Strategic Partner - Building Trust without Authority
The inaugural episode of our four-part series delves into the essential theme of building trust without authority, a crucial skill for internal advisors and consultants alike. Building trust is paramount for effective communication and ensuring that insights and recommendations have the desired impact. Throughout our discussion, we explore strategies that empower individuals to cultivate trust by prioritizing the collective success of their teams over personal accolades. The conversation highlights the importance of demonstrating competence in service to others, maintaining consistency in interactions, and fostering genuine curiosity about the perspectives of colleagues. We invite you to engage with us as we embark on this journey to enhance the human element in consultancy practices and the workplace at large.
Transcript
Foreign welcome to the Consulting for Humans podcast.
Speaker A:You're with Ian and with Mike, and in each episode of the show, we are exploring a new topic that gets to the heart of what makes consultants happy and successful.
Speaker B:On the Consulting for Humans podcast, it's our mission to add just a little more humanity to the lives of consultants.
Speaker B:And we'd love to bring some of the skills and perspectives of consulting to human lives, too.
Speaker A:So, and this is especially important today, if you're a consultant who's trying to be more of a human or pay attention, a human who's trying to be more of a consultant, then we think you are just our kind of person.
Speaker A:And have we got a show for.
Speaker A:For you?
Speaker B:Absolutely right, Ian.
Speaker B:At all of our episodes to date, we've really focused on what makes consultants happy and successful as promised, but we haven't cashed the check on the other half of that promise.
Speaker B:We haven't touched on bringing some of the skills and perspectives of consulting to human lives, too.
Speaker B:I think anybody that's been listening has picked up on some of that.
Speaker B:But today we're going to start a specific series of episodes targeted towards humans of all kinds of who could benefit from some of the skills and perspectives of consulting.
Speaker A:That's right.
Speaker A:And we're particularly interested in humans of the kind who are holding down a regular job like a proper job.
Speaker A:Consulting is not a proper job.
Speaker A:Maybe you work in a big organization, maybe you work for the government or a charity.
Speaker A:Maybe you have your own kind of problems to solve, your own kind of relationships to foster.
Speaker A:If you want to become more of a strategic partner to the people that are around you, that then we think we can help.
Speaker A:We think this show is going to be right up your street.
Speaker A:So, Mike, let's dig into this a little bit here.
Speaker A:What kind of people might we be talking about?
Speaker B:Well, I think internal business professionals who find themselves in advisory capacities or influence roles who don't have a formal consulting background or training.
Speaker B:So these people have the same kind of challenges as external consultants, but perhaps lack some of the things that we're going to go through in the upcoming episodes.
Speaker B:But they do bring a knowledge of the organization and the people and the business and area and industry expertise that some consultants don't have or building.
Speaker B:So they kind of play mirror roles to each other.
Speaker B:And these skills are really helpful for both sets, these humans and these consultant humans.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So we have people trying to be consultant, like, within their organizations.
Speaker A:I think we also have, Mike, people who are just trying to lead teams, managers, people who have Direct reports, people who are individual contributors but are senior or have some expertise to bring.
Speaker A:These are people like product managers, people leading cross functional teams, people in functions like HR who have to give advice to leadership on organizational changes.
Speaker A:These might be, for example, finance professionals influencing budget decisions, anybody who needs to diagnose a problem, spot a potential opportunity, get a coalition of stakeholders bought into the idea and drive some change.
Speaker A:Not only those people, but maybe also the people who aspire to be those people.
Speaker A:If you're looking to influence change and move around and have an impact in your organization, we think some of the things that we have to talk about today could be a catalyst for your success.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:And Ian, when I hear you say that, it brings immediately to mind project managers and program managers.
Speaker B:Oh yeah, these people have to do this every day, Understand complex organizational dynamics, manage multiple stakeholders with competing interests and deliver results through influence rather than direct authority.
Speaker B:So I think we're going to touch on that today.
Speaker B:We're really going to get even more deeply into that moving forward.
Speaker B:So a key skill that goes across and some additional skills that will build on this foundational one.
Speaker A:Great, Mike.
Speaker A:And this is a potentially very broad topic, so we've broken it down a little bit.
Speaker A:I mean, let's see how the topic takes us.
Speaker A:Who knows where we'll end up.
Speaker A:It might end up being a 17 episode kind of, but we'll see.
Speaker A:We've got four big ideas that we want to cover in four episodes at least.
Speaker A:To start with episode one, that's today, we want to talk about trust and building trust without authority because internal advisors, people who are trying to give technical advice, for example, can gain credibility, can navigate organizational politics and influence decisions even when they don't have formal power.
Speaker A:And we want to talk a little bit about how important that is and how we can cultivate some more of it.
Speaker A:Second Mike, we want to talk in the episode coming next week about the mindset of the internal advisor.
Speaker A:We've been looking at how lots of professionals are actually doing consultative work without realizing it.
Speaker A:But how do you know it when you see it?
Speaker A:How do you cultivate more of it?
Speaker A:How do you make it better somehow?
Speaker A:We're going to be talking about a model, a framework for thinking this through.
Speaker A:That mindset is all about what we call the strategic partner pyramid model.
