Building Trust in High-Stakes Settings

[00:00:00] David Rice: One, two, uh, the latest in our community event series. Uh, happy to have many of you back. I'm sure, uh, we're seeing these grow all the time, but it's really exciting to see what's happening with these and finding new ways for our audience to engage with experts. Uh, so we're happy to have you join us today and to take part.

For those of you who don't know, my name is David Rice. I'm the senior editor for people managing people. So today's session is going to be focusing on building trust in high stakes settings. And we'll be speaking with a top voice and thought leader in this space. It's the CEO of Canopy, a leadership improvement app.

And this is Claire Liu. So welcome, Claire. It's good to have you. Uh, I wanted to ask, just to get us started, just to have you introduce yourself. Uh, so much of your role centers around leadership. So let's, let's put it this way. If leadership were a game show, what category [00:01:00] would you dominate? Thank you. And what's the one question you hope nobody asks?

[00:01:04] Claire Lew: Oh, if leadership were a game show, what category would I dominate? Um, this is hilarious because I feel like I'm notoriously bad at any kind of trivia in general, but I think um Uh Any category around vision and setting and operationalizing vision. It's probably a category I would dominate, but like I said, I don't think I do that well, either way, really, regardless of the category, I would be the person who like forgets to, you know, if it's jeopardy, like ask it in question form, that would be me.

Um, and then you asked a second question, which was,

[00:01:42] David Rice: uh, what's the one question you would hope no one asks

[00:01:46] Claire Lew: in that category

[00:01:48] David Rice: or within any,

[00:01:49] Claire Lew: or in general, why doesn't this, why doesn't it work for, for me?

[00:01:56] David Rice: Alright, fair enough. That is a difficult question to answer.

[00:01:59] Claire Lew: The only [00:02:00] reason, the only reason I don't want anybody to ask that is, um, because as you can imagine, there are multitudes in that answer. A lot of reasons. And I always wish there were a silver bullet answer, but, you know, in, in working in this space over the past decade, um, the implementation is often the hardest part and you usually get imperfect results, um, and it's always a work in progress and that's kind of the nature of the beast.

Um, so I welcome that question, by the way, if that is your question, I'm, I'll, I will always give it my best crack.

[00:02:35] David Rice: Context and nuance are always in play, right? So, uh, like I said at the outset, folks, today's topic is trust in high stakes settings. And right now that certainly feels like a high stakes moment that we're all in, right?

Between technology that's being integrated into our everyday lives, sort of the political landscapes that we're living in, the demands of everyday work. It feels like we're on the verge of big changes [00:03:00] to a lot of people. And change can be scary. Employees are feeling like there's a spotlight on everything that they do, uh, some research in the last year that has caught my eye in recent weeks where things like 61 percent of workers saying that their employer lacks trust in them impacts their ability to do their jobs.

Well, um, we look at things like return to office orders, mass layoffs. We've seen a number of people who feel their leaders. Or whose faith in their leader's ability to make sound business decisions has waned a bit. So I think this is a big moment to talk about this idea of trust. And to get to the core of trust, we have to ask ourselves some basic questions about how we're defining it, and what frameworks we're putting in place to help us live that definition.

And with that in mind, I want to turn it over to Claire to paint a clearer picture of what trust is, and what we have to do to cultivate it. Claire, take it away.

[00:03:56] Claire Lew: Amazing. Thank you so much for, for sharing that, David, and for [00:04:00] setting up kind of this topic so, so soundly. I think you're right. All, all of those things, right, are kind of hitting us in waves.

And we're also, I think for many of us, Hopefully, or you know, just can't wait for the holiday season because you sort of want this break before you dive back into it all again in 2025. And so we're going to talk about this and hopefully there's going to be a few takeaways in here and really tactical pieces you can take away.

First, just a little bit about me in case you're not familiar with me and my work. That's me. Absolutely fine. Um, as David mentioned, my name is Claire. I'm the CEO and founder of a leadership development platform called Canopy, and we provide an online platform in which you're able to get insights on the go as well as in depth custom leadership training programs.

And we are lucky enough and privileged enough to do this for tens of thousands of leaders at organizations like this. All over the world. Um, and as David was sharing, right, this is definitely, I think, interesting. It's the right word. It's an interesting time, right? [00:05:00] Many of us have already gone through layoffs, if not the first, maybe, you know, an upcoming one.

Um, The return to office piece I know has weighed heavily and put us in I think difficult positions as people leaders of maybe you actually have to announce and implement a program that maybe you even personally don't believe in. And then there's always constant, I think, change, even when there are things positively going on in your organization.

So for those of you have seen rapid growth, right? You likely have also felt Some of the growing pains of, ooh, we're adding a new management layer, or, ooh, some people who might have previously thought they were going to get promoted aren't, or, ooh, I have to integrate some folks into a certain team and there's some drastically different cultures there that are butting heads.

In other words, it's a lot, right? Stakes are high. There's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of going on. A lot of change happening. And so I think trust is one of the first things to go when things are [00:06:00] this chaotic and when so much is in transition, and we feel this. It's in many of the statistics that you stated, David.

So what I would love to do today is, uh, Share in particular, there are two frameworks that I want to talk about. One is around the definition of trust, and then the second is really around a framework of stability that from these pieces we can start to talk about and would love to apply this to your specific situation that you're facing.

