Building Blocks

June, 2003
Volume 6, Issue 4

Trust Part Two – Cultivating Openness and Honesty

There are 10 Components to Building Trust - this article will focus on the first two components, Openness and Honesty. The other eight components are:

1. Following Through

2. Listening

3. Communicating thoroughly

4. Communicating regularly

5. Communicating frequently

6. Faith

7. Proof

8. Risk

Distinction:
Openness = offering – no withholding, no pulling of teeth needed
Honesty = telling the truth to others and to myself

Openness builds trust because then I can see the whole picture – I don’t have to wonder what’s not being said or shown. Honesty means that I don’t have to wonder if what I see and hear from you is true, at least within the parameters of your paradigm.

There are four skills to master in learning how to build trust with these components:

1. Cultivating openness in yourself. Withholding can be a source of power – either power over, or protection of self. Cultivating openness in yourself means being willing
   to relinquish that potential power over, and also making yourelf vulnerable by letting
   go of protection (discernment is of course necessary here). If you’ve demonstrated
   consistent trustworthiness yet are still distrusted by someone, chalk it up to projection and let yourself off the hook.

2. Cultivating openness in others. Create a safe space for others to be open – and extend the invitation. The way to cultivate is to acknowledge, honor and respect others’ disclosures to you – consistently.

3. Cultivating honesty in yourself. There are two audiences – you and everyone else. Both require discipline. Being honest with yourself generally means getting emotion out of the way, and being able to step back, objectively seeing all possibilities of perception, and discerning what is true. Being honest with others means telling the truth, even when difficult (such as when you might feel a friend is making a mistake). It means exerting effort to ensure that the listener understands your truth. Benefit: as you become more rigorously honest with yourself, you will be more confident in relying on your intuition, or “gut.”

4. Cultivating honesty in others. Here’s the tough one. In cultivating honesty in others, you have to have the courage to call someone on not being honest. While accusations rarely serve to move a conversation or relationship forward, questions often can move both forward. An example would be, “I’m confused. I thought I heard you say X, and that seems to conflict with what you said about Y. Can you help sort out what you’re really saying?” This technique calls out an incongruity, without making the other person completely wrong about it. Rewarding others for being honest with you is also a way to cultivate more of it. For instance, if someone on your project messes up on a task but is honest about it, your endorsing the honesty without minimizing the mistake can be an effective way to cultivate similar honesty in others.

Practices to try this month to cultivate more openness and honesty in your life:

1. Practice discerning when it’s safe to be open, and offer more than you usually would. Notice when you withhold, and why. Ask yourself how well your relationship is served by that withholding.

2. Refrain from judgment when someone is open with you. Even if your judgment is not expressed directly to the other person, it can generally be sensed. Invite someone to be open with you, and let him know that it’s safe for him to do so.

3. Catch yourself in a moment of righteousness. Get over yourself and ask yourself what’s really going on. Righteousness is a red flag that you may not be being completely honest with yourself.

4. When you feel someone is not being completely honest with you, find a way to let her know without making her completely wrong about it. Help them to get there by asking questions that strengthen the relationship rather than threaten it.

Let me know how it goes! If you’d like some coaching support with these concepts, call me! If you know someone who would benefit from having a coach, please connect us – it will be a trust building action! Next month – Trust Part 3 – Following Through and Listening

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E-mail: ginger@magellangj.com
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