Speaker A:That's going to be next week.
Speaker B:Nice.
Speaker B:And then, Ian, a key skill throughout that pyramid is asking better questions.
Speaker B:This foundational skill of moving from answer giving to question asking and better problem diagnosis and then even promoting more thinking.
Speaker A:Oh yes, Then what else?
Speaker A:How are we going to round this off?
Speaker A:Mike?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think at least in this first series of episodes, around the topic.
Speaker B:You know, we're gonna go back to an old Stephen Coveyism, you know, the idea of understanding before seeking to be understood.
Speaker B:Covey would say, but we're talking about that same thing.
Speaker B:And here we're gonna break that down, not just to kind of Covey's sense of active listening, but problem, diagnosis, opportunity, identification, systematically identifying root causes and consequences.
Speaker A:Right, Mike?
Speaker A:It's funny.
Speaker A:I think that episode four stuff is what people classically think of as nerdy consulting skills.
Speaker A:And I'm really excited that's actually coming last in our series.
Speaker A:That doesn't mean that it's not important, but we've been thinking about this a lot and we've been talking about it and reading about it, and there are other things besides logical purity and intellectual independence that make value for us when we're trying to be more consultative.
Speaker A:So I'm super happy that we're going in this order and not the other way.
Speaker A:So I think we're nearly ready to get into it.
Speaker A:Mike?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Now, Ian, if I'm a consultant, should I skip this episode?
Speaker A:It is a really good question.
Speaker A:We hope not.
Speaker A:We hope not, partly because you've had 24, 25 episodes already of our love and attention, and you can give a little bit of love and attention back.
Speaker A:But more seriously, we're going to take a fresh look at influence.
Speaker A:We're going to take a fresh look at trust and relationship building.
Speaker A:That's probably going to be a bigger and a more long term perspective.
Speaker A:We're going to dig into problem solving in a very pragmatic way.
Speaker A:Who doesn't need some more of those things?
Speaker A:And by the way, we're talking about your clients here.
Speaker A:If you're a consultant who's charging by the hour, who doesn't need a little bit more empathy for their clients, all right, Just stick around, stay in the conversation.
Speaker A:I think you might enjoy it.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:You know, as consultants are thinking about their clients, all you other humans out there tuning in here, you're thinking about your key stakeholders and the same applies and how we do this.
Speaker B:So let's get into it.
Speaker A:Right, Mike?
Speaker A:Now, first of all, I want to talk about why this all might become important.
Speaker A:Why is it that this balance of influence and trust and authority becomes so important for us?
Speaker A:Surely we can all influence to the extent that we have facts on our side.
Speaker A:Surely if we have a little bit of charisma, that's okay, but you know, being kind of effusive and influential is something for very senior people or for very charismatic people, I don't think so.
Speaker A:Influencing skills are important.
Speaker A:Not just as consultants might say, influencing by producing great PowerPoint slides, but influencing by having the confidence to jump into a situation, having the confidence to jump in with an outside perspective, even a non expert perspective.
Speaker A:And that by the way, is one of the features of a classical consultant that we think we'd like to explore and expand here.
Speaker A:Confidence is key, but building that confidence is hard for some of us.
Speaker A:We've got valuable expertise.
Speaker A:For example, I might be functionally very, very expert in my particular sub discipline of marketing or of it, but having valuable expertise on its own doesn't always get translated into organizational influence and career advancement.
Speaker A:So if you're listening to the show and you have ever provided answers to your colleagues technical questions, only to see the answers somehow get lost or the questions come up over and over again.
Speaker A:If you've provided recommendations that seemed to just get dropped in the well and be ignored, if you've ever watched apparently less qualified colleagues advancing faster or gaining influence faster, then you might have some idea of what we're talking about here and it might be worth sticking around.
Speaker A:Mike it's very common for us, I think, especially in technical or science based organizations which many of us work in.
Speaker A:It's very common for us to believe that trust comes with authority, that we are trusted because of the expertise or the qualifications that we have.
Speaker A:I think trust without authority isn't just possible, it's actually more sustainable, it's more powerful in the long run.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:The credibility that comes with your resume is important, you know, the letters after your name.
Speaker A:But it's not enough.
Speaker A:It's an important part of who you are and why people trust you.
Speaker A:But on its own it's not enough.
Speaker A:And I think when people trust you because of who you are and how you operate, then that trust becomes portable and you can carry it with it.
Speaker A:Mike I can think of lots of people I've known who have managed to build this trust and it's been the backbone of their career, way beyond their technical knowledge or their technical kind of qualifications.
Speaker B:I agree that certainly holds true in technical and scientific and I think it holds true in any kind of expert based functional area support.
Speaker B:I mean, whether you're in finance or HR or medical affairs or, I mean, you know, for every industry you've got these things that I think traditionally we've seen as if you will cost centers actually with the right Kind of perspectives and the tools we're talking about as strategic partners, they become value centers, value generating centers.
Speaker B:And you as an individual are seen as a value creating person at multiple levels in your organization and for multiple level of stakeholders throughout.
Speaker B:And that's what we're getting at here.
Speaker B:And that not just your earned authority, I mean it's the irs.