And so as we go through this, If something's resonating with you, if you're wondering, okay, I like this idea, but I'm not sure how this would play out in my team, feel free to drop a question in the Q and a part in zoom for, for David and, um, for the people managing people team to pull, and then we're going to do an ask me anything session.

At the end with that, let's get into it. So as, uh, David talked about, as I sort of alluded, I think [00:07:00] when we think about what, you know, this chaotic time, right? And feeling like, gosh, but it's pretty hard to get anything done when I'm feeling like my team really isn't trusting each other. I think it's always so helpful to get back to first principles about what do we even mean?

When we talk about trust. Because I think of all the business terms, right, that we as people leaders hear all the time, I would say trust ranks up there along with like strategy and, you know, operating principles of kind of these vague terms we throw around, right? Competency models that sometimes, um, get overused and really lose their meaning.

And so when we talk actually about trust, I actually want to first see your run on actually what trust isn't. So trust, when you think about it in a team, is in fact not getting your [00:08:00] team to like you. Alright, and I just want to pause on this for a minute. Trust is not a Popularity contest. And some of you, right, and David, I saw you shaking your head, and maybe some of you who are off camera are shaking your heads.

You're going, oh yeah, no, I know this one because let me tell you, when I was, you know, a younger manager, I thought, you know, a greener manager, I thought, ooh, I really want my team to like me, I, you know, want them to, you know, be smiley and friendly and for them to just think that I have their back, the intention is good, But we realize very quickly is that doesn't necessarily mean that this person feels like they can count on me or feels like this person can be even vulnerable with me, right?

So trust, in fact, is not getting our team to like us. And the reason this becomes really important is when you're in going through these really big, um, sort of crucible moments in an organization. This means that actually, if you're trying to build trust. [00:09:00] It's not about getting your team to like you in these moments.

I'm going to say that one more time. In these times of change, right, and in these crucibles, it's not about getting your team to like you. Like you, you're actually trying to build trust. It's about something else. And I'm going to talk about that. What we have to do, in fact, to build trust is to actually access something deeper.

And so what, um, uh, researchers have really defined, um, as trust is, is this. So Denise Rousseau really famous paper shared in the 1990s, how trust is really a psychological state comprising of the intention to accept vulnerability upon positive expectations or behavior of another. And what she's talking about is in fact two things.

She's talking about, okay, this idea of character, this idea that, okay, I am Going to be open and vulnerable and that's going to cause people to [00:10:00] trust me and also capabilities that there's some Expected positive behavior and this is talked about in you know, if you're familiar with steven covey's work speed of trust, which is an excellent Read this is also echoed in research that's done famously by um, Amy Cuddy and her colleagues.

So it's this idea of warmth, right? Again, vulnerability, feeling this sense of rapport and competence, believing that there's going to be some sort of follow through, some sort of, um, positive outcome. And so the way it in fact, um, gets translated is that into actually then two different types. Of trust. And this is something that was, um, shared by Daniel McAllister paper.

Two different types of trust. One is, um, is called affective trust, and the second is called cognitive trust. Now, most of us are probably [00:11:00] most familiar with affective trust, which is that warmth piece, right? That character piece. Affective trust is that feeling of emotional bond and interpersonal relatedness, right?

It's why we try to get to know someone personally. It's why we do coffee chats, right? It's kind of that feel good, um, Uh, emotion, right? And it's important, but it's also, again, only one part of trust, right? A relational part of trust. And in fact, there is this second part of trust. That is very much overlooked called cognitive trust, and this is again what researchers are focusing on.

Well, hey, this is trust based on the fact that if I were to ask you to do something, you would have my back, that if I were to go out on a limb, you're not going to punish me, right? This idea that I can trust you, but it's based off a sense of reliability. and competence has really nothing to do with whether or not I feel emotionally [00:12:00] close to you or a sense of rapport.

It's my, it's whether or not I believe that you're actually going to fall through on something. So that's cognitive trust. Now what's so critical about really discerning, and we'll talk about the application of these in a second, but really discerning These two different types of trust is it means that in high pressure situations, you actually need both, right?

You can't just have one. And especially in the beginning of a relationship, affective trust actually research has found to be most important. In other words, it really sets a foundational tone, right? So if you're thinking about organizational change initiatives, if you're thinking about making a big announcement, if you're thinking about onboarding team members.

We have to be thinking about affective trust is kind of laying the groundwork, but then what's really fascinating is other research that also says, though, the correlation of having cognitive trust present. The ability for people to actually feel like they can rely on you, that's actually more tightly correlated with leadership effectiveness.

In other words, people will [00:13:00] perceive you to be a better leader. Not actually if they like you or feel like they can relate to you, but actually the more strongly they feel like you're going to actually be reliable follow through. That's cognitive trust. So something to consider as you think about, you know, what are the big organizational events and turmoil that you've been feeling right as a people leader, if it's a riff, if it's a return to office, if it's some kind of, or change and ask yourself, right, do you have both in your organization right now?

Where are you perhaps in deficit around, is it in. The affective trust. Is it in the cognitive trust area? Um, or do you feel like you're actually doing okay on both? But it's really more about increasing both of those levels of trust. So something to consider, um, if you appreciated that framework and you'd like to even get a deeper dive.

