The Uncommon Communicator

E105 - UC Playbook:Trust-Filled Communication

• James Gable • Season 2 • Episode 105

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Unlock the secrets to building unshakeable trust in every word you exchange as we dissect Stephen M.R. Covey's "The Speed of Trust" with the insightful Jennifer Lacey. Transform your interactions with our three-pillar approach to trustworthy communication: harnessing honesty and courage to confront reality, refining conduct through respect and accountability, and fortifying commitment with an unyielding dedication to these values. This episode is your compass to navigate the complexities of communication, ensuring you leave a lasting impression of reliability and integrity in both personal and professional landscapes.

Embrace the transformative power of continuous improvement, the thread that weaves together all aspects of trust. This episode isn't just a lesson in effective dialogue—it's an invitation to join a culture where transparency leads to innovation, where mistakes forge pathways to learning, and where listening is as important as speaking. By embedding these principles into your life, you'll witness the blossoming of genuine relationships and opportunities. Plug in, as we offer a masterclass in becoming the communicator who not only speaks but resonates, with every word grounded in steadfast trust.

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Speaker 1:

You want to talk right down to us and elanguishes everybody here can easily understand. Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? What? Space one again. Space one again. I dare you, I double dare you. What we got here is a failure to communicate.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Enthomoc communicator podcast, where we are here to bring enlightenment to the topic of communication. I'm excited today to bring you this UC playbook, the Enthomoc communicator playbook. This is where we break down our last episode. Our last episode was so fun to have Jennifer Lacey on. Jennifer talked with us about trust and a whole bunch of other vulnerability things that every word that she says was just filled with so much enthusiasm and so much information.

Speaker 1:

Today, what I'd like to do is focus on the idea of trust. We dabbled in it for just a little bit when we talked about the book by Stephen Covey, and that is Stephen M R Covey, stephen Covey's son in the book the Speed of Trust. Now we talked on one of the behaviors. He breaks down these 13 behaviors, but we talked about one particular behavior and that was of continuous improvement. But what I wanted to do today is take a deeper look at these 13 behaviors that Stephen M R Covey gives us in his book. Now, 13 seemed like the lot to me. If you're going to share something in true uncommon communicator style, we're going to break it down a little bit more clearer for you, for our listeners of the Enthomoc communicator podcast, and what I've done.

Speaker 1:

First, let's talk about the 13 behaviors. He broke them down into three different categories, but 13 what he called specific behaviors that you needed to elicit to be able to build and grow trust within your community. Now, the first one is on the character timeline and it. Well, these are the five of them talk straight, demonstrate respect, create transparency, right to wrongs and show loyalty, all in that character category. In the competence category, he talks about delivering results, getting better, confronting reality, clarify your expectations and practice accountability, and then he mixes the two together with this character plus competence of listen. First, keep commitments, extend trust.

Speaker 1:

But what I wanted to do is take a look at these. I believe we can narrow them down a little bit more clearer for us and for our listeners today, especially when you dive into the character. The one thing that always kind of bugs me and I know it bugs other people is when somebody is repeating themselves, kind of coming up with a point where they can have, where they can kind of make it fit within the confines of what they're trying to give. So he talks about talking straight and he also brings up create, transparency and even his own description. They're very similar. And there's other items that really come out where I think we can dive in just a little bit deeper, make this more narrower.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to give you three behaviors, things that you can do, and one mindset, and with those three things it will help you become a better communicator and better understand and employ the attributes of trust in your communication. How I broke these down is into three things communication, conduct and commitment. And I by no means meant to make an alliteration, which I love, by the way, love having an alliteration. These are just how these topics fell into these categories, the first one being communication, the next one conduct, the other one commitment, and then the last thing I'm gonna do is give you a mindset, and that mindset is to continuously Improve yet another. See for you to remember, to remember easily.

Speaker 1:

But on the idea of communication, there was five of his Behaviors that fit on the line of communication, talk straight. That's really just about being honest, about being straight and for Fort Worth, fort Worth, fort, right with your communications, talk straight, create transparency. That's very, very important in building any kind of trust is to be as transparent as I guess you're willing to give yourself out to be, but that comes from a level of trust. Transparency brings about transparency. The next one was confront reality, be able to look at where you're, at what situation you're in, and talk through it to be able to really, really have an attitude of finding what the truth is. And then the last one in the communication line was to listen first. And that one is a common thing amongst all of our discussions in being a good communicator is learning how to listen. So the first thing to do is, in communication, talk straight, create transparency, confront reality and listen first.