Speaker B:You know, I'm from the IRS and I'm here to help you.
Speaker B:Sometimes you can insert your role in IRS there and everybody has that same kind of laugh and we're saying no, not necessarily.
Speaker A:So I'm from Strategic Information Technology and I'm here to help you.
Speaker A:By the way, have you tried control alt delay?
Speaker B:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm marketing and.
Speaker A:Right, and the checks in the post.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:So Mike, let's just round this thing off about trust.
Speaker A:I think it's going to be important for us because without trust the questions that we raise and the answers that we give won't be welcomed.
Speaker A:Our insights won't get heard, our recommendations won't get implemented and that all seems like a waste.
Speaker A:And we'll.
Speaker A:Part of this is we're looking back on the success of people who we've seen who have consistently had their advice listened to and seen their questions answered.
Speaker A:That's why we think this is a great topic for starting the miniseries like we said.
Speaker B:Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more, Ian.
Speaker B:And it's interesting.
Speaker B:There's this fundamental trust authority paradox and I've loved watching people wrestle with this even inside consulting.
Speaker B:I mean how many people don't think of consultants as arrogant oftentimes?
Speaker B:Or how many consultants feel like arrogance is a key secret to success.
Speaker B:And that's a dilemma that's also faced by our non consultant experts, others who are attempting to work outside the areas of their domain, but with others in an attempted resolve to.
Speaker B:An attempt to resolve this trust authority paradox here.
Speaker B:And sometimes this idea that like I've got to pound on my expertise, whether it's as a consultant, whether it's as a functional area expert, whether it's as a project manager or program manager versus what we're going to talk about now, sometimes those traditional approaches backfire, you know, true.
Speaker B:You know, they kind of lead us into thinking, well I'm going to demonstrate my expertise by having all the answers.
Speaker B:But people who always have all the answers actually undermine trust building sometimes.
Speaker B:And when we position ourselves as the answer person, sometimes we're making other people feel inadequate or we create unrealistic expectations about solving every problem and, and maybe even More critically, we miss opportunities to understand deeper context as well as political dynamics and actually just competing interest of various stakeholders which when recognized could actually lead to better solutions for everybody.
Speaker A:So there's a thing here that I want to just pick up on.
Speaker A:Let's get one sentence out there.
Speaker A:I don't think that it's true that nobody likes a smart ass, but I think it's true that it's easy to dislike a smart ass.
Speaker A:And we smartasses should just kind of take a step back and think about this.
Speaker A:It's not always an appealing look being the smartest kid in the room, that's what you're saying, right?
Speaker B:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:Well, and I would say that it's almost universally true, not, sorry, Jane Austen, that you know, nobody thinks as much of a smart ass as a smart ass thinks of themselves.
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:Although I don't know, maybe some of those are being a smartass because they don't think as much of themselves themselves.
Speaker B:But that's a different paradox.
Speaker B:So we don't want to be seen as people who talk at people rather than that understand them.
Speaker B:When I'm being brought somebody else's problem and they think that I can solve that idea, that I'm going to be there to help them rather than just the problem.
Speaker B:There's a really important intersection about showing how we are here and building that trust here.
Speaker B:So strategic partners build trust by caring more about finding the right solution rather than proving that they're right themselves.
Speaker B:So they're open to say I don't know everything.
Speaker B:I can be curious about unfamiliar perspectives.
Speaker B:I can ask questions that help others think more clearly, ah, even make them look smarter.
Speaker B:I can build trust because it shows respect for all others intelligence and positions while also genuinely valuing their contribution to the thinking process, as a matter of fact becoming kind of the catalyst that does bring everybody's best thinking, including my own, into seizing opportunities and solving problems.
Speaker A:It's a really good one and I like this idea of again, we're seeing the more long term perspective here.
Speaker A:Being right in the short term is gratifying, but getting everybody to a more right answer is better than getting just myself uniquely to defend the one what I think is best right answer.
Speaker A:And this is tough for us in scientifically based businesses.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You and I worked in a few different industries, most recently in the life science industry.
Speaker A:In science based companies.
Speaker A:It's really hard for scientists to stop demonstrating the scientific kudos.
Speaker A:And I've seen people be really, really successful in highly technical disciplines, in highly advanced technology based organizations solely because they were able to stop taking their own expertise so seriously.
Speaker A:Yeah, and it was, I can see career trajectories of people and people that you and I have worked with that have been based on the fact that they've been much more able to pick up and use knowledge from the whole team, from the collective, rather than insisting on being the one that has the best knowledge.
Speaker A:It's a really fundamental point, I think.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Well, Ian, you know, I think we keep coming around in this trust process and there's, there's some pillars.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:I think trust is built upon.
Speaker B:Can you, can you start us in?
Speaker A:I feel a diagram coming on, but this is audio, so we don't have a diagram.
Speaker A:We may, we may get one out there.
Speaker A:Who knows?
Speaker A:Four pillars for trust without authority.
Speaker A:Four things that we can think about and work on.
Speaker A:I've got number one here, Mike, and this is going back to the point you and I were just making about where our competence and where our expertise fits in.
Speaker A:Pillar one is competence that serves others.
Speaker A:Putting our knowledge to the work of other people.
