfully and may jeopardize the company’s reputation and relationship with that customer (and others). Even if he does have the skills and resources necessary to do the job, by failing to communicate the risks and to keep others informed, he may break trust in his relationships with his customer or coworkers, in spite of results he delivered.

Such a person may take unreasonable risks or make unrealistic promises without knowing how to go about achieving the goals or keeping the promises. Conversely, a person high in realism tends to break the project down into manageable pieces; he trusts, realistically, that the goal can and will be achieved using available skills and resources. In order to ensure the success of the project, this person collaborates with others consistently.

Another aspect of realism pertains to perfectionism. A person with a tendency to trust highly in herself to the exclusion of others may be a perfectionist. Perfectionists often trust no one but themselves to do the job because they are “the only ones who can do it right,” as one frustrated team member expressed. If they do delegate to others, they may remain heavily involved.

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People in the workplace today are forever pressed to do more with less. Individuals attempting to have every task done perfectly are experienced by others as overly idealistic and “bottlenecking the process.” On the other end of the continuum, a person with high realism does what is appropriate to get the job accomplished. Because these individuals trust in the abilities of others and believe in the positive intentions of others, they tend to collaborate more with others. In these relationships, we experience flow of information, exchange of feedback, and support to learn new skills.

There are times when it is appropriate and necessary for an individual to work in a highly self-reliant manner, when she must trust solely in herself. For example, there may be an extremely high-security project or one that requires a specific degree of expertise. However, by practicing communication trust behaviors that keep others informed and by managing expectations and boundaries, this person can maintain healthy levels of trust in her relationships.

As one individual shared with us following a high-security project for the CEO that he needed to deliver as a sole contributor, “I have found that letting others know that I will not be providing updates for security purposes actually helped me further build trust in my relationships. I learned how important it is to clarify expectations. In this case, I made it clear to my teammates that they would not be involved. They understood and respected me for managing expectations.”

Abstractness

Abstractness indicates the degree to which a person relies on concrete facts, figures, and the five senses as opposed to philosophy, values, nuances, and intuition.

An individual whose capacity for trust tends toward low abstractness needs solid, tangible, or physical evidence before trusting the intentions and promises of others. Such individuals may have a “Prove it to me first!” attitude and a great need to feel that they are in control of themselves and the situation. For example, they may become overly controlling of others and heavily involved in the details of projects.

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When we have a boss who tends toward low abstractness, we experience her as unable to trust us to do our job. She may not delegate, or when she does delegate, “she keeps looking over our shoulders, telling us how the job should be done,” as one employee told us in exasperation. This person usually needs the steps of a process to be clearly defined and needs evidence of another’s skills and abilities before she trusts the actions of others.

At the other end of the continuum, people who have a tendency toward high abstractness are generally willing to trust the word or promise of another at face value. When we have a boss with a high-abstractness capacity for trust, we experience him as willing to trust our work or take us at our word. We do not have to “prove it first”; we are given the benefit of the doubt. He is also able to deal with the uncertainty of situations and the ambiguity of process. We experience the freedom, flexibility, and empowerment to do our jobs. He is more comfortable letting go and trusting others to work independently.

Different job situations call for different degrees of abstractness. For instance, manufacturing production processes require a strong attention to detail and tangible elements. People who are drawn to this work commonly have a need for stability, consistency, and a sense of always knowing “where things stand.” They generally rely on specific details rather than abstract impressions when building relationships with others. These preferences may represent a relatively low capacity for abstractness. People with low abstractness may see times of change and transition as threatening, particularly if they are not provided with information consistently and do not understand the impact of the change on them, their work, and their lives. They may be less ready to trust in the possibility of “what might be,” an abstract concept.

Many senior managers operate at the high end of the abstractness continuum. They find it necessary to trust in the abstract to create the vision and set the direction of the organization they serve. They may believe that uncertainty and ambiguity are part of trusting relationships.

A reason for the common breakdown in communication and growing distrust between senior management and frontline employees today is a discrepancy in the awareness of how they each trust and therefore in what they need in their relationships. This is particularly true during change and transition: senior leaders may be asking employees to trust in the further direction of the company and in the idea that the changes will strengthen the organization. In this situation, senior leaders are asking their people to trust in the abstract idea of “tomorrow.”

