Build Trust before you Doom your 360s

by Sean Foster | October 20, 2022 | Newsletter

 If you read my last NewsBrief you may recall we discussed 360 surveys. There are so many benefits as to why you should be running 360s in your business if you employ staff. But with SMEs, there is a risk in that unlike in the corporate world, where 360s are run without anyone knowing who answered what, for SMEs, everyone is likely to know what everyone else answered.

So, before embarking on performing a 360 in your business, it is essential that you get something sorted first and this is Trust.

So, back to the subject. How do you actually go about building trust in your business?

I struggled with this question for a long time. Well, that is until I started to connect the dots.

We know that as humans, most of our decision-making is dominantly influenced by our emotions, even though we tell ourselves that we are reasoning, logical beings.

There is a linear relationship between our emotions and thoughts and how we ‘show up’ (aka. Our identity; who we are or our values). The diagram alongside shows this relationship.

Our emotions and thoughts are the catalysts to this relationship. How we think affects how we see the world and in turn what we believe. What we believe then sets our self-identity.

The significance of this linear relationship should not be underestimated. The relationship between our emotions and our self-identity is bi-directional.

If you want to develop a culture (business-wide identity) of trust, start by identifying the emotions that are required that will lead to this identity of trust.

With a little cross-finger holding from my side, maybe you have had an ‘a-ha’ moment here. And the solution to identifying these emotions is brilliantly simple to identify.

If you ask someone, or yourself: ‘What emotions or thoughts are important to you?’, I can guarantee that you will not get a reliable answer. If however, you rephrase the question to be a little more specific and then ask them to choose from a pack of cards which emotions are most important or relevant to this question, then you will get an insightful answer.

Reminder: We are wanting to build Trust in your business, and we are doing this by identifying the emotions (thoughts and feelings) that are the building blocks of trust. It’s important that the question you ask is the correct one as it needs to be linked to ‘Trust’ within your business and in most situations, to them personally as well.

Recently we workshopped this in our BIG Group, essentially as a training exercise so that the BIG members could take this back into their own businesses and run their own workshops. Some of our members have done exactly this and experienced some great results.

After completing the ‘Values and Emotions’ game, you as the business owner will have a very clear understanding of what is the next step. It will be one of two options:

[1] The trust level is below what is required in our business and we need to improve this. Most likely this will be through a combination of working (coaching) at an individual level and working at the team level where we can overall improve our company culture. Or,

[2] Now that we have a clear understanding and commitment towards trust within our business, we are ready to implement our first 360.

Sounds too simple? It is. But should you want additional input on trust building; 360’s or running a Values and Emotions workshop in your business, then all you need to do is howl out!