Trust is a powerful and delicate thing.
Like much of what we rely on in our family business relationships, trust offers us a paradox of sorts that can be difficult to navigate.
In our most recent NextGen Leaders Group at the Conway Center for Family Business, we explored how trust is built, how it grows, and even how to repair it when it gets damaged or even broken. In all of our discussions around the topic, we discovered that trust can be as strong as steel and as delicate as a newly budding flower. Trust requires us to pay attention to our own integrity and intentions while at the same time risking vulnerability in order to accomplish our vision for our family business.
Merriam-Webster defines trust in three key ways. It is “assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.” Here we see that trust requires us to rely on someone or something outside of ourselves. In this case our willingness to be vulnerable with another person is crucial to our ability to trust them. There must be enough honesty between two parties in order for them to trust one another. A second definition is “a dependence on something future or contingent.” This is where we must rely on things that are out of our control. We may plan for certain sales projections, do the work necessary to connect with our customers and clients with integrity and excellence, and then wait for our efforts to bear fruit, all the while trusting that our processes will lead to the desired outcomes. A final definition that guided our discussion is “care or custody.” While this evokes the idea of a trust, an entity that would be responsible for the well-being of another or a specific fund, it reminds us that trusting takes intention and vigilance.
Trust is directly related to the most important factors of our family business. We are a part of a family business because of the relationships that matter most to us, to spend more time within those relationships and to provide for the people we care about most. In this case trust is everything. It correlates with productivity, retention and job satisfaction, work/life balance, and our legacy. We often take trust for granted and as we discussed the importance of trust in our NextGen Leaders Group we recognized how important it is to highlight more specific conversations around trust in our family business.
Some of our talks centered around the following: What makes someone trustworthy? How do I know I am worthy of trust? What behaviors are evidence of a high-trust organization? What do we do when trust is broken? The Speed of Trust, by Stephen M. R. Covey, informs us that trustworthiness is a combination of character and competence. We trust people who do what they say they will do and perform the tasks of their role with excellence. Covey also points out that the first step toward increasing trust is self-trust, which is present when our motives, agenda, and behavior are aligned. This is another definition of integrity.
Examining the levels of trust that are present, or absent, in our family business begins with the self-awareness necessary to be honest about where we are within. Perhaps the reason we may be lacking trust in our organization is because we don’t take the time to explore how much, or how little, we possess self-trust.
When trust is present, it’s built on factors that create strong bonds. When trust is damaged, we realize just how fragile it can be. The more we can learn to pay attention to the relational components of our family business, the more we can increase trust within, strengthen those critical bonds, and move closer to our vision.
Mike O’Donnell
Executive Coach
Leadership Consultant
Integrated Leadership Systems
If you are a next generation family business member who is interested in topics that address leadership roles in your family-owned business, please join us at these Next Gen Leaders monthly sessions. Contact Amy at adotts@familybusinesscenter if you have any questions about this group.
About the Author:
Mike O'Donnell is an in-demand speaker, presenter, trainer, and leadership coach who believes in empowering leaders to pursue their purpose. An artist by design, Mike's unique approach to equipping leaders unlocks their innate creativity toward building their vision for life, business, and legacy. He is passionately committed to developing a life-giving community of leaders in Columbus who share the art of their business with the world. Mike is an author across multiple platforms and his mission is to help you become the leader you were meant to be.