So in canopy, we have a link here as well. [00:14:00] Um, but in Canopy, we actually have on demand modules and cheat sheets, scripts, templates, um, that you can access, uh, and yeah, that's the link to be able to do that, and so you can get the full framework there. I then want to move to A second framework that I think is so, so helpful during these times of immense change, immense uncertainty, something that I actually even personally lean on as a CEO, um, for my own team, and that's really around thinking about how do I create A sense of stability during this time.

Because that's really why we're trying to create trust in the first place. It's not just for trust's sake to exist, it's actually why I just want our team to be able to feel like they can stand on the ground with two feet, they aren't distracted, they're wanting to put forth, um, You know, [00:15:00] uh, energetic effort, right?

So we want to create the sense of stability. And my goodness, we just don't really have it. Maybe you're even personally yourself as a people leader. That's okay. So what I want to share for forces for stability that can be really helpful to rely on as a people leader. So the 1st is this concept of predictability.

Now we all know that when things are uncertain, we crave predictability. It's that structure, that anticipation, where if we just sort of knew what was happening around the corner, had a feeling of what was coming, things would just feel so much better. What's tricky, though, about these times of immense change and chaos that we're going through in our organizations is [00:16:00] predictability is kind of hard to come by.

It'd be nice to offer people predictability in your team and be able to say, Hey, we're going through, This reduction in force, and it means that we're never going to have to do this again. And it means this is, you know, the implications for the organization. But in fact, you might not know that any of those things are true.

So it's really hard to sort of share a predictable path, right? However, you'll see this slide here. It's so critical to remind ourselves as people leaders that when we talk about predictability, we're not talking about a guarantee. In other words, we're not trying to promise something. anyone, anything.

Rather, what predictability really is, it's scenario planning. It's saying, I don't know. So admitting that, but then sharing here are potentially one, two, or three options and what the implications of those things are. And so, [00:17:00] you know, here's an example of if you're in a reduction in force situation. Is explaining what the 1, 2, 3 possible paths are of the effects of it.

This rather than saying just sort of more blanket, everything's going to be okay. Right? That's actually maybe a potential false promise and overstatement. It might feel like it doesn't really resonate with some people. Some people might feel that some others might not. And so again, predictability. It's not about guaranteeing everything.

It's not about saying I know exactly for sure. This is what things are going to look like. It's about providing Thanks. Potential scenarios and walking and bringing folks along in that journey. It also means finding a rhythm and creating a sense of predictability. And I guess I used air quotes there because around when you're actually going to share this information, because if you can't, if you don't actually know what [00:18:00] the answers are.

So, for example, let's say you actually don't even know You know, the situation is so uncertain that it's actually really even hard to determine what the three possible scenarios are. Maybe you're thinking, there's like 30 in all, you know, reality, or we just actually we need more time before we even determine the situation.

That's also okay. If you are making it predictable when you are going to share this information, so in times of immense change and immense turmoil, finding ways to say, and here's an example of so with this change, we're actually going to start holding a weekly one hour meeting where we're going to review what the implications of this are once a week, or maybe you integrate into an existing meeting, right?

So the idea here is helping people to have an expectation, something that reduces the anxiety of, well, I don't, I don't know what's going to happen, and saying, well, we don't know, and here is what you can predict in terms of the actual communication to get those answers eventually over time. [00:19:00] Right? So this is what we mean by predictability.

The second key force for creating a sense of stability is clarity. Okay. And I know so many of us as people leaders know, yes, this is important. I know we need to communicate really clearly and whether or not we're sharing return to office policies or reorg, I know I need to be really clear in our communication, but when we mean clear, we actually mean.

Simple and real. So it's not just about saying what the thing is. It's about finding a way to make sure that the complexity of what all the things that feel relevant to you, stripping that away and actually getting to the core of what you feel like. Most essentially is important for people to hear because there's so much changing.

There's so much happening. There's so much room for misinterpretation. Simplicity is so important. This idea of keeping it real [00:20:00] means also Not trying to paint too rosy of a picture, but to level with your team and let them know that you see the situation for what it is, that you're seeing things clearly and being accurate in that assessment.

So phrases that, you know, when we've worked with, with organizations saying things like, this is going to be a hard time for us. Take the time you need to process. Simple, real. Rather than, I know these are a lot of changes, and we're not really sure where things are going, and here are all the reasons for why we made them, and you know, we look forward to a positive future going forward.

It's like way too much. It's not simple. It doesn't feel real, right? Um, So again, keeping it simple, keeping it real. And then the other part of, um, clarity is being able to, to say really straightforwardly, and here's what the next exact steps are, right? So if you do have, for example, a reduction in force, a detailing of how the day to day might actually change very specifically, or returned off as what those [00:21:00] implications might be, um, for each team.

The third. Force of stability is this idea of control. We as humans, naturally, we feel more, uh, stable when we feel like we can actually influence the environment. And our team is no different, right? So just imagine for a second for yourself as a people leader. The degree of helplessness that you've maybe personally felt when your senior leadership team has made a decision that you don't agree with.

I just want you to imagine that for a second. Maybe it's happened in your current role. Maybe it's happening currently right now. Maybe it's happened with a previous organization, but I just want you to tap into that feeling. It is infuriating, right? When you feel like other leaders, you know, above you or [00:22:00] whatnot, or maybe your peers.

