We’re pleased to announce the release of our latest eBook: How to Create a Culture of Trust.

It’s the sixth in the new Trusted Advisor Fieldbook series by Charles H. Green and Andrea P. Howe.

Each eBook provides a snapshot of content from The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook, which is jam-packed with practical, hands-on strategies to dramatically improve your results in sales, relationship management, and organizational performance.

How to Create a Culture of Trust reveals:

• Two key levers: virtues and values
• The difference that leading from principles makes
• The biggest trust-destroyer in an organization

P.S. Did you miss out on Volumes 1 through 5 of The Fieldbook eBook series? Get them while they’re still available:

1. 15 Ways to Build Trust…Fast!
2. How to Sell to the C-Suite
3. Six Risks You Should Take to Build Trust
4. How YOU Can Raise Trust in Your Organization
5. The Dos and Don’ts of Trust-Based Networking

Take a look and let us know what you think.

We are very happy to officially announce the publication of The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust. Published by Wiley Books, it is now being sold at fine bookstores worldwide and online at major booksellers.

Whose shoulders does it stand on? The book’s pedigree begins with the classic The Trusted Advisor, by Charlie with esteemed co-authors David Maister and Rob Galford in 2000. In 2005, Charlie wrote Trust-based Selling, which squared the circle of trust and sales.

What’s up with the leadership emphasis? Since 2000, the world has gotten flat, connected and linked—trust drives success. The relevance of trust to leadership has increased 470% (our subjective estimate). We connect the dots.

What’s new? Material on creating a trust-based culture; networking; risk-taking; selling to the C-suite; rapid trust creation; leadership. And more.

Why a “fieldbook”? It’s practical, tactical. Loaded with how-to’s. Deals with the nitty-gritty of situations from business development to dealing with untrustworthy partners. It has so many lists it has a list of lists.

Who likes it? Tom Peters, David Maister, Chris Brogan, Neil Rackham, Jim Quigley, and more…

Find Out More

We want to make it easy for you. You can:

• Read the first chapter for free
• Read six eBook distillations, for free
• And if you just can’t wait, order it now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and 800 CEO Read.

Tell Us What You Think

Anyone who’s been in professional services for more than a week has probably encountered a tricky client situation or two. Some examples:

• A prospective client asks you point blank, “What experience do you have in xyz industry?” and even though you saw that question coming, you didn’t think it would be quite so direct, and the honest answer is zero, zip, nada—only you’re afraid to say so because you think it’s a deal-breaker and you’ve got other relevant experience that surely they’ll want to hear about before summarily dismissing you!
• You thought the draft deliverable you turned in yesterday was pretty good until you got an email from your client saying how disappointed she is in the product and that, quite frankly, she’s seriously re-considering sending you to London for the next and largest revenue-producing phase of the project.
• You’re seconds away from beginning a meeting with a very senior client, originally scheduled to discuss how to expand the successful work you’re doing together, but an hour earlier you accidentally overheard him in the lunchroom speaking with colleagues about dumping your company and hiring your number one competitor instead.

(By the way: 2 of those 3 really happened to us: which is the made-up story?)

I call these Moments of Truth—when something happens, and suddenly it feels like you’re alone on a sinking ship with no life preserver in sight, and you’d rather be anywhere but where you are.

Daniel Goleman, author of “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ,” taught us to understand the science behind our reaction, using the phrase “amygdala hijack” to describe how our well-functioning “thinking brain” (the neocortex) gets completely overruled by the part of the brain that manages our survival. Then our amygdala-threatened-selves do stupid things like spin a great story of how we don’t exactly have direct experience in xyz industry but blah blah blah … or subtly (and maybe overtly) blame our colleague for the sub-par work product … or completely sidestep an awkward interaction altogether in favor of maintaining the pretense that everything really is OK after all. In other words: we’re in fight or flight mode, and often both at once.

Moments of Truth become Moments of Learning

We spend a lot of time dealing with Moments of Truth in our learning programs because they happen a lot in your business relationships. How you handle them speaks volumes about what you’re made of. It speaks to whether or not you have the mindset, motives, and agility of a Trusted Advisor. Being effective in a Moment of Truth requires more than mastering a few behavioral tricks; it demands a new way of thinking and being.

So we do a lot of out-of-the-box experiential learning that deals on the spot with your own live, real situations. Occasionally we use our own caselets for you to experiment with—ones that have been tested for a decade and earned a special place in the hearts of our alumni, like “The Lunchroom.” In other words, we do what most classroom learners universally dread: we role-play.

