Crippled CEO Blog #121:
We all know that it’s important to trust people, especially people close to us and the people we work with.
In a work setting, when we say we trust somebody, specifically when we say we trust somebody to do a task, the implication is that we trust that person to be successful. We trust them to do it correctly, to not screw it up.
But I think real trust is when you trust somebody WHEN they screw up.
Because, honestly, it is easy to trust somebody getting it right all the time.
It is harder to trust somebody who made a mistake.
“But Eric, that doesn’t make sense. When you trust somebody to do a thing, didn’t they break your trust by screwing it up?”
People make mistakes.
It’s going to happen.
When you trust somebody to do a job, you know this. But trusting them, even when they get it wrong, is about trusting their intent.
There’s a difference between the person who is committed, trying her best, working hard, and makes a mistake despite all her best efforts, and a lazy, apathetic, good for nothing who secretly kind of hopes you’ll fire him who makes a mistake.
When you trust somebody even when they screw it all up, you are trusting that they are the former. You are choosing to believe that an unfortunate accident occurred or an ambitious experiment didn’t go as planned, but it had nothing to do with the character or motivation of the person doing it.
This is the best way to trust people — not just their competence, but who they are.
That way, it takes a lot more than a single failure to rattle your trust.
(Do you know who always trusts me to get the job done? Your mom, last night. She also gets a text from me every Sunday with a link to the latest blog post. Send a text to 561-726-1567 with the word CRIP as the message to get a link to the blog as soon as it’s up.)
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