I've made a decision that you don't agree with and there's this feeling of, gosh, I don't have control over the situation, right? I can't do anything about it. Now, this is how, unfortunately, the rest of our team feels when there is. A big organizational change or a lot of change happening in these decisions as well.

And so when we think about control, right? If this feeling of change has your team feeling out of control, then what we as people leaders need to be doing is finding a way to give that control back to our team. In some way. Now you may be looking at this slide going, Oh, okay, that sounds nice. How do you do that?

Right? When, you know, especially when you feel like maybe you don't have that autonomy yourself to give, give any [00:23:00] control, right? What does that even mean? We can't change the policies. I can't rehire people who I didn't, you know, who I think shouldn't have been let go. Right? Here's what I mean by giving back control.

I mean, not exactly controlling the what of what's happening. In itself, but in fact, taking control of the how. So while you may not be able to change the decision, you absolutely control how it's communicated. While you may not be able to, um, change who it's affecting, you can control, you know, the conditions and how people are able to perhaps respond to it and equip them.

More readily with that, and so here are a few specific examples. This means giving options when there can be options, and this can be on truly the greatest magnitude or the smallest. Magnitude and it still is effective and I encourage you as people leaders For whatever big change that you're facing, for example, um, you know, if you are, [00:24:00] um, you know, there's an organizational change that's happening, there's an extra layer that's been, um, added, and you actually have to demote people, I'm sure some of you have had to go through that before.

Consider, okay, these people probably feel met wildly out of control, is there any way I can give them some kind of option, right? Is it around a choice between two job titles? Right? Not saying they can just write their own, but maybe it's a choice just in small wording around two job titles. Is it a choice in, hey, I'd love to make sure that in this new role, right, you have space and time to do your best work?

A choice in maybe a meeting you can take off their calendar, right? Small ways to add flexibility, to add grace, to give options. That gives people back. Another way, um, to do this is to give them actually just more autonomy in that environment, right? To ask [00:25:00] for ideas of, hey, if this is going to be your, you know, if this is, you know, say, again, using the same example, um, being able to, to offer, you know, what would be a project that you would be most excited about diving in?

Or one year from now, what would you say, um, would be the thing that you're most interested in taking charge of offering to people? That kind of autonomy again, giving back control and similarly inviting them to contribute to a plan moving forward. And then lastly, there's this idea of care, right? This idea that we go through these big changes, and sometimes they're so deeply upsetting because they feel very callously.

done. And for many of us as people leaders, we actually get put also in a really tough situation where we are the bearer of bad news. It seems like we don't care because, um, you know, maybe we're not liberty to share everything. Right. And so it always is, is tough. And yet this is such [00:26:00] a critical part of creating, um, stability in an organization because we can say all we want that we care as a team.

We're here for you. But again, if we're showing cognitive trust, right, if we were actually trying to make sure our team knows they can rely on us and we actually have to show those things. We actually have to show that that's in fact something that is true. And so this means saying to people right and giving people this time offering ideas around I want to Make sure that we give time and space to process this.

I want to meet one on one with folks perhaps it's um Uh, finding ways to, um, even, um, you know, have folks gather and process this in their own groups. And then also, a big part of care is also, in fact, reminding yourself as [00:27:00] a people leader that you do not actually have to absorb all of and everyone's experience of how they are internalizing.

This change that doesn't have to become your story and your story for how things are happening doesn't have to become. There's, I think it's so easy, especially for us as people leaders to try to hold all the threads of the narratives in our hands. And it's almost like, um, you know, if you've ever, if you've ever made pasta and you've taken, you know, all the, the dried spaghetti, um, out of the bag.

And you can't really grab it with all your hands, and then, I don't know if any of you have done this, maybe I'm just clumsy, and then you're trying to put it into the pot, and then they kind of like, slip and slide and fall over, and you just realize you grabbed too many, it's like that, right? You're trying to hold all this stuff, when everyone's individual, right?

Um, spaghetti noodles, so to speak, it's theirs, right? [00:28:00] And so it's not for us to all hold. It's to, again, try to equip folks and show care, but it doesn't mean we have to internalize that ourselves and carry that weight as leaders. And so with that, um, yeah, I would love to know, um, If, yeah, if there are any thoughts, reactions, questions, um, things that resonated with folks, things that people are curious about, I'll turn it over, um, to David, uh, and actually, yeah, here's another link, by the way, if you want more resources, we have so many around, actually, this specific framework, so feel free to screenshot it if you want to, um, revisit this link, but, yeah, I'll turn things over to, to you, David.

[00:28:44] David Rice: All right, well, we already have a question in the chat and folks, please do pop more in there. Go in the Q and a sorry feature and just put your questions in there and people can upvote them. And I'll just get to as many as we can in this time. But the 1st question was, how do we align stakeholders [00:29:00] with different strategic agendas to prevent conflicts and build trust and achieve shared goals?

[00:29:08] Claire Lew: How do we align stakeholders? I just want to make sure I got the full question, um, to, uh, achieve. I'll go for it, David. Yeah.

[00:29:19] David Rice: You know, when they have different strategic agendas, yeah. How can we prevent conflicts, build trust to achieve shared goals?

