Do you recognize internal meetings where the presenter tries to sell the story to the audience? Full of passion the strategy is presented to the audience to rally the troops. I was an attendee of one of these meetings lately when I asked myself the question:
Why are you selling this story and why are you not seeking for feedback and ask our audience: Do you believe this story?
If trust starts with understanding and believing in ones promise, we should invest more time and effort in building a promise an organization believes in. Do you ever check whether someone believes your promise? Or do you believe uncertainty weakness your trust?
It got me struggling to understand the difference between believe and trust. Do you believe in me or do you trust me. Is there a different meaning? Asking google for an answer, gave a confirmation, that I was not the only one struggling.
The following description gave the best answer for me:
Trust is a value that requires a foundation between two parties. Trust is developed based on a party’s knowledge about another. On the other hand, believe is a value of acceptance to facts or circumstances. It is based on thoughts and observations.
With digitization it becomes more and more easy to gain knowledge about one another and therefore believe and trust will grow closer together. Therefore I think we should ask each other more often: do you believe I can do this or do you have any doubts?
It could be an upgrade for the NPS metric that is devaluating rapidly. Asking your clients and employees the same question: do you believe in the promise of the organisation? It requires the judging party to invest time in understanding the promise and provide real feedback. At the same time the organisation should build more proof around these questions that ultimately will lead to trust.