Speaker A:And that sounds natural, but like we said, in some circumstances, like for example, very highly science based businesses, it's very easy to have intellectual pride.
Speaker A:That turns into self orientation.
Speaker A:And you, you were talking about arrogance before.
Speaker A:Who are good at building trust are the ones who are good at showing low self orientation.
Speaker A:They shift from saying look what I know to, to saying, here's what it is that I know that could help you succeed.
Speaker A:And one of the things that I notice about those people is that when someone asks them a question, they resist jumping in with a complete answer.
Speaker A:And all the time I'm thinking of my younger self and sometimes when I'm not exhibiting much self control, maybe also my present day self.
Speaker A:You know, I'd love to jump in with a hey, I have a fact for you here.
Speaker A:But in fact, people who are good at building trust are the ones that understand the why we've talked a few times about.
Speaker A:Start with why we've talked a few times about.
Speaker A:Simon Sinek.
Speaker A:Here it comes again.
Speaker A:People who are good at this start by asking why their colleagues and their stakeholders have questions.
Speaker A:What decision are they making?
Speaker A:What are the constraints that they're facing?
Speaker A:What does success look like?
Speaker A:Looking for context rather than seeking to find the place into the, into which their own highly specialized knowledge fits.
Speaker A:And I think, Mike, that needs us to be honest about the boundaries of our expertise as well, especially expertise about applications.
Speaker A:Acknowledging that you don't know or acknowledging that your expertise could work but you've never seen it applied in this particular area.
Speaker A:Even better, referring somebody to somebody else who's got knowledge that they need that's not yours.
Speaker A:All of that builds trust.
Speaker A:Let's be empathetic for a minute.
Speaker A:Let's imagine that you're the person seeking help.
Speaker A:Imagine how much more you'll trust someone who passes you on with a positive recommendation to a better resource compared to another who might try to claim expertise and grab onto the problem for themselves and then try but fail to deliver.
Speaker A:How differently would you view those people?
Speaker A:People who try to look smart face the same problem as people who try to look cool.
Speaker A:And I'm thinking of myself here.
Speaker A:When a middle aged man tries to look cool, he doesn't end up looking cool, he ends up looking ridiculous.
Speaker A:When a person amongst colleagues tries to be the smartest one, they don't end up looking smart.
Speaker A:And it's better if people see you as someone who cares about the collective success.
Speaker A:So, Mike, this is an easy mistake to stumble upon for somebody who's fresh out of consulting, coming into a big organization.
Speaker A:I think there's a certain tendency to believe that expertise and knowledge is kind of the premium currency in certain kinds of consulting firm.
Speaker A:Working in a big organization where your relationships are more durable and your problems are more complex.
Speaker A:Actually building trust, I think is a key thing.
Speaker B:I couldn't agree with you more, Ian.
Speaker B:And I think part of that trust too, Pillar two is it comes from consistency.
Speaker B:You know, if we can build predictable behavior patterns that others can rely upon.
Speaker B:And I loved your idea, Ian, about, you know, resisting immediately, providing the most complete answer, but understanding more.
Speaker B:That's one of those behavior patterns that says when you interact with me, you're going to get this kind of interaction all the time.
Speaker B:And it goes beyond just doing what you say, although that's a really important piece of it.
Speaker B:It also means developing a recognizable approach to problems and communication and the way you handle both success and setback.
Speaker B:So like you were saying, Ian, knowing that it's predictable that if there is another good resource, you will either refer them on or pull them in and envision some better collaboration and engender that collaboration.
Speaker B:People need to be able to predict how you're going to respond to new challenges.
Speaker B:And I think all of this goes well when everything's going well.
Speaker B:How does it go when there's a challenge here?
Speaker B:If we're consistent in values, in communication style, in problem solving approaches, including our problem solving approaches, is to move to a better problem solving approach.
Speaker B:Not just everything is A nail.
Speaker B:Because all we have is a hammer.
Speaker B:They can trust that we're going to keep our promises during organizational stress and change.
Speaker B:And keeping our promises.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Is really, really, really important here.
Speaker B:And seeing us as somebody who maintains the same standards for ourselves that we apply to others, I think these are.
Speaker B:These are all so important.
Speaker B:So, Ian, I think you always have been so good about this.
Speaker B:We can build up people's trust in us by choosing very judiciously what commitments we're going to make and only make the commitments that we can and will follow up on.
Speaker B:So under promise.
Speaker B:Overachieve.
Speaker B:Don't over promise and underachieve.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it's really easy to over promise.
Speaker A:You know, I've seen people kind of bang the table and lean into the meeting and kind of wave their finger and say, me and my team, we are 100% committed to pulling this through.
Speaker A:And those kind of big promises are really hard to deliver on.
Speaker A:And when they fall on my ears or on maybe on the ears of people who are a bit more jaded, we think, yeah, what really like, is that the one thing that you're going to commit to, Are you going to mistake your career on that?
Speaker A:People use the idea of commitment.
Speaker A:So have you ever seen this in practice?
Speaker A:Who do you know who's good at this?
Speaker B:Well, you know, it's funny, it reminds me of an old colleague of ours, Bert von Spransen, down in Australia back in the day, he was actually looking at a lot of advisors and internal and external.