[00:29:28] Claire Lew: Absolutely. So, um, a couple of things to unpack, um, first and foremost, I think it's important to, to recognize that when we're trying to get everyone sort of on the same page, It's impossible for every single person to have true agreement.

And in fact, true trust isn't necessarily that everyone is in agreement. So actually, sometimes in the most higher trust environments, actually, that means there's a greater level of conflict because people feel more comfortable and have greater affective and cognitive trust, right? To be [00:30:00] able to move forward.

So I think rather than trying to reduce. Conflict, right? I think the main thing here is making sure that, um, first and foremost, there is enough affective trust. Has there been enough work done to make sure that interpersonally and interrelationally people feel like, Oh, I know who you are. I know what your values are.

I know what your intention is more than anything. And then has that actually been proven, right? Which is the cognitive trust. And so I think, how do you do that? I think, um, There's a lot of ways, right? In many ways, it's like, I could talk about this for 60 minutes on its own. There's a lot of ways. But I, I would, um, probably offer, um, the, the number one piece is, I would actually focus more on the affect of trust in this piece.

And, um, to reveal what people's true intentions are around [00:31:00] whatever you're trying to align them with. What is it that each person actually, ultimately cares about? Is it making sure that, you know, their team feels supported? Is it seeing through a certain business goal? Is it the success of the organization?

And what you'll find is oftentimes there's some one core linking thing that everyone does care about. Um, and bringing that to light actually really helps to build that sense of shared values and that sense of affective trust. I hope that's helpful.

[00:31:34] David Rice: Yeah, I think I think that answered it. What one of the things I was curious about, because we're kind of going back to the beginning, you talked about the predictability piece, and I know it's not something that we can always offer.

Right? And you made a good point saying it's not a guarantee. But like we said, these are rather interesting times. Right? And in it you were talking about control the how, because you can't control the what. My question is, how do you build trust when you're in the [00:32:00] process of figuring out the how? I think there's a fair amount of roles where it's sort of in transitional states, right?

Things are changing and that work can kind of be in flux. So what are the keys to maintaining trust during those sort of transitions?

[00:32:16] Claire Lew: Absolutely. So I think when there's very, very, very little predictability of any sort that you can even offer, I think it actually comes back to clarity. It's in fact being simple and real and normalizing that we don't have an answer, that uncertainty is okay, that we are in this time where, you know, a phrase I like to use is wobbly is okay.

normalizing that the ocean has waves, that this is part of where we are at in this time. And it doesn't mean that we're, you know, failing. It doesn't mean that we are broken. It means that we're just in this situation. And being really [00:33:00] clear about here's what, here's what we're doing to try to gain clarity.

And here's one we will know, right? So again, what you can provide predictability around those is then the communication piece. Here's one we will know. Here's how we will be keeping you regularly updated.

[00:33:16] David Rice: Um, you know, I love the example that you were providing with the layoff, right? Because this is definitely something that's happening and sort of the aftermath of it. Um, there's a couple instances where I think it's maybe harder to establish trust. One of them is that I've seen personally, right? Is you hire someone.

Within six months, this layoff occurs, and now they're asked to take on work that wasn't a part of that initial role that they're still kind of settling into. And that can tend to feel like a bait and switch to the person, uh, and it kind of undermines your ability to build trust, I think, because you hadn't fully established it in the first place.

So I'm curious, and forgive me, this is sort of, I'm like asking a three [00:34:00] part question now.

[00:34:01] Claire Lew: Oh, let's do it. No, no, no, no, no. This is absolutely a situation we've heard from so many organizations we've worked with, so. I'm with you. I'm with you, David.

[00:34:08] David Rice: So my question is, does your process change on, based upon individual circumstances?

And what are some signs that maybe things aren't quite coming together how you'd like? And if so, if you start to see that, how do you respond?

[00:34:27] Claire Lew: Writing a few notes down to myself for myself so I can answer everything. Yeah, um, this is so tough, right? When we're caught in a situation that completely undermines all the efforts that we've been trying to do around trust. Maybe, you know, you go, Oh, yeah, of course, I'm onboarding someone. So I'm going to focus on affective trust.

And I'm going to try to give, you know, away control. And I'm gonna give this person autonomy. And now all of a sudden, I kind of have to go back on my word, I actually have to break cognitive trust here, right? And ask folks to do something that [00:35:00] You know, they weren't going to be asked to do before. So I think first and foremost, um, we have to recognize that the thing that got broken in this situation is the cognitive trust.

It's the fact that I'm asking this direct report to rely on me. And now, you know, for, for a responsible and respectable amount of work, and now, all of a sudden, they are just getting absolutely overloaded and now are in, is in, in this more greater uncertain context, right? So then the question becomes, how do I rebuild cognitive trust?

And if cognitive trust is, in fact, the ability for people to feel like they can rely on you and that they're going to know that you can follow through, that's a matter of showing, actually, more than telling. In other words, what can you actually deliver and follow through on? Is it the weekly one on one meetings where you're giving them status updates?

Is it, um, and actually here's one of the most powerful ways of following through when these times are so difficult, is merely an [00:36:00] accurate statement of what things are right now. Saying, I know that this is a really challenging and tough and quite frankly a bit of unrealistic time in terms of how much work we're being asked and placed on you.

