Friday, February 24, 2006
Betrayal and Trust-Building
Remember the last time you felt betrayed?
Recall that hot flush of recognition when someone you trusted to act one way, then didn't?
Over the holidays, which were filled with several gatherings with people I love and know well, two people broke trust. In the midst of convivial times came two sharp jabs. One person agreed to do something I really needed, didn't do it, and did not tell me. The other shared very private information about me with a stranger.
It's a one-two punch.
"Trust is the glue that holds relationships together."
- Price Pritchett
What to do? How not to become bitter or wary? Funny how one betrayal is closely followed by another wrenching experience -- or so it seems. Even if one's life is on a fairly even keel, one trust-breaker situation makes the second one seem to hit harder ... if we let it.
"Sometimes you cannot believe what you see; you have
to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to
have other people trust you, you must feel that you can
trust them, too -- even when you're in the dark. Even
when you are falling."
- Morrie Schwartz, quoted in *Tuesdays With Morrie*
by Mitch Albom
My head became filled with re-runs of the situation, digging a deeper rut in my memory so the jabs often dominated my thoughts more than the joys of the celebratory gatherings with loved ones.
"As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Despite our intentions, we start looking at our moment-by-moment interactions through a more cautious, constricted-heart lens. Of course, that begets a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"No idea will work if people don't trust your intentions
toward them."
- Marcus Buckingham, *Now, Discover Your Strengths*
(http://sayitbetter.com/store/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=ND&Category_Code=T2F)
We have all faced these mind-grabbing breaks of trust, and will again. Conversely, we have all betrayed another's trust and dodged rather than rectified the situation.
"You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live
in torment if you don't trust enough."
- Frank H. Crane
Well, it must have been time to re-learn a lesson. For more than a decade, I've studied, taught, and written about focusing attention on the positive parts of every interaction.
Yet, like breathing, it isn't a one-time practice.
When I felt betrayed, my first instinct was to make that person wrong and steep myself in my righteous upset. It takes a discipline I'd let lapse: the practice of understanding that every negative action comes from the root feeling of fear.
That does not mean we have to stand in the street and let the same car hit us again. We must not spiral down with them by reacting against them, even with an apparently "good" corrective comment.
"When people are overwhelmed with information and
develop immunity to traditional forms of communication,
they turn instead for advice and information to the people
in their lives whom they respect, admire, and trust."
- Malcolm Gladwell, *The Tipping Point: How Little Things
Can Make a Big Difference*
(http://sayitbetter.com/store/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=TTB&Category_Code=T2F)
Instead, in the moment of betrayal, try four steps back to balance:
1. Recognize the full emotional effect of the betrayal.
2. Look to that person's positive intent, especially when he appears to have none.
3. Praise the behavior you want to flourish. Ironically, it is one of your most self-protective tools in such moments.
4. Focus away from your reaction and toward what you can do to avoid that trust-breaking pattern again, with that person and in your life with others.
The sooner you serve yourself by using your hot reactive energyproductively to ...
* choose what you can do positively for yourself
* rather than against another
... the more quickly you'll climb out of that negative "re-runs" rut of thoughts and back to an even keel.
That's what I reminded myself, belatedly. But it is never too late to re-learn lessons.
"Character is what you really are. Reputation is what
people say you are. A person of character is trustworthy.
The other kind of person looks for an easy way out."
- John Wooden, author of *Wooden*
*It's All About Trust*
That's the name of the book for which former Johnson & Johnson CEO Jim Burke signed a deal to write just last week, with *Harper Business*. In his proposal, the usually understated executive was blunt: "Look at today's crisis in confidence with the current crop of business leaders. Trust is the missing element today and the most singular element that defined our generation of corporate leadership." Look for the book in 2005.
Recall that hot flush of recognition when someone you trusted to act one way, then didn't?
Over the holidays, which were filled with several gatherings with people I love and know well, two people broke trust. In the midst of convivial times came two sharp jabs. One person agreed to do something I really needed, didn't do it, and did not tell me. The other shared very private information about me with a stranger.
It's a one-two punch.
"Trust is the glue that holds relationships together."
- Price Pritchett
What to do? How not to become bitter or wary? Funny how one betrayal is closely followed by another wrenching experience -- or so it seems. Even if one's life is on a fairly even keel, one trust-breaker situation makes the second one seem to hit harder ... if we let it.
"Sometimes you cannot believe what you see; you have
to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to
have other people trust you, you must feel that you can
trust them, too -- even when you're in the dark. Even
when you are falling."
- Morrie Schwartz, quoted in *Tuesdays With Morrie*
by Mitch Albom
My head became filled with re-runs of the situation, digging a deeper rut in my memory so the jabs often dominated my thoughts more than the joys of the celebratory gatherings with loved ones.
"As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Despite our intentions, we start looking at our moment-by-moment interactions through a more cautious, constricted-heart lens. Of course, that begets a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"No idea will work if people don't trust your intentions
toward them."
- Marcus Buckingham, *Now, Discover Your Strengths*
(http://sayitbetter.com/store/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=ND&Category_Code=T2F)
We have all faced these mind-grabbing breaks of trust, and will again. Conversely, we have all betrayed another's trust and dodged rather than rectified the situation.
"You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live
in torment if you don't trust enough."
- Frank H. Crane
Well, it must have been time to re-learn a lesson. For more than a decade, I've studied, taught, and written about focusing attention on the positive parts of every interaction.
Yet, like breathing, it isn't a one-time practice.
When I felt betrayed, my first instinct was to make that person wrong and steep myself in my righteous upset. It takes a discipline I'd let lapse: the practice of understanding that every negative action comes from the root feeling of fear.
That does not mean we have to stand in the street and let the same car hit us again. We must not spiral down with them by reacting against them, even with an apparently "good" corrective comment.
"When people are overwhelmed with information and
develop immunity to traditional forms of communication,
they turn instead for advice and information to the people
in their lives whom they respect, admire, and trust."
- Malcolm Gladwell, *The Tipping Point: How Little Things
Can Make a Big Difference*
(http://sayitbetter.com/store/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=TTB&Category_Code=T2F)
Instead, in the moment of betrayal, try four steps back to balance:
1. Recognize the full emotional effect of the betrayal.
2. Look to that person's positive intent, especially when he appears to have none.
3. Praise the behavior you want to flourish. Ironically, it is one of your most self-protective tools in such moments.
4. Focus away from your reaction and toward what you can do to avoid that trust-breaking pattern again, with that person and in your life with others.
The sooner you serve yourself by using your hot reactive energyproductively to ...
* choose what you can do positively for yourself
* rather than against another
... the more quickly you'll climb out of that negative "re-runs" rut of thoughts and back to an even keel.
That's what I reminded myself, belatedly. But it is never too late to re-learn lessons.
"Character is what you really are. Reputation is what
people say you are. A person of character is trustworthy.
The other kind of person looks for an easy way out."
- John Wooden, author of *Wooden*
*It's All About Trust*
That's the name of the book for which former Johnson & Johnson CEO Jim Burke signed a deal to write just last week, with *Harper Business*. In his proposal, the usually understated executive was blunt: "Look at today's crisis in confidence with the current crop of business leaders. Trust is the missing element today and the most singular element that defined our generation of corporate leadership." Look for the book in 2005.