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Those with a tendency for low abstractness may be inclined to focus on the perceived or known losses associated with change and transition: “What will happen to our 401(k)? What jobs will be cut?” Those with a tendency for high abstractness may be inclined to trust in the possibilities, trust that new opportunities will be presented: “What new positions will be created?”

Whether we tend toward low or high abstractness in our capacity for trust, what is important is our awareness of how we are trusting. When we are aware of our tendency for low abstractness, we know we need information and concrete facts. This self-awareness will allow us to choose to practice communication trust behaviors: we will ask questions, seek out others, tell the truth about our needs, and provide feedback that lets others know of our level of understanding and comfort.

When we have a tendency for high abstractness, we need to be aware of others’ need to rely on their senses and concrete information. Their needs may not be the same as ours, so we must make an effort to pay attention to them. We build trust when we are sensitive to others’ fears and vulnerabilities and practice transactional trust behaviors consistently. For instance, we tell the truth rather than a comfortable variation of it, we clarify expectations, and we communicate how skills and abilities will be harnessed and new ones developed.

For leaders to build trust with employees in low-trust situations, it is important to think about the employees’ perspective, use language they can understand, and give them tangible evidence that leaders keep their word and live by their principles. Likewise, the more leaders trust their frontline workers, the more employees will develop trust in leadership.

Complexity

Complexity indicates the extent to which a person bases his or her decisions to trust on black-and-white, right-or-wrong, good-or-bad criteria as opposed to the multifaceted aspects of a person or situation.

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An individual on the low side of the complexity continuum may make simplistic decisions about herself or others. Although there are situations where the individual’s constricted capacity may compromise trust, there are others where this tendency can actually build trust; following are several examples.

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Even though there was not any deliberation in each of these low-complexity situations, the “knee-jerk reactions” contributed to building trust in all three circumstances. In contrast, we break trust when we make broad, sweeping judgments about others—for example, saying things like “Brett is a total liar” or “You can’t trust that team.” In these situations, one may have difficulty seeing both the relative strengths and weaknesses of an individual simultaneously. People with low development in this attribute may be unable to see the shades of gray in their relationships. They may assail a person’s (or their own) overall competence for making one mistake in a specific area or beat themselves up and exclaim in exasperation, failing to see that they and their coworkers were on a steep learning curve.

If we are unaware of our negative assessments of a situation or person, including ourselves, our assessments rarely change. Through our lack of awareness, we may make up our minds about others and ourselves, rather than giving them or us a second chance.

People low in complexity tend to be their own worst critics, belittling themselves when things don’t go as they had expected. If they’ve had a disappointing experience, they may not trust that they have what it takes to work through complex problems, holding themselves back. Others may view these individuals as strong willed, inflexible, rigid, and unwilling to compromise once their minds are made up.

By contrast, individuals high in complexity tend to see the multiple sides of a person and the relative performance of each individual. They tend to be able to manage contradictory information about people. These individuals can appreciate that someone is reliable under certain circumstances but not others. They are likely to take into account the varied aspects of people’s personalities and any extenuating circumstances that may influence their behavior. For example, Alex, a manager who has a complex capacity for trust, knows that he can trust Bart, a very competent technician, to do an excellent job once he gets to work, but can’t trust him to be on time. He knows that Michayla is good at solving computer problems but is not as strong interacting with customers.

In sum, individuals high in the complexity attribute tend to be able to trust selectively depending on people’s strengths and weaknesses and to approach relationships with a mix of skepticism and positive expectations. They are more inclined to give the benefit of doubt, to ask questions, and to test assumptions.

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Differentiation

Differentiation indicates the degree to which a person is able to distinguish between qualities of self versus qualities of others. There are two aspects to the differentiation attribute. The first is conveyed by the question, Do I assume that whatever is true for me is true for them?”; the second, “How well do I differentiate individuals from various groups they might be a part of? Do I assume that whatever I perceive to be true for a group is also true for each of its members?”

Regarding the first aspect of this attribute, a person low in differentiation assumes that whatever is true for himself is true for others and may indiscriminately project his views on others. On the job, this tendency can hinder trust in a working relationship, as these individuals generally trust only people highly similar to themselves. If the person assigned to a project with them is dissimilar to them or exhibits a behavior that they disapprove of, these individuals may not personally feel very trusting toward that person and act accordingly. They may not be receptive to collaborating. Their distrusting actions may impede their working relationship and in turn compromise the company project. This is especially true with long-term projects, because when individuals low in differentiation negatively evaluate a person, they keep their mind made up regardless of whether or not the other person changes over time.