Right. So sharing that. Then there's a second part of this, right, which is, um, actually trying to share a path of what you are doing as a leader to offload some of that. Again, this is also, um, part of cognitive thrust. So saying, hey, Right. I want to, um, and what I plan to do is to talk with senior leadership to make sure that this is more realistically, um, managed, you know, in a couple, um, months.

I really see this as playing out in a couple different ways of how the things are going to change, and I think things are going to get better. I'll let you know if I don't, if I don't think that's going to be true, right? So sharing what are the things that, um, I can paint a picture of, and then actually follow through on so that person has that greater sense.

of, um, cognitive trust. So that's sort of what the [00:37:00] process looks like. And again, if I were to go back and say it in two words, right? Cognitive trust, right? That's the thing you have to focus on rebuilding. The second thing of what are the signs of if that's not going well, um, quite frankly, it's, it's underperformance, right?

If, if you feel, um, like the person's dropping the ball, not, um, holding their, their weight. Um, I think, you know, some leaders are quick to react to the person's really withdrawn all of a sudden, or they were really interactive in slack, and now they're not. And I would say that, you know, with, again, the tens of thousands of leaders that we've worked with and situations that we've seen, um, someone's social engagement, um, may or may not be an indication of or correlated with their work performance, right?

So focus on the work performance. What is actually the work output that you're looking to, to, um. Sort of be, is the expectation. Uh, for a job well done, and that's going [00:38:00] to be, um, your sign. Right. And so if you then, to your third part of the question, start to see this person, right, underperforming, I think there's two, or, or, um, a couple different, different options.

I think one, in fact, it's kind of evidence that you can take two other stakeholders in your organization and say, this is completely unrealistic. Right. And something has to change. Um, two, you can kind of take matters into your own hands and depending on the size of the organization and the culture in your organization and actually rearrange the amount of work that that person has to do.

Right. Um, and, um, I think those are probably the two primary modes. I think the third most rare mode, um, that would be most unfortunate is that if you feel, um, that, um, uh, with greater confidence that actually another person in this situation would be able to cope and handle this workload. And it's actually not that much.

And it's actually, it's [00:39:00] been, you know, I don't know, 16 months since the change happened. And it feels like this person might be using this more as a crutch than everything. Then it's maybe a conversation around is this person the right fit for the organization as well. So I hope that, yeah, I hope that addresses all the pieces you were asking, David.

[00:39:17] David Rice: Absolutely. So this question comes from someone that says, what if there's a personal trigger surrounding trust that is affecting a team member?

[00:39:28] Claire Lew: A personal trigger. And I, for everyone who asked that question, what do you mean by personal trigger? Or like a personality trait, something, or is this like something someone did, I'm guessing, or is it something to the person directly?

[00:39:42] David Rice: My interpretation of it, and hopefully they'll answer this quickly, but, uh, my interpretation of this is sort of something that they've experienced that causes them to be very slow to trust, let's put it that way, and it affects their ability, [00:40:00] sort of affects their ability to actually do that.

[00:40:06] Claire Lew: Absolutely.

So in this case, it's actually again, right? It's a break in cognitive trust. It's based, it's because there was an experience, something that happened that causes a person to think that I can't rely on this person anymore and therefore I can't trust them, right? So depending on how you're seeing the situation, right?

So if you're a third party seeing the situation, it's trying to find a way to, um, maybe suggest to that other person, hey, to rebuild that you actually just have to show it, right? Right. It's not about saying, it's about showing to and putting in, um, uh, the, uh, rep, so to speak, right? If you are in this situation and you realize, ooh, I did something that may have caused, um, someone to, um, not trust me [00:41:00] as much, right?

Or maybe it's vice versa because It's, you know, it's something that, um, it's because of past experience. That means that the experience going forward has to be consistent. So again, what are the opportunities that you're creating to say, I'm going to do this, and then I'm going to follow through on it to show that reliability and follow through.

[00:41:25] David Rice: Excellent. Um, this question comes from user Brett. Uh, hello, I'm in a new role at my organization. There is significant distrust, uh, cultural issues and low morale. How might I make the biggest impact on this new team as I enter the next few months?

[00:41:46] Claire Lew: Yeah, a lot of things there. Um, so I think one of the things to talk about, um, when we're thinking about trust and morale and, and a lot of these, these [00:42:00] issues is, you know, again, and we've talked about affective trust and, and cognitive trust, but keep in mind that these are all reactions and trust is a reaction to what is, sort of systemically happening currently.

In other words, if you are new, the culture that you're seeing, the lack of trust, the low morale is in reaction to a bunch of interrelated systems and events that have happened, unfortunately, before you were there. So what this means is that it's actually Unfortunately, it's extremely hard to diagnose the root cause problems for why are people not trusting each other?

Why is there a low morale? Because you actually haven't personally been witness. And I haven't been able to see, well, what are the inner, um, related systems and pieces. And when I mean interrelated systems and pieces, I mean like, oh, maybe the CEO, um, promised something and [00:43:00] now, um, they didn't deliver and now people are really upset, right?

Or maybe there was a really poor mismanagement of how someone was let go and that's, you know, really exploded. Or maybe, you know, the business isn't doing well. Like, there are all these, again, right? These things that are happening that when we're new, we're not thinking about. Always aware of. So my recommendation, right?