All right, collective groan–I know, I know, I hate role-playing too. It’s scary and contrived. And there’s never enough background or history or facts to be really comfortable in a role-play. It’s a common refrain during debriefs: “If only I’d known more about the situation I could have handled it better.”

But let’s be real: How many times have you prepped for hours for a meeting, only to learn in the first two minutes that the client just came out of another meeting in which a major decision was made that completely alters not only your agenda for this meeting but your entire set of recommendations for the engagement?

In a Moment of Truth, background and history and facts don’t matter one iota because your reptilian brain doesn’t care—it’s focused exclusively on the emotions of the moment. It has neither the time nor the inclination to process anything else.

Q. Faced with an MOT, what’s a Trusted Advisor to do?

A. Learn how to improvise.

The Practice of Improvisation: a Key Trusted Advisor Capability

To improvise is to “invent, compose, or perform with little or no preparation.” Which is exactly what is called for in a Moment of Truth—the ability to deal on the spot with something unexpected.

Believe it or not, you get better at improvising by practicing improvisation. (And that only sounds like an oxymoron—it’s actually very true). Practice is exactly how professional improv comedians (think, Whose Line is it, Anyway?) become so skilled at their craft.

They practice being quick to respond instead of over-thinking. They practice “yes-and” responses, where they build on what’s already been said, instead of contradicting or denying what someone else has already offered. They practice subordinating their own egos to support what’s being created by the collective instead of hogging the spotlight and stealing a scene. They practice giving up being clever and witty and funny and insteadget real.

How do they do this? They get together and … role-play. They do it again and again, always with new scenarios and relationships that are completely made up on the spot. And when it’s show time and the curtain goes up, they still have no idea what they’re going to create together because everything is based on audience suggestion. But what they do know is that they’re fully rehearsed at being responsive, collaborative, and authentic.

In Trusted Advisor terms, they’re credible, transparent, other-oriented, related.

And that is something worth practicing to get good at. So: role-plays? Yep, role-plays.

The Trusted Advisor/Improviser—a Brief Commercial

If you think your skills could use a tune up or you wish you felt more confident in the Moments of Truth you face with your clients and colleagues, we’d love to have you come practice with us Sept 28 and 29 in Washington, DC. Being a Trusted Advisor: Walking the Talk is a rare opportunity to immerse yourself in the mindsets and skill sets of a Trusted Advisor.

We’ll improvise. We’ll laugh a lot. And we’ll be sure you walk away with far greater value than you expected.

An Old Car and an Intimate Relationship with AAA

I love old cars and I drive a 19-year-old Mazda Miata as my primary vehicle to prove it. This necessitates an intimate relationship with AAA, as well as Gray’s Auto in Arlington, VA, where I’ve taken my cars for years with good results. A few weeks ago my car overheated on the way to an appointment. AAA came to the rescue, depositing me at Gray’s where Kevin and crew graciously inserted their unexpected visitor near the top of the list of waiting customers. it took days (and a lot of money) to diagnose and fix the problem. When I arrived at the scheduled time to pick up the car, it wasn’t ready–still being test-driven. It didn’t pass the test. I sat in the grimy waiting room for nearly three hours until it was (ostensibly) ready to go. Then half a mile into my drive home it overheated again–dead as a doornail in the right-hand lane of a busy DC thoroughfare. It was Saturday; growing dark; raining. I wasn’t the happiest of campers.

I called Kevin. He was embarrassed and frustrated, and tried valiantly to find a wrecker (on their dime) to retrieve me faster than AAA could. No luck. “We’ll stay open for you,” he assured me.

Ninety minutes later my haul and I were back at  Gray’s, where Kevin and crew waited to take care of me. They handled the situation beautifully. They were responsible and apologetic, not defensive and guilt-ridden. They didn’t explain or justify or blame; they simply said, “We’ll take care of it.” Then Kevin’s boss insisted on driving me home, stopping along the way for take-out (on his dime) so I wouldn’t have to worry about dinner. And in the end, there was no additional charge for the final repair, even though they’d spent considerable money on parts and labor replacing another failed temperature sensor. We joked when I picked up the car the second time about a mutual desire not to see each other again for at least a couple of months.

Trust Doesn’t Just Trump Screw-ups:  Screw-ups Can Create Trust

So why do I trust Kevin–and Gray’s Auto–more as a result of this experience? Because I’ve seen their true colors. I know what they stand for. And I am confident that, given another challenging situation, they will rise to the occasion. Could they have fixed the problem the first time? Maybe; I don’t really know and I don’t actually care. What I’m left with is an experience of being looked after by people who chose to do right by me, which far outweighs the costs (tangible and intangible) of a one-time goof.

