This morning, I was going about my usual business – reviewing my org’s social platforms, checking out analytics, confirming that I did not have any creative I had to approve – and I saw I had a notification on LinkedIn. Curious, I navigated to my personal page and saw I had been tagged with a group of other people and asked a really bold question:
What does creating a lasting foundation mean to you?
After having read the post that preceded the question, I answered without hesitation:
To always begin from a place of honesty, authenticity and transparency which builds trust. Trust is the foundation from which all great things are built.
The question was asked in the context of leadership – so my response was coming from the point of view of professional leadership and creating lasting foundations with colleagues and business partners. I quickly got back to my work.
About a minute later, it hit me. Trust. Trust is the key ingredient to all great foundations. Without trust, there is no solid footing. This applies to everything. From your most intimate relationships to how you approach your work and the people in it.
Without trust, there is no foundation to build upon; when we lose trust, we lose the foundation and whatever it is – your job, your relationship – crumbles. Or simply fades away.
It is so simple, but also so difficult.
Trust is in the small things we do every day: my boss trusts that I will bring my best self to work and attend appropriately to fulfilling my obligations; my colleagues trust me to support them in my capacity. My children trust that I will make them bacon for breakfast and I’ll ensure they have their needs met. That I am there when they need me, day or night. My friends trust that what we share with one another remains between us. The list goes on and on.
Erode that basic trust, and no matter how you may will the foundation to remain intact, it won’t. And the erosion can happen without a big to-do and can take years to culminate. There doesn’t need to be a single, monumental betrayal of trust (though these things happen.) In work, it can be the missing of a deadline or inadvertently being left off a distribution list or meeting invitation, more than once. In relationships, it may be simply not listening to or, worse, agreeing to but not heeding the other person’s requests or preferences. Over time, these small, insignificant transgressions color our posture and response toward the other person. More often than not, we go on the offensive and pre-empt whatever perceived slight may be coming next with one of our own. Which obviously makes the foundation crumble that much faster.
When we reflect on the relationships in our lives, be they professional or personal, trust is the mitigating factor in their strength and resilience and, conversely, their frailty and deterioration. Every bit of causation on either side of the coin boils down to trust, or its absence.
Simple, yet difficult.
The Eureka Moment of the day. We are always learning.