When we don't have that fuller picture is really to operate as a unit of one. In other words, what are the things that you personally control regardless of job title, right? What are the ways? And again, going back to the two frameworks that you can personally invest in affective trust in cognitive trust.

And then what are the ways in which you personally can invest in a sense of predictability, of control, of clarity, and of care, right, that you can hopefully have that permeate, but just know that you're operating in a context in which you don't always, you don't have the full picture, you're actually just seeing the resulting events because of things that have happened that, um, that have come before you.[00:44:00]

[00:44:02] David Rice: Excellent. Uh, Michelle asks, uh, how do you rebuild culture and community after significant layoffs? So I think those are kind of like a byproduct of trust, right? But this question often comes, it says, this question often comes up in discussions with HR leaders. How can HR and managers support the remaining employees, help them cope with survivor guilt, and foster a sense of connection and engagement as the organization moves forward?

[00:44:31] Claire Lew: A few thoughts. Um, Michelle, thank you so much for, for sharing this. We work with, it's Veni, Solace, quite a few organizations who've been in your exact same shoes and we do custom trainings for them and help them with us. So you are not alone in this. Um, a few, few thoughts that might be helpful. I think one is setting the expectation for you and your organizational or for your people team that it actually, um, or rather when you think about rebuilding, we oftentimes, um, Unintentionally frame it as trying to get back to where we [00:45:00] were when in fact, the reality is, is that you're actually going to end up in a new place altogether.

And so I think resetting the expectation that you're not trying to actually recreate what was before, but that it's actually more of a transformation evolution to something new. So if that's the case. And thinking about as a people team and senior leadership team, what is that new actually culture and community, rather than wishing, and it's so easy, right, to be nostalgic for, oh, gosh, do you remember when, right?

Oh, wasn't it so great back, right? So easy to do that. But I would challenge each of us who are in this situation to go, you know what, the past is the past. And we are in a different situation. You know, these are new times and the culture and community, because we have a new team, it's going to be something new.

And so with that reframing, then starting to think about, well, we can choose for it to be something that we want, right? What would it, what would, how can we be intentional about that? Um, and looking again, and you can, you know, go back to these frameworks, [00:46:00] right? Are there ways to build affective trust, cognitive trust, predictability, care, control, um, clarity, but in a way that's moving towards that new culture rather than trying to recreate what already was and unfortunately never will be.

[00:46:19] David Rice: And we have another question that's come in says, what, what would you suggest would be the most effective way or ways to restore trust in a manager specifically after it's been damaged? So, obviously, we know how important that relationship is to the employee experience.

[00:46:37] Claire Lew: Uh, so restoring trust in a manager.

But as in, um, with, with my manager or, um, as a people leader and you're seeing a manager, uh, interacting with someone.

[00:46:55] David Rice: I think

[00:46:57] Claire Lew: probably the latter.

[00:46:58] David Rice: Yeah, you're, you're sort of, [00:47:00] you're, HR, you're seeing that there's a, an issue between an employee and a manager where trust has eroded.

[00:47:07] Claire Lew: Absolutely. This is why I think for, for us who are in HR and people, it's, um, it's such a tough, um, situation because it begins with the manager themselves in order for trust to be done effectively, right?

I think one thing that we actually haven't talked about that's a really common thread in all of the concepts that I shared today, whether it's affective trust or the safety of predictability, et cetera, is, um, trust at its core is about authenticity, right? You only trust someone and feel personally a sense of relation to them or feel like they're reliable if you feel like they're being authentic.

So as a result, the only way for their trust to be repaired is for it authentically to sort of happen between two people and for the manager themselves to actually proactively take that. So in other words, the only role that unfortunately we or maybe [00:48:00] fortunately we and people in HR can instill trust.

Is by encouraging that manager to sort of tap in to being authentic, right? And then to, um, finding a way for them to instill some of these ideas around affective trust, cognitive trust, and the second framework, right, around, again, predictability, control, um, care, etc. Um, so again, there's no, like, magic word or phrase or thing that we can share.

You absolutely could obviously share, um, You know, this, this talk, you obviously, again, we train folks in TrustBuilding, we train managers specifically. So we, we are always happy to, to work together, right? We've tons of free resources as well on our site, but it's the manager themselves that will need to internalize that and practice that.

And there's, you know, there's not much sort of, um, arm twisting we can really do unfortunately, um, in our roles other than kind of leading, leading the person, um, to perhaps those [00:49:00] insights.

[00:49:02] David Rice: All right, um, so folks, we're coming into the last, uh, 8, 9 minutes here. So feel free to put any other questions that you got in the Q and a function and we will get to it as best we can.

Uh, but I was going to ask, um. It seems, you know, trust is, to me, kind of likely to be something to build sort of an organizational KPI around, right? Especially if you're trying to determine what type of trust is and isn't present in your organization. So what are some characteristics or traits, maybe, that we should be looking for to build around, to build effective trust or cognitive trust?

[00:49:42] Claire Lew: Absolutely. So I think, um, Trust it's is again. It is like we never build trust just for the sake of building trust, right? It's to enable greater performance and greater outcomes. So I think, of course, the business outcomes themselves, I think, of course, will [00:50:00] be natural and important KPIs. But I think the second is that some of the behaviors that are most indicative of high trust environments are actually To what degree is their critical feedback actually coming from, um, uh, uh, sort of upwards, right?