Mistakes are an opportunity for us to show the world what we’re made of–to make known how we handle ourselves and who we choose to be in a moment of truth. Don’t be afraid to screw-up. When you do (and you will because we all do), don’t cover it up with excuses or defensiveness or blame or avoidance tactics. Show your clients who you are for them. Do the right thing and they’ll learn they can count on you for far more than parts and labor.

My reaction was a mixture of gratitude (“I think I just got spared a LOT of work”), huffiness (“How could they pass ME over?”), and a dash of embarrassment (“Oh no, I think I just looked like an IDIOT in front of a large group of people”).

In reflecting on what worked and didn’t about my little platform speech (I had three minutes to pitch myself to the group), I realized there are some important lessons about trust-based selling to tease out of my defeat.

What Worked

My dominant strategy was to lead with high Intimacy and low Self-Orientation, and to differentiate myself a bit. How? By telling them first why they might NOT want to elect me. I shared openly that I’m a first-time home buyer and had never before been on a condo board – in fact, I had just made my first condo payment ever. My self-deprecation was effective, I think, in that it got a good laugh and set their expectations about what they could and couldn’t count on me for (couldn’t: Board/home ownership expertise; could: honesty and lightheartedness).

What Didn’t Work

There was one thing I didn’t do that left my constituents understandably less than confident in my abilities. I was too humble. I fell into the trap that (sweeping generalization coming) many women do of being tentative about tooting my own horn.

Sure, I told them a little bit about my professional background (close to 20 years in consulting, the latter half with an emphasis on teaming and relationship skills, which lends itself well to community-building endeavors). But I didn’t let them know that when it comes to starting something up (new community, new board), I’m your woman.

I didn’t tell them that eight years ago I launched a business that now boasts a client roster of global companies that generate millions and billions in revenue each year. I didn’t tell them about the community service program I created that, within six months of its inception, was given a prominent mention in SELF magazine and then acquired by a national non-profit.

(Even as I write this, my brain is screaming: Enough with the tooting horns already!)

Bottom line: I didn’t think about what would be of value to them, link that to what I brought to the table, and say it out loud.

What I’d Do Next Time

Of course, this is all speculation; I might have lost because they didn’t like what I was wearing – who knows. I think it’s safe to say, though, that next time I’d be more effective (and certainly less huffy and embarrassed) by doing the following:

- Take five minutes to prepare. Think about what my fellow condo association members might really want in their first set of officers, and know what the link is to my experience and skills.

- Lead with the same opening – why you don’t want to elect me. It’s honest. Plus it’s a little contrarian, and I like that.

- Toot toot toot away. Confidently, succinctly, matter-of-factly, with an emphasis on the aspects of me that directly address their interests and concerns.

I’d leave them with a more complete picture of me–not one that’s either over- or underexposed.

Seems to me these guidelines apply no matter who we are, what we’re selling, and to whom we’re pitching the sale: prepare and be honest about both your strengths and your weaknesses.

That and choose your clothes carefully.

1. High trust means high risk. There is no trust without risk, period.

2. People trust people. Branding and marketing efforts are valuable, absolutely. And trust is personal. It occurs (or not) human-to-human.

3. It’s OK to say what you’re thinking. This is especially true when you’re thinking isn’t fully formed and perfectly articulated. “Thinking out loud” demonstrates your willingness to be honest, humble, and sometimes messy.

4. Don’t rush to problem-solving. This is the second biggest destroyer of trust. We, the overachievers, naturally want to prove our credibility by showing how quickly we can come up with the right answer. But we have to earn the right to give advice before we can give it – if we want that advice to be heard.

5. It’s OK to be honest, even if it makes you look bad. Honesty is an essential aspect of credibility.

6. Get the chatter out of our brains. Our own thoughts, worries, fears, and pre-occupations create noise that interferes with our ability to truly tune in to others.

7. “Rip off the band-aid.” When there’s bad news to deliver, deliver it right away.

8. Get the elephant out immediately. A close cousin to #7. What seems un-discussable (the proverbial elephant in the room) is usually precisely what needs to be discussed to build trust.

9. Get the words and the “music.” Listening – really listening – requires attention to facts as well as emotions, surface as well as nuance.

10. A problem shared is a problem halved. This one speaks to the principal of collaboration, which is usually easier said than done.

11. “This isn’t about me.” Another great mantra. Self-orientation is a huge trust-destroyer.

12. Stop being clever; be human and honest instead. Enough said.

Which one will you choose to put into practice by COB today?