Speaker B:And one thing when he was listening to a pitch, particularly when it was somebody he was going to bring in from outside a different part of the corporation or outside the corporation is as he was discussing that he would have a small ask.
Speaker B:And that small ask seemed a little bit innocuous, but in fact, it was.
Speaker B:His test is, this is somebody I can rely on.
Speaker B:You know, when we get in, I mean, this is somebody.
Speaker B:Now they're trying to say why they should be involved in this project.
Speaker B:If they really want this, then their reliability ought to be as good as I expect it to ever be.
Speaker B:And he would make a little note and he would ask for this little thing.
Speaker B:If they said yes and said when they would get back to him with it, he, you know, he put it in a pile.
Speaker B:He kind of stuck it to come back to at that date.
Speaker B:And if it wasn't there, that was it.
Speaker B:They didn't cross the first hurdle.
Speaker B:So that reliability and knowing that you're going to be consistent is what people are looking for.
Speaker B:Bert certainly Took that to high levels.
Speaker A:Very cool.
Speaker A:So, Mike, pillar one was competence in the service of others.
Speaker A:Pillar two was consistency and being careful about consistency.
Speaker A:Pillar three, I'm going to come back to the theme of being in the service of others.
Speaker A:There's another really noticeable trait that successful, trusted, influential people have, which is that they are much better at tying themselves to organizational success than they seem to be claiming personal credit.
Speaker A:And again, I think in traditional consulting life, we are a tiny bit competitive with each other, and we have metrics and performance benchmarks that kind of push us towards demonstrating our own value.
Speaker A:People in bigger organizations who can get trust without authority are the ones who are able to prioritize collective success over individual recognition.
Speaker A:And I think some people do this naturally, and I know a few of those people, and I admire them and I love them, and that's great.
Speaker A:People who enjoy being a part of a larger collective endeavor.
Speaker A:Those are the people who were probably the ones who joined societies in college, the ones who took part in team sports.
Speaker A:And it's not just that that's fun, although it is fun.
Speaker A:It's not just that it's worthwhile, although it is worthwhile.
Speaker A:Like, it just seems a natural way to be.
Speaker A:So those people have already got it going on naturally.
Speaker A:I think some of us have to work harder at it.
Speaker A:And that means being able to turn our conversation around to positive outcomes for the team rather than positive credit.
Speaker A:For me, that means when projects face challenges, being the one who contributes quickly to a solution rather than being the one pointing the finger kind of backwards and diagnosing who was to blame.
Speaker A:People who are good at connecting individuals, good at sharing resources without expecting a benefit in return are the people that we're talking about.
Speaker A:This is also probably, Mike.
Speaker A:People who will learn something or gain some information or gain some power and not be quick to turn it to their own advantage.
Speaker A:And this sounds a little bit like being kind of holier than the Pope.
Speaker A:This sounds like being kind of an ethically pure person.
Speaker A:I don't think of any of the people I know who do this as ethically pure.
Speaker A:I think these are just people who have naturally got an orientation toward a collective.
Speaker A:It's not difficult to do.
Speaker A:The payback is in the medium to long term rather than the short term.
Speaker A:But for sure, there's a payback there.
Speaker B:Yeah, we're not talking about, again, having no boundaries, about taking on everything.
Speaker B:That's not at all what we're saying here.
Speaker B:You know, it's exactly what you said, Ian.
Speaker B:You know, caring a little less about personal credit and more about organizational success and helping to create that success.
Speaker B:It's like the old, I remember kind of watching over the years the change in resumes, you know, from here's what why I'm great to here's what I've been a part of accomplishing and that, you know, that says it all.
Speaker B:Not here's why I'm great, but here's what I've been a part of accomplishing here.
Speaker B:And our last pillar, Ian, curiosity about what you don't yet understand.
Speaker B:And I love this, I love this because part of this goes back to we talked about, you know, how you operate in a challenge.
Speaker B:And I think sometimes in a challenge, like you said, you know, we could be placing blame.
Speaker B:Sometimes we're also in a challenge, placing a lot of blame on ourselves and going, oh my gosh, you know, oh God.
Speaker B:As opposed to, hey, I'm all about learning what I don't yet understand.
Speaker B:I want to show genuine curiosity about perspectives, about challenges.
Speaker B:What do we learn from that?
Speaker B:What do I learn from that?
Speaker B:What do I needs work about context outside my current understanding.
Speaker B:And now this curiosity has to be authentic.
Speaker B:I mean, there's a number of people that, you know, kind of, oh, tell me all about, because this is a script that I go into and then I just delete that from short term memory and go into the pitch I intended to come with.
Speaker B:But there are, you know, people have the ability to sense the difference between genuine interest and manipulation.
Speaker B:So real curiosity also means accepting challenges to my own assumptions, modifying recommendations that perhaps I'm making or thinking about making based on new information, asking questions, as you said earlier, Ian, even when perhaps we think we already know that the answers, and seeking out conversations with people who see things differently rather than only those who agree with you.
Speaker B:And in conversations, picking up and going deeper with that, rather than being so close to say, oh yeah, I went there.