Regarding the second aspect of this continuum, a person low in the differentiation attribute who assumes that what is true for the group is true for each of its members may be guilty of a form of stereotyping and prejudice. These individuals make broad-based, blanket statements or generalizations about individuals or groups without any basis for their validity or specific facts to back them up: “Management can’t be trusted,” “The union has no clout,” “People in Department X are difficult to relate to,” “You can’t count on anyone in that department,” “Those people are always trying to get something for nothing.” Or they may take one small bit of truth about one individual and attribute it to everyone in the group. They also may not be able to modify prior assumptions about others.

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Here is an example of a low-differentiation capacity for trust at work:

Hank is a shop steward. Eugene, a new employee, reminds Hank of someone who betrayed him the past. Consequently, Hank is reluctant to open up to Eugene and acts in distrusting ways toward him. Eugene reciprocates with similar behavior. As a result, the working relationship between the two is poor. What Hank doesn’t realize is that his own projection onto Eugene, and Eugene’s actions in response, created the very thing that Hank feared—distrust. Hank never differentiated between Eugene and the memory of Hank’s past betrayer and therefore acted similarly to Eugene.

On the other side of the differentiation continuum, persons who have a highly differentiated capacity for trust tend to avoid stereotyping and are able to distinguish individuals from the groups to which they belong and can understand and appreciate individual differences. They tend to be capable of reevaluating people over time. They are also able to make distinctions between groups (ethnic, religious, social, educational status, and so on), and do not make sweeping generalizations about groups.

OUR CAPACITY TO TRUST CHANGES OVER TIME

As our capacity for trust grows and we heal from relationship disappointments, we tend to rely on trust criteria that are more realistic, more abstract, more complex, and more differentiated than earlier in our development.³

That isn’t to say that we don’t ever exhibit behavior at the low ends of the realism, abstractness, complexity, and differentiation continua. There may be situations where our capacity for trust diminishes. However, with self-awareness we can choose to practice transitional trust behaviors consistently. For example, we ask questions, seek to understand, clarify our expectations, tell the truth, and define boundaries, rather than make judgments based on assumptions and criticism.

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Our capacity to trust is not static but dynamic. It expands and contracts as it is updated by our positive and negative experiences. Each of us develops a unique trusting pattern or blueprint, reflective of our experiences, which is unlike anyone else’s. The positive and negative experiences we encounter, particularly during our developmental years, mold our capacity to trust and therefore our pattern of trust behavior—our unique configuration of the four capacity for trust attributes.

Developing our capacity for trust through self-awareness is a slow developmental process. It requires that we take the time to learn to listen to ourselves so that we can acknowledge our feelings, take responsibility for them, and trust ourselves. The Seven Steps for Healing, which we explore in Chapter Eight, are a framework for healing from life’s betrayals and nurturing our capacity for trust.

TRUST BUILDING IN ACTION

Reflecting on Your Experience

In order to better understand how each of the four attributes influence the development of our capacity for trust, think about the following questions:

Realism

1. Why are some people willing to take risks?
2. How willing are you to take risks?

Abstractness

1. Why are some people willing to accept the work or promise of another?
2. How willing are you to accept the work or promise of another?

Complexity

1. Why are some people willing to make a judgment of another based on one interaction?
2. How willing are you to make a judgment of another based on one interaction?

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Differentiation

1. Why are some people more comfortable with other people whose thinking is different from their own?
2. How comfortable are you with people whose thinking is different from your own?

Application Exercises

Think about and discuss with your team the following questions:

1. Reflect on your experience in relationships. What are examples of behaviors that illustrate how high and low development of the capacity for trust attributes influence trust positively and negatively?
2. Think about the people on the job with whom you work the closest. How can you use the capacity for trust attributes to help you better understand your working relationships with them?

Attributes	How the Attribute Positively Influences Trust	How the Attribute Negatively Influences Trust
Realism
Abstractness
Complexity
Differentiation

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Trust Note

The capacity for trust attributes develop from an individual’s life experiences and are influenced by each unique situation. In other words, a person’s degree of trust in another person or a situation depends on his or her developmental capacity (predisposition or conditioning).