Speaker 1:

So first there's communication, then there's conduct. Now our conduct is there in demonstrating respect for people. That is something that you have to show, you physically show, and I believe sometimes it even starts with opening doors for people, allowing people to see the respect that you're giving them by opening their way, letting them in through the door. The other one, through your conduct, is to deliver results. Don't just talk about them. You can't just say I'm good at something you got, to show it and bring the results.

Speaker 1:

Another aspect of conduct is to write wrongs and that's to take ownership for your wrongs and then to correct them. Sometimes it's not always going to be in admitting that you're wrong, but that's a great start, first admitting that you're wrong, and then it's really about taking the ownership of it. Sometimes how people Accept or some how they perceive that you're wrong, that is the right. I mean they're right in that and perceiving that because and you have to correct those wrongs, right those wrongs and you do that through clarifying expectations. Those are the five things from the book, which is demonstrate respect, deliver results, right wrongs and clarify expectations. You would think that clarifying expectations would fall under the communication, but I think it's a little bit deeper in here, specifically when you're talking about clarifying Expectations of behaviors, doing that up front. These are the expected responses that you want from yourself, that you're going to show as well as you would expect from, say, your direct report or anyone in any situation. Understanding and clarifying expectations really brings about a better result of building trust.

Speaker 1:

The third category is commitment. You have to show your loyalty and showing your loyalty is something that takes an outward expression of commitment to somebody. You're going to show your loyalty to them and that means defending them when it's the right time to defend them and it's defending them when they're not in the room. That is showing loyalty. The next one is to a practice accountability. Make yourself accountable as well as when somebody says I want to be accountable to you. When you practice this back and forth, it builds and brings in trust. That's all part of that commitment category. Then, also in it is keep your commitments. That's probably one of the biggest things that you can do in building trust is to do what you say that you're going to do.

Speaker 1:

Then the last one he talks about extending trust. When you extend trust to people, sometimes it's not that they have to earn it. It's sometimes that you're giving it as a gift. When you give this trust first, you're open to give it first that trust can be returned back to you. You have to be willing. That's really one of the toughest ones for me as I look at how guarded and how protected I am. Those are the conversations we talk through with Jennifer Lacey is in that I haven't been willing to extend that trust to people, people that haven't even disearned it, people that haven't even done anything wrong. But I'm guarded in that you have to be able to extend a little bit of trust to be able to receive that trust back. That's where you have to open up and, yes, I'm going to use the word be vulnerable, in that that's not easy for a lot of us. For a lot of people, giving that level of trust really has started to begin. For me, the ability to become a better improver, I can get better at things as I allow people and trust people to provide me feedback and know that I am going to be good with the feedback that they give me. I'm going to handle it. Okay, that's about extending trust Really taking these 13 behaviors into three things Our communication, our conduct and our commitment.

Speaker 1:

I told you, I'm going to give you the final one, which is continuously improve. It's a mindset, the mindset of getting better, and this is one of the 13 that was provided to us, but to me it wraps it all up, wraps it together in a pretty little bow for Christmas for everybody. It's really the mindset to continuously improve. And here's a note, I've got to read this to you A mindset of continuous improvement contributes to building trust by fostering open communication by learning from our mistakes, adapting to change, maintaining consistency and encouraging innovation.

Speaker 1:

When individuals see that improvement is not a one-time effort but a continuous journey, they're more likely to trust you and your commitment to excellence and growth. So, really, to wrap all of those together is to be a continuous improver, and when you do that, you are a lot more of all of those behaviors that we're talking about. We're going to practice accountability, we're going to keep our commitments, we're going to extend trust, we're going to right the wrongs, we're going to deliver results. When we have this mindset of continuously improving, we're going to talk straight and then, most of all, we're going to listen first. So, to me, of all of those 13 behaviors that Patrick or not Patrick that Stephen Covey has given us, of all of these things that he's provided to me, the idea of continuously improving is the one that wraps them all together Our communication, our conduct, our commitment, followed by our mindset to continuously improve. Now, today's UC moment is this Building trust is an outcome of your communication, your conduct and your commitment, and that's all I've got. See you, bye, go, all right.