Speaker B:Oh yeah, I've done that.
Speaker B:Oh, we share this.
Speaker B:Oh yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker B:You know, it's like, also, let's find out what else, because I'm curious and there's learning and all of that will contribute to better outcomes.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:This is something that I think is different from some of the traditional mindsets that I've seen in big organizations.
Speaker A:Again, big, especially complex, highly regulated organizations.
Speaker A:Lots of organizations systematize what they do.
Speaker A:And there are procedures and there are processes and there is compliance.
Speaker A:I'm not advocating ignoring compliance, but I am saying that having the mindset that says, I will follow the blue line all the Way through my working week is great because it protects us from risks and it keeps us safe in lots of ways.
Speaker A:But it also stops us being curious.
Speaker A:Like having a standard operating procedure makes you kind of anti curious.
Speaker A:It makes you undistractable.
Speaker A:And to be curious, you need to be willing to indulge for a short while in your working day in a bit of distraction.
Speaker A:So I think in ingraining a bit of curiosity into ourselves is a really great fourth pillar for our model here.
Speaker A:So we've got four pillars.
Speaker A:Just let me just catch up.
Speaker A:Competence in the service of others, consistency in the way we interact with people, attaching less to personal credit and more to organizational success, and then being curious about the stuff that we don't know about.
Speaker A:These are great models for a mantra.
Speaker A:If I was going to have a mug made about being trusted without authority, these would be the bullet points on the mug.
Speaker A:But Mike, you know, I like to talk about the dark side.
Speaker A:You know, I like to think about the downsides.
Speaker A:Let's think for a minute about what are the mistakes that could come in the way.
Speaker A:What are the pitfalls that we might need to avoid before we get started doing this?
Speaker B:Yeah, you do a great thing from time to time about what are you going to tell Fred, kind of if you're trying to learn something new and do something?
Speaker B:Well, take whatever you're summing up and pretending that you're trying to tell person exactly what not to do.
Speaker B:And maybe that kind of leads us in our pitfalls that are sometimes just mirror reflections partially of what we've talked about.
Speaker B:So, you know, we first pitfall the expertise trap.
Speaker B:Of course, you know, makes sense from what we've been talking about.
Speaker A:That's never been a problem for me, of course.
Speaker B:Yeah, you and me both, right?
Speaker B:I'm so focused on demonstrating competence that we might make others feel inadequate or just excluded here.
Speaker B:And you know, manifestations can be things like overly comprehensive answers to simple questions or technical language or jargon that others don't understand or.
Speaker B:Or, you know, I can't ring this bell often enough.
Speaker B:We have jumping to solutions without understanding context, you know, sometimes not even letting the person get the whole thing out of their mouth before you say, I've got the answer to that.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You know, our goal is to help others succeed in ways that are impossible without our involvement.
Speaker B:Let me underscore that our goal is to help others succeed in ways that are not possible without our involvement.
Speaker B:It's not impressing them with our knowledge or expertise or all of our lineage or our title or our degrees or letters after our names.
Speaker B:So shorter targeted answers, follow up questions explaining thinking in an accessible language.
Speaker B:Once we understand that bigger picture and the problem or opportunity in the context that is the way out of the expertise trap.
Speaker A:That's great.
Speaker A:That's meat and drink for anybody who's got even the slightest tendency to be proud of their own expertise.
Speaker A:Mike.
Speaker A:I think that's great.
Speaker A:There's another trap, and this one's a paradox.
Speaker A:And I like the idea of paradoxes because they imply that we need some thought and some judgment.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's not obvious which side we land on here.
Speaker A:And the paradox is called the people pleasing paradox.
Speaker A:So we did say a few minutes ago that we can't build trust by always trying to be right.
Speaker A:I think it was even me that said it.
Speaker A:We also, though, face trust problems when we try to build trust by just saying yes to everybody else.
Speaker A:So it seemed like an easy out from being too much like an expert is just to agree with what everybody else says.
Speaker A:But that's lazy as well.
Speaker A:And I think it tends to.
Speaker A:Tends to show us avoiding conflict, especially conflict that could be constructive or can be healthy.
Speaker A:People will tend not to trust us if we never have a challenging thought, if we never say something that they might not want to hear.
Speaker A:People who get trusted are those who care enough to raise difficult questions, to point out risks and propose alternatives.
Speaker A:And I like this idea of caring enough.
Speaker A:That's a really, really good benchmark to be around and respected and trusted in your profession, in the organization where you are not just next quarter, but next year and five years from now, you'll be, because you're the one who cared enough to raise interesting new questions and to be around to help solve them, rather than just passively turn yourself as a cog in the machine gone.
Speaker A:That was quite poetic.
Speaker B:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker A:Speaking of machines, the next one's about reciprocity.
Speaker A:I'm sure we can get a machine metaphor going with the next one.
Speaker A:What's our next pitfall here, Mike?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think that there's.
Speaker B:It's this desire to.
Speaker B:For some people to build relationships that have explicit expectations of immediate reciprocal benefits, almost transactional.
Speaker B:Or the thing that everything that I do comes with and you owe me and you owe me bigger.
Speaker B:That this is this big debt thing, that when helpfulness always comes with strings attached, it undermines rather than builds trust.
