Trust and Influence

Develop Trusted Relationships

• Understand the Business Value of Trust
  • Trust is Salesforce’s number one value
  • Trust drives:
    1. Employee engagement, learning and development, and productivity
    2. Teamwork and collaboration
    3. Risk taking and innovation
    4. Customer loyalty and retention
    5. Business results and profit growth
  • When there isn’t trust, employees may put in less effort, feel apathetic toward their jobs, leave, or “quit and stay”
• Evaluate How Well You Are Trusted
  • Most companies have a way to measure customer trust through surveys and data analysis
  • Companies also evaluate employee trust through employee surveys that ask questions about
    • vision and strategy
    • communication and transparency
    • how often team members ask each other for help
    • openness of leaders to ideas and suggestions
    • how well leaders admin mistakes
    • confidence in senior leadership
  • Consider the following to determine how well team members trust you:
    • Do I know my team members personally?
    • How honest am I when I communicate?
    • Do I openly admit my mistakes?
    • Do I ask my team members for feedback?
    • Do I follow through on what I say I’ll do?
• Build and Maintain Trust - 5 ways
  1. Create a personal connection
     • When your employees know you as a person, and you take the time to ask them about themselves, you’ll build trust
     • A good way to have one-on-one meetings is to go outside or have a coffee
  2. Be transparent and truthful
     • Communicate frequently
     • Share what you can when you can - its okay to say “I don’t know”
     • Be fearless and tell the truth, even if its bad news
     • Ask for questions and concerns, and listen and respond
     • Don’t punish people for raising issues
     • Ask people for input on decisions that impact them
  3. Act on feedback
     • Identify specific behaviors that you’ll start, stop, or continue doing
     • Ask team members or manager to observe what you are doing and give feedback
     • Monitor your progress and make adjustments as needed
  4. Own up to your mistakes
     • Making yourself vulnerable by admitting mistakes is a powerful way to build trust. This means:
       • Having the courage to tell others when you’ve made a mistake
       • Apologizing, and taking ownership and accountability, if appropriate
       • Communicating what you’ve learned from the mistake
  5. Be consistent
     • Do what you say you’ll do, and follow through
     • Share the rationale behind decisions
     • Remain positive even if you disagree with a change
     • Be reliable and trustworthy
     • Keep your promises
     • Communicate information without withholding the tough stuff
     • Recognize others equally
• When building trust:
  • DO get to know your team members and let them get to know you - DON’T make your relationship just focused on the work, not the person
  • DO tell the truth and be honest - DON’T withhold information or shy away from communicating messages that might be tough to hear
  • DO take action to change your behaviors based on feedback you are given - DON’T dismiss feedback from team members when you don’t agree
  • DO admit your mistakes - DON’T hide your mistakes to avoid embarrassment
  • DO follow through on what you’ll say you’ll do - DON’T make promises you can’t keep or do something different from what you agreed to

Influence Others

• Introduction
  • As businesses become more global and organizations flatten, you’ll likely need to influence others you have no direct authority over
• Influencing styles
  • Everyone tends to have a preferred, natural style, but certain styles are more appropriate with different audiences and at different times
  • 5 styles:
    • Collaborative
      • Asking questions to understand needs
      • Focusing on shared goals
      • Working with the other person to find a solution that satisfies both people’s concerns
      • Appropriate when stakes are high and you need collaboration to be successful
      • Inappropriate when time is short
    • Assertive
      • Using your authority to state your point of view
      • Standing up for and defending the position you believe is right
      • Making sure your ideas are heard when others disagree
      • Appropriate when things need to move fast
      • Inappropriate in situations where you might not have all the facts
    • Analytical
      • Using logic and facts to reason objectively
      • Using your expertise to persuade others
      • Presenting the pros and cons of each solution
      • Appropriate when you have information and facts that others don’t and there are risks to taking the wrong course of action
      • Inappropriate for some audiences that have a strong perspective and are more emotive
    • Accommodating
      • Making tradeoffs and exchanges to reach an outcome
      • Looking for middle ground where you both are satisfied
      • Looking for a solution that’s acceptable to both parties
      • Appropriate when you need a decision that’s viewed as fair and maintaining strong relationships is critical
      • Inappropriate when there are serious “non-negotiables” in play
    • Inspiring
      • Choosing an interesting, memorable, engaging way to present your point of view
      • Telling compelling stories that paint a picture of what’s possible
      • Communicating your position with optimism and enthusiasm
      • Appropriate when you need others to feel excited and enthusiastic
      • Inappropriate when the other party doesn’t have the same sense of purpose and goals you do
        
        
• Collaborative style of influencing is appropriate when buy-in from the other team is critical
• Assertive style of influencing is best when quick, decisive action needs to be taken
• Effective ways to influence others include maintaining a flexible influencing approach that uses the right style at the right time, finding shared goals and interests, defining the pros and cons of options using logic and data
• The inspiring style of influencing is used when the other person responds well to charisma, enthusiasm, and emotion