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The Code of Trust Five Rules to Gain Trust and Be a Leader
1. Suspend your ego. Each of us, by the very nature of our existence, is and must remain the focus of our own life. To gain the gift of another’s trust, you must grant them that natural, normal focus. Their life, regardless of all the people they’re responsible for, is all about them. Not you. If you accept that, they will open the door of their trust to you. The single most compelling trait of trust is simple humility.
2. Be nonjudgmental. Respect the opinions, attitudes, ideas, and perspectives of all people—no matter how foreign, or even opposed to your own. No one trusts people who look down on them, and no one trusts people who don’t understand them. Not being judgmental is the greatest invitation to trust that you can possibly offer.
3. Validate others. There is common decency in every person—regardless of their opinions—and to be worthy of their trust, you must recognize their common decency, show them your own, and join them in that shared respect. All of us are born with the sacred right to our own ideas, and not one of us was born with the desire to destroy or alienate others. Common decency is the common ground of humankind.
4. Honor reason. Resist every temptation to personalize, emotionalize, debate, exaggerate, manipulate, or coerce. Stick to the facts, and be honest. Only those who rely on reason, reflected by honesty, can create the foundation of rational, shared self-interest that all enduring trust rests upon. Trust inspired by mere emotionalism lasts only as long as the next emotion. Leadership inspired by fear is simply fear. Give people a good reason to trust you, and they will.
5. Be generous. Don’t expect to receive the gift of trust unless you offer a gift of your own. People do not allow themselves to trust those who create one-sided relationships. Selfishness repels. Generosity attracts. The most generous gift you can offer is your own trust. The most lasting gift you can offer is the loyalty of enduring trust.
The Four Steps The Action Plan for Inspiring Trust
1. Align Your Goals! First: Determine your own ultimate goal: the prize that justifies your sacrifices. Choose it carefully, and follow it faithfully. Don’t get distracted by lesser goals, no matter how pivotal they may appear at the time. Second: Learn the goals of others, and find valid, honest reasons to respect those goals. Third: Seek ways to align your goals with theirs. As you begin this process, look for ways to make their goals part of your goal, and your goal part of their’s. If you’re successful, you’ll achieve the power that only combined forces can attain.
2. Apply the Power of Context! To successfully align yourself with others, you need to discover their desires, beliefs, personality traits, behaviors, and demographic characteristics: the central features that define their context. When you know where they’re coming from, you’ll be able to know them inside and out. You’ll know who they are behind the personality that they’re trying to project—or, possibly, the person that you fear they may be. Knowing others includes knowing how they see you. If they get the wrong impression, show them the real you. Because people are who they are, approach them on that level, without trying to make them into something they’re not. In short: never argue context.
3. Craft Your Encounters! When you meet with potential allies, plan the meeting meticulously: especially the first one. Create the perfect environment for it. Know—before the meeting begins—its proper mood, the special nature of the occasion, the perfect time and place, your opening remark, your goal, and your gift: what you have to offer. With well-crafted encounters, you’ll be able to travel toward trust with the force of a river to the sea, carrying everyone present on the same current.
4. Connect! To successfully align your goals—and maintain the alignment—speak the same language: figuratively, and literally. Words—and the character traits they reveal—are the primary tools that build trust. To create strong, lasting relationships that fulfill goals, speak the language of reason, respect, and consideration. The language of trust—verbal and nonverbal—does not express egotism, judgment, irrationality, or selfishness. It is a language—and a lifestyle—of understanding, validation, and help. It’s about them, not you. Even when relationships change, and goals are forgotten, words and the sentiments they convey can remain in the brain forever.
Communications Style Inventory
This is a system created by Robin Dreeke for addressing people in the specific manner in which they prefer to be addressed, such as in a highly personal manner, or in a more formal, impersonal manner. The Dreeke “CSI” was derived in part from the Marston DISC system (see DISC), the first popular system of personality typing. The CSI categorizes people into four general types of communicators: Direct, Task-Oriented Communicators; Direct, People-Oriented Communicators; Indirect, Task-Oriented Communicators; and Indirect, People-Oriented Communicators. Dreeke has demonstrated that addressing people in their preferred style of communication is a major asset in inspiring their trust.
5 Ws of Crafting an Encounter
The 5 Ws are part of the fourth step to trust, Craft the Encounter. Applying them properly amplifies the opportunity to inspire trust. Each of the 5 Ws refers to an aspect of a person that significantly determines the most effective way in which to address him or her. They include knowing the following: (1) Who, in detail, the person is, demographically and personally. (2) What the person’s external attributes are, including their occupation, preferred style of dress, and conversational style. (3) When the most likely time is that they will lower their defensive shields. (4) Where the ideal place is for them to lower their defensive shields. (5) Why it is in their best interests to meet you, and to align your mutual goals.
