Trust: The currency of collaboration in global teams

I explored this question with a trusted colleague, Sudeep Chhabra, a leadership development expert with over 26 years of experience, based in India. We framed the conversation around the Trust Equation developed by Maister, D. H., Green, C. H., & Galford, R. M.* 

In the version of the model that I use in my work, there are four key components of trust: 

• Credibility (truthfulness and credentials: I trust what they say about…) 
• Reliability (dependability and predictability: I trust them to…)
• Connection (discretion, empathy, and risk-taking:  I trust them with…) 
• Self-orientation (motives, attention: I trust that they care about…; self-orientation is negatively related to trust – less of it means more trust)

The model is universal, but cultural differences play out in two ways: 

• The importance of each component
• The behaviours that signal trustworthiness in each of them

If you want to see specific examples and learn how to adapt your behaviour to build trust with colleagues from relationship-based cultures like India, listen to our conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcast or YouTube.

What about you? What makes you trust others? I invite you to reflect on the following questions:

• How important is each component of the Trust Equation in your professional collaborations? Are they all equally essential, or are some more significant than others? Why?  
• Credibility: What makes you trust what someone says? 
• Reliability: What behaviours make someone seem reliable to you?
• Connection: What makes you trust someone with something? What makes you feel connected to someone? 
• Self-orientation: What makes you trust that someone cares? What makes someone seem as though they care about your interests?

* Trust Equation adapted from Maister, D. H., Green, C. H., & Galford, R. M. (2000). The Trusted Advisor. Free Press. In the original version of the model, “Connection” is called “Intimacy.”