Speaker B:I mean, I think one thing we can say about all trust is that trust, it's almost like kind of having a reservoir of trust.
Speaker B:And we Start by, you know, these little rainfalls that add to a reservoir or start to build a reservoir.
Speaker B:But there's some things that we can do that like blow a hole in the side of the dam and just.
Speaker B:We drain a lot of trust all at once.
Speaker B:So if we're always having strings attached, that's one of those things.
Speaker B:If we create just purely transactional relationships and then people are always wondering, so what are you going to want from me?
Speaker B:What do you want from them?
Speaker B:What?
Speaker B:You know, what?
Speaker B:So to the degree that we can contribute to other success without keeping score, while, as we said earlier, maintaining appropriate boundaries, we can operate from this genuine idea that, you know, what, if we're collaborating, if we're building trust, we start, you know, that reciprocity will be built in of its own and of our relationships and collaboration and the other things that we're going to talk about, not on a need to keep score all the time.
Speaker B:Valuable relationships, valuable contributions, trust, even better relationships will continue to create opportunities over time and again with appropriate boundaries.
Speaker B:If, if we've got that person that we find is always coming and then, you know, ideas aren't being used or they're being misappropriated or something else is going on or whole different conversation.
Speaker B:Now we're just looking to build that upward spiral with others who are looking to do it too and who start to become part of that.
Speaker A:And like, I've learned something here.
Speaker A:I now realize that giving my kids Christmas gifts with the receipts, with the bill and the invoice amount tucked into the wrapping, turns out that was a bad idea after all.
Speaker A:I just thought I was giving them a gentle hint, you know, about what I'm expecting in my old age.
Speaker A:Turns out I should have been giving without counting the cost.
Speaker A:You're absolutely right.
Speaker B:Too fun.
Speaker A:It's great.
Speaker A:We've talked about our four pillars for success.
Speaker A:We've talked about some of the pitfalls around reciprocity and around people pleasing.
Speaker A:Let's try and bring this all together and wrap it up by talking about exercises, by talking about habit changes that we and our listeners can all try if we want to get better at building trust without authority.
Speaker A:So, Mike, I'd like to go first because I really like this one.
Speaker A:I've been thinking about this.
Speaker A:I'm very, very aware that most of my weaknesses are about my habits.
Speaker A:And I'm very, very aware of the great progress that I make when I make a small change in my habits.
Speaker A:And this is a habit that we call the weekly trust audit.
Speaker A:And it says every you choose when in the week.
Speaker A:I think Friday afternoon is a good time because this is about looking back on the week.
Speaker A:Spend 50 minutes not only journaling, however you might normally journal.
Speaker A:But just review the interactions that you've had with other people and review them from the perspective of trust building.
Speaker A:So think about significant conversations that you've had and ask yourself these questions.
Speaker A:How much did you demonstrate competence serving the other person's goals versus how much did you merely showcase your knowledge?
Speaker A:So how much were you putting your knowledge to their service?
Speaker A:And how much of it were you kind of polishing your reputation?
Speaker A:Think about how you responded to their requests.
Speaker A:Were your responses consistent with similar situations like have you demonstrating reliability and consistency in your responses to the ask that they brought to you?
Speaker A:Were you curious?
Speaker A:Did you ask questions?
Speaker A:Did you uncover aspects that you hadn't previously fully understood?
Speaker A:Did you try and free yourself from existing assumptions?
Speaker A:Or were you looking for ways in which this ask is the same as last week's was the same as the week before?
Speaker A:And if you're going to think about those aspects of your interaction, how do you think you came across to the others that you're working with?
Speaker A:You could even ask them for some feedback.
Speaker A:So keep a bit of a log of observations.
Speaker A:You're not looking to log the fact that you're perfect.
Speaker A:You're looking for patterns that will help you find ways in which you can expand your trust building ability.
Speaker A:And that can include noticing the way that you ask questions and reflect knowledge and credit and so on.
Speaker A:This can also include noticing the positive consequences that you get from other people's responses to you.
Speaker A:And a bit of weekly practice I think is worth 15 minutes to make you more intentional and more alert to where trust building might come in.
Speaker A:So Mike, that was my idea for a weekly trust audit.
Speaker A:A bit of reflection.
Speaker A:What else could we work on here to help build our trust growing capabilities?
Speaker B:I know one that I'm still working on is the Question first response framework.
Speaker B:And I'm going to take this advice because I find myself remembering always to say, oh gosh, I hate that.
Speaker B:I always don't do that.
Speaker B:From now on, lead every significant interaction with a question rather than an answer, even when you know or think you know exactly what they need to hear.
Speaker B:So try for two weeks.
Speaker B:You know, some people say it takes longer to build a habit, but just try it.
Speaker B:Just try it.
Speaker B:When somebody asks your opinion, start by asking something like what specific decision they're making.
Speaker B:You know, when somebody asks about a problem or brings you a problem there, ask what They've tried already.
Speaker B:And what constraints exist when somebody just is sharing information, ask about their concerns or opportunities that they see related to this information.
Speaker B:And then as you had said, Ian, I think this is brilliant.