Language of Trust
A concept, created in The Code of Trust, that refers to a specific trust-inspiring style of speaking. The style is based upon a philosophical commitment to humility, reason, respect, and consideration, in contrast to egotism, irrationality, judgmentalism, and selfishness. Various words and phrases compose and animate this language, and others defeat it. Mastering the language is essential to those who seek trust-based leadership.
Hub and Spoke Method
The method devised by Robin Dreeke for helping to create groups that are linked by mutual trust. His system is named after a flight technique, in which a pilot focuses on a central instrument, or hub, then glances at the instruments that surround it, designated as “spokes.” In a tribe of trust, each “spoke” is also the “hub” of his or her own tribe of trust. This can create networks of overlapping tribes, all linked by the quality of mutual trust.
Isopraxis
A behavioral technique aimed at gaining acceptance and affiliation with a person by essentially adopting that person’s style of verbal and nonverbal communication. Although the technique can be effective when it is implemented skillfully, it can become self-defeating when it is used in a clumsy, exaggerated manner.
1. Suspend your ego. Each of us, by the very nature of our existence, is and must remain the focus of our own life. To gain the gift of another’s trust, you must grant them that natural, normal focus. Their life, regardless of all the people they’re responsible for, is all about them. Not you. If you accept that, they will open the door of their trust to you. The single most compelling trait of trust is simple humility.
2. Be nonjudgmental. Respect the opinions, attitudes, ideas, and perspectives of all people—no matter how foreign, or even opposed to your own. No one trusts people who look down on them, and no one trusts people who don’t understand them. Not being judgmental is the greatest invitation to trust that you can possibly offer.
3. Validate others. There is common decency in every person—regardless of their opinions—and to be worthy of their trust, you must recognize their common decency, show them your own, and join them in that shared respect. All of us are born with the sacred right to our own ideas, and not one of us was born with the desire to destroy or alienate others. Common decency is the common ground of humankind.
4. Honor reason. Resist every temptation to personalize, emotionalize, debate, exaggerate, manipulate, or coerce. Stick to the facts, and be honest. Only those who rely on reason, reflected by honesty, can create the foundation of rational, shared self-interest that all enduring trust rests upon. Trust inspired by mere emotionalism lasts only as long as the next emotion. Leadership inspired by fear is simply fear. Give people a good reason to trust you, and they will.
5. Be generous. Don’t expect to receive the gift of trust unless you offer a gift of your own. People do not allow themselves to trust those who create one-sided relationships. Selfishness repels. Generosity attracts. The most generous gift you can offer is your own trust. The most lasting gift you can offer is the loyalty of enduring trust.
The Four Steps The Action Plan for Inspiring Trust
1. Align Your Goals! First: Determine your own ultimate goal: the prize that justifies your sacrifices. Choose it carefully, and follow it faithfully. Don’t get distracted by lesser goals, no matter how pivotal they may appear at the time. Second: Learn the goals of others, and find valid, honest reasons to respect those goals. Third: Seek ways to align your goals with theirs. As you begin this process, look for ways to make their goals part of your goal, and your goal part of their’s. If you’re successful, you’ll achieve the power that only combined forces can attain.
2. Apply the Power of Context! To successfully align yourself with others, you need to discover their desires, beliefs, personality traits, behaviors, and demographic characteristics: the central features that define their context. When you know where they’re coming from, you’ll be able to know them inside and out. You’ll know who they are behind the personality that they’re trying to project—or, possibly, the person that you fear they may be. Knowing others includes knowing how they see you. If they get the wrong impression, show them the real you. Because people are who they are, approach them on that level, without trying to make them into something they’re not. In short: never argue context.
3. Craft Your Encounters! When you meet with potential allies, plan the meeting meticulously: especially the first one. Create the perfect environment for it. Know—before the meeting begins—its proper mood, the special nature of the occasion, the perfect time and place, your opening remark, your goal, and your gift: what you have to offer. With well-crafted encounters, you’ll be able to travel toward trust with the force of a river to the sea, carrying everyone present on the same current.
4. Connect! To successfully align your goals—and maintain the alignment—speak the same language: figuratively, and literally. Words—and the character traits they reveal—are the primary tools that build trust. To create strong, lasting relationships that fulfill goals, speak the language of reason, respect, and consideration. The language of trust—verbal and nonverbal—does not express egotism, judgment, irrationality, or