Trust: I either trust someone or I don’t.
Over the years, trust has become another black-and-white subject for me. I either trust someone or I don’t.
That’s again probably sounds a bit too simplistic. Trustworthiness itself is obviously not binary. People can be reliable most of the time, sometimes, rarely, or almost always. There is an entire scale in between. But after more than twenty years of working with people and organisations, I have become much less interested in where exactly somebody sits on that scale. For me, the practical question is much simpler: can I trust this person?
If the answer is “most of the time”, then the answer is actually a no.
By trust, I don’t mean believing that somebody will never lie to me, betray me or stab me in the back. Those are rather dramatic definitions. I mean is there reasonable consistency between what someone says and what they do? If they commit to something, does it normally happen? If there is a problem, will I hear about it while we can still do something about it? When they tell me that something is fine, can I make my next decision based on that information?
When I trust someone, life becomes remarkably simple: I don’t need to interpret every sentence, create additional controls or quietly wonder what might actually be happening behind the green status report. I can take the information, make my decision and move on.
In projects and programmes, I regularly come across people who can more or less disappear from the radar: follow-ups go unanswered, engagement is limited and everything seems to be under control. Until suddenly it isn’t. Then comes the escalation, usually rather late, when the house is already on fire. The classic watermelon effect: green on the outside, bright red on the inside. You intervene and the problem gets resolved. There is usually a discussion about what happened and what we should do differently next time, and then, a few months later, you find yourself watching exactly the same happen again.
This person may be intelligent, capable, pleasant and very good at parts of their job. They may deliver perfectly well next time. None of that means you have to promote them back into the trusted category.
Of course, this creates another question: should we work with people we don’t trust? Usually, we don’t have much choice unless you are in a position of personally selecting every person around you, you will only work with people you trust.
My own approach with the non trusted group is slightly counterintuitive. My instinct may tell me to run in the opposite direction, but professionally I do almost the opposite: I keep them closer. I follow things more carefully, make clear expectations and articulate them, ensure ownership and dates very clear. I check what happened rather than assuming that it happened and when something is reported as green, I occasionally look inside the watermelon.
That isn’t punishment, and it doesn’t require confrontation or drama. It is simply a different way of working with someone based on what experience has taught me.
People can change, of course; trust can be earned and rebuilt. But until the pattern actually changes, I think we make our own lives unnecessarily difficult when we pretend not to see it.
After enough years, your instincts become quite good at telling you who you can fall backwards in front of.
The important part is checking that somebody is actually standing behind you.