Speaker B:I think we could do the same thing here.
Speaker B:Track how these question first interactions differ from typical responses.
Speaker B:Are people more engaged?
Speaker B:Do they provide more context?
Speaker B:If you are then moving on to give advice or recommendations, are they better received than typical?
Speaker B:So just what happens?
Speaker B:What happens?
Speaker B:And it starts to get us in that position of noticing what happens before what happens.
Speaker B:So you know, we're starting to see what are the causes, consequences, the linked on downstream effects of the things that we do and how they do them.
Speaker B:But again, what's exercise number three?
Speaker A:Exercise number three, I'm going to call it the stakeholder success story idea 3S's stakeholder success story.
Speaker A:Identify some regular colleagues.
Speaker A:Let's go for three.
Speaker A:Three colleagues who you think see you as a provider of answers rather than any kind of strategic partner.
Speaker A:People who see you as the one to go to for the data dump, the Excel sheet, the factual yes or no, the list of bullet points.
Speaker A:Try going back to those three people and ask them.
Speaker A:Or if you can't ask, look really hard to see what you can infer from their context and their actions.
Speaker A:Find out what success looks like from their perspective when they're asking for these apparently medial, apparently low level data questions.
Speaker A:What are their challenges?
Speaker A:What support would be most valuable if you can find a way then in the coming month just to give a little bit more than the answer to the question, contribute something to their success.
Speaker A:Not more data and not more evidence, not necessarily even more explanation, but some way of connecting them with resources, a thoughtful question that might help them think more systematically.
Speaker A:Make the contributions without being asked and without expecting immediate benefits and just document what you learn.
Speaker A:I think this is an exercise for you to think how does it change my mindset when I always ask a question about the context?
Speaker A:How does it change how I feel about my work?
Speaker A:How does it change the quality of my work when I get to work the conversation a little bit differently in this way?
Speaker A:And you might notice a change in your outlook as you shift from always reacting and being reactive in the way that you suppose is being asked for versus being a little more proactive when you're giving these answers and these kinds of support.
Speaker A:So that's my third exercise, the success, the stakeholder success story.
Speaker A:So Mike, we've got four pillars, we've got three pitfalls, we've got some exercises for trust Building.
Speaker A:I think we've done a lot here to explore why and how we might want to get better at earning trust, even without authority.
Speaker A:Before we get right to the end of the show here, what are some of your closing thoughts?
Speaker B:Well, you know, I can't help but just go back and say, as we started, without trust, you know, our questions aren't as welcomed, our insights aren't as valued, and our recommendations are less likely to be implemented.
Speaker B:So without trust, we're essentially undermining the value that we create and that the things that we're talking about here are not manipulation.
Speaker B:This is not, hey, just trust me here.
Speaker B:It's about consistently demonstrating that we care more about collective success than personal credit.
Speaker B:As we talked about that we're genuinely curious about different perspectives and that we're always using our expertise, our experience, our position to serve others goals rather than showcasing our own abilities.
Speaker B:Now that's not to say it's not also serving our goals.
Speaker B:In fact, we say it's better serving our goals.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And that our goals are different than showcasing our own capabilities.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:When you approach relationships this way, and I would say, you know, here's one you can take home.
Speaker B:You could do this with significant others, with friends, with kids, with, you know, you expand this when you approach any relationship this way.
Speaker B:Trust develops naturally.
Speaker B:And with trust comes the opportunities for influence, the opportunities to make our greatest contributions organizationally.
Speaker B:Personally, I mean, this is with our own team members.
Speaker B:People see us differently, including our peers and our team members.
Speaker B:They see the groups that we're in differently and you know, it becomes a little bit infectious across organizations, families, friend groups.
Speaker B:We start interacting differently.
Speaker B:What do you think?
Speaker A:Well, it's funny, I'm just reminded of a video clip I saw a couple of days ago of Stephen Fry.
Speaker A:Stephen Fry, arguably British literature, greatest living national treasure, an all round good egg and podcaster and everything else.
Speaker A:He was in a debate that I think was about online discourse and political correctness.
Speaker A:And I think there were a bunch of other even more controversial people than him in the, in the panel.
Speaker A:But he said something like this.
Speaker A:He said the great mistake of the late 20th century, early 21st century has been that we'd rather be right than be effective.
Speaker A:And I think that's quite a good idea of what the dichotomy is.
Speaker A:Being right is okay, but we should prize being effective is what he's saying.
Speaker A:I think there's another dichotomy here.
Speaker A:Sometimes we'd rather be right than be happy.
Speaker A:So I think that's been one of our themes today.
Speaker A:We don't want to be right at all costs if it gets in the way of us being effective and as being happy.
Speaker A:So, Mike, I think we've made a pretty good start on trust and authority.
Speaker A:Next time, we're going to share a framework for thinking about your evolution from just the question answerer to being a partner to being an advisor.
Speaker A:An advisor who's trusted.
Speaker A:We have the model in our hands here.
Speaker A:We call it the Strategic Partner Pyramid, and we can't wait to share it with you in the next episode of the Consulting for Humans Podcast.
Speaker B:The Consultant the Consulting for Humans Podcast is brought to you by P31 Consulting.