So from folks, from direct reports to their managers or from managers to their directors, how much of that actually happens? And you obviously can track this if you're using some kind of, um, survey. This is also a rather platform, um, performance management platform. This is also something anecdotally that you can, can get a sense of when you pop into a meeting, right?

How often, when the leader of the meeting goes, Hey, are there any questions? Is there any pushback? Do people have, you know, does anyone have any feedback? It's crickets. Actually, it might not be that I trust of an environment, right? People not feeling comfortable. Um, and then I think the second is, um, what is the degree to which people are, [00:51:00] um, willing to argue in public, so to speak?

And I don't mean like yelling at each other in the hallways, right? What I mean is healthy conflict, productive conflict, um, that a culture of the best ideas win, and it's not, not personal, um, the degree of feedback that is, um, Being, um, being shared. And then I would say the third indicator in terms of behavior of a high trust environment is vulnerability.

What is the degree to which leaders themselves and especially the highest leaders at the top are in fact sharing mistakes, sharing when they went wrong, sharing why they changed their mind, sharing, um, when they feel like they don't have the answers? How often does that occur? If it doesn't occur very often, unfortunately, there might not be, you know, a great degree of trust.

If it happens, um, Yeah, to a surprising degree, um, obviously, hopefully not debilitating, right, because it can also go in the opposite direction, as you can imagine, but if it's, if it's, um, if it happens in a way where, um, [00:52:00] you, you, you know, you are noticing that it causes the rest of the team to go, Oh, yeah, I'm, I can share mistakes.

I can share where I've come up short too. That's absolutely a sign of trust as well.

[00:52:11] David Rice: In the high pressure scenarios, right? So we've got situations where deadlines are all over the place, or maybe the performance has got to change very rapidly. I guess, how do you balance fostering effective trust Again, rooted in personal relationships, sort of that emotional connection and might be seen by leaders as kind of a nice to have, but balancing it with cognitive trust, which is based on competence and reliability.

Right? So again, striking that balance in those scenarios and keeping that alive, I guess.

[00:52:46] Claire Lew: Absolutely. Yeah. I don't know if balance, I don't think there is balance. Right. I think it's more about understanding the, um, what's the right word? Uh, the [00:53:00] cycle of, of when certain modes of trust are actually most helpful.

And so I would say in the beginning of your relationships and, um, uh, Interactions with folks, indexing, and we talked a little bit about this, right, in the talk is indexing on affective trust in the beginning of the relationship, I would say to overly focus on that, right? So overly focusing on that, and then moving to cognitive trust, really seeing affective trust as the baseline rather than feeling like you have to be doing a lot of both all at the same time.

And so affective trust at first. Then trying to focus on showing reliability. And then as time goes on, coming back to rebuild some affective trust, but then going back right to focusing on cognitive trust. And this ends up actually playing out very well, practically, when you're in a high stakes organization, because you need to be showing that you're reliable anyways, because you need to be Following through on your commitments and getting stuff done, um, quickly.[00:54:00]

And so it means that you're not feeling like you're overly spending too much time on, um, maybe the so called nice to have of getting to know someone and how they're feeling and building that rapport, um, but again, it's really, really critical. So again, do it in the beginning and then sort of have that more interspersed or see that as more of the foundation as you move forward.

[00:54:22] David Rice: Excellent. Um, so folks, they haven't, uh, Claire, thank you for joining us today. This was excellent.

[00:54:30] Claire Lew: Wonderful. I'm so glad. Yeah.

[00:54:32] David Rice: So, everybody in the audience, thanks for being here. This was great. Please do take a 2nd to fill out the feedback survey that Michael's going to post into the chat. Uh, just let us know what you saw in today's session and you can also feel free to submit a topic.

You'd like to see us cover in the future if you'd like. So, um, Also, I should remember this one. You're also invited to our next event, which will be our HR roundtable. Uh, we do these once a month. So you can bring your top [00:55:00] of mind questions questions and challenges, uh, on any topic in front of group of peers, gain their perspective, their insights, make better informed decisions, right?

That's what we're all after. Um, so RSVP using the link that, uh, Michael is going to post in the chat that I just did. Um, and of course, a big thank you again to Claire for volunteering her time today. This was awesome. I really enjoyed this talk and thank you for sharing us with your expertise with us.

[00:55:28] Claire Lew: Oh, you bet.

No, happy to be here. And thank you all so much for spending your time, especially during such a busy season. Um, know that we're here to support, right? It doesn't have to end here. If any of this resonated with you, if you're thinking, oh, I'd like access to these frameworks or I want to send, you know, This to my managers.

Again, feel free to sign up for for canopy. We actually have a free plan, which is awesome. And then also we have a 30 percent discount code already off a pretty pretty great membership. So yeah, definitely take advantage of that. That's an exclusive to [00:56:00] people managing people. So feel free to screenshot that.

In other words, thank you so much. Yeah, a real pleasure, David. Thank you for for for moderating.

[00:56:08] David Rice: Excellent. Well, until next time, folks, index on affective trust at the start, build towards cognitive trust. We'll see you next time.

[00:56:19] Claire Lew: Bye everyone. Thank you.