Monday Thinking about sales from a trust perspective
Tuesday Principle 1: Client / customer focus
Wednesday Principle 2: Collaboration
Thursday Principle 3: Medium-to-long-term perspective
Friday Principle 4: Transparency

In class, we had been talking about human nature and the gravitational pull to avoid admitting culpability and generally looking bad when—voila—there appeared the perfect teaching point on the front page of the New York Times.

Whatever your politics, there are two key lessons to be derived from the “I screwed up” message that President Obama delivered on the heels of Tom Daschle’s withdrawal from consideration as the next secretary of Health and Human Services:

1. Take full responsibility. He pointed his own finger at himself. He didn’t say “I regret the unfortunate circumstances and misinformation that led to the selection of Mr. Daschle.” He didn’t hitch his wagon to Daschle’s admission of his own mistake. No, Obama said, “I screwed up.”

2. Keep it simple. He used plain talk. Three simple words. I told workshop participants to use no more than ten words when there’s a hard truth to be told. Obama came in seven under.

Telling the truth when the truth makes you look good (as in, “Mr. Client, I have 20 years of experience solving the kinds of problems you are facing right now”) increases your credibility by demonstrating your expertise.

Telling the truth when the truth makes you look bad (as in, “I screwed up”) is a trust trifecta: your honesty boosts your credibility, your humanity creates intimacy, and your willingness to subordinate your own ego lowers your self-orientation.

It’s another part of the trust paradox: doing what makes you look bad (telling the truth) makes you look good. As long as you really mean it.

Tiziana Casciaro and Miguel Sousa Lobo wrote in “Competent Jerks, Lovable Fools, and the Formation of Social Networks” in the Harvard Business Review (June 2005) about how people choose who they work with.

“In most cases, people choose their work partners according to two criteria. One is competence at the job…the other is likability.”

Arrayed on a two-by-two competency vs. likeability matrix, everyone prefers to affiliate with the lovable star–no one with the incompetent jerk. No surprise there.

But what happens when we are forced to choose from the last two quadrants–lovable fool and competent jerk? Place your bets, now.

Based on data from four diverse organizations and over 10,000 work relationships, Casciaro and Lobo discovered (drum roll…) –

Yep, you guessed it. We prefer the lovable fool – even though we may not readily admit it.

We say out loud that we prefer skills and expertise (it sounds unprofessional and illogical not to) and that being “nice” is a nice “bonus.” But in practice, their study showed that your personal feelings about your colleague play a more important role in forming work relationships than do your evaluations of their competence.

“In fact, feelings worked as a gating factor: If someone is strongly disliked, it’s almost irrelevant whether or not she is competent; people don’t want to work with her anyway. By contrast, if someone is liked, his colleagues will seek out every little bit of competence he has to offer.”

Feelings trump rational thought. Again.

Implication: our clients would rather we be lovable fools than competent jerks. Which means we’d be better off if we spent more time boosting our likability than our competence, despite what our clients say out loud.

There may be a better business case for charm school than for business school.

Learning that STICks is learning that is Sustainable, Transformational, Intelligent and Collaborative. STICky learning is flexible; it can expand or contract to fit time, budget, and resource constraints. But in every case, being STICky pays off.

To give you a taste of what Learning that STICks is all about, here are some examples of quick ways to implement STICky learning:

- Convene an action learning team with the specific goal of improving one or more real-life client relationships over a three-month period (Sustainable). Include time to define and debrief specific action steps as well as time for members to give each other feedback and reflect on what mindsets are in play (Transformational). Have participants complete a before and after self-assessment to identify their strengths and development areas in terms of thinking smarts, relating smarts, and being smarts (Intelligent). Invite managers to join the action learning team once a month to provide guidance and feedback (Collaborative).

- Have participants in a learning program work together to prepare a “brown bag” series (Sustainable) on “Emotionally Intelligent Consulting” (Intelligent). Make storytelling an integral part of the presentations (Transformational). Invite a client panel to participate to share their experiences and perspectives (Collaborative).

Here’s the key: learning that STICks addresses all of the essentials in some form or other. You might say the elements must be –um, “stuck”— together to be effective. For example, learning programs that are Sustainable but not Transformational may do a great job of reinforcing new skills but never crack open the limiting mindsets that impair a consultants’ ability to carry out those skills. Learning programs that are Intelligent but not Collaborative may create a cadre of well-rounded consultants but miss the “wow” that’s created when key stakeholders are focused on exceptional client service.

We’ll let you know when Learning that STICks is available on our website. No registration is required to download the paper, but if you’d like to receive automatic notification, please click here to register for our monthly BossaNews.