Sunday, December 14, 2008

The third step in building relationships - TRUST



The start of any relationship is meeting someone and getting to know them.
The second step is to create some mutual liking. When we don't like someone we don't want to spend time with them. Whatever they do or say we will find fault and the relationship will end.You will see something negative in every aspect of their life. On the other hand when we do like people we forgive them everything.Think of the friends you have and their faults. When you like them you forgive them everything.You are tolerant of their weaknesses and even though they may let you down on occasions you forgive them. Why? Because you like them and sometimes you question why you like them. It's rapport, chemistry...who knows?

Trust

But for there to any meaningful long-term relationship there has to be trust. Check out the definitions on the web; there are lots of them. Emotions, relationships, confidence are included with lots of psychology thrown in for good measure.

But I see it all starts with reliability.

When you always do what you say you're going to do and do it when you say you're going to do it, for me, that goes well down the line of a great meaningful and long-lasting relationship.

How reliable or you? How true to your word are you? Can people trust those words which come out of your mouth? can you trust those words which come out of your mouth?!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Will,

I only can agree with you :-)

For me there are two different aspects about trust in a professional environment:

1) Trust that someone is an expert (which relates to what you write: can people trust the words that come out of your mouth or in other words: do you walk your talk?)

2) Trust that someone behaves decently towards other people after you have introduced them to each other (which is partially linked to the liking factor from step 2)

Have a great networking day !

Jan

Jan Vermeiren, Founder of Networking Coach (www.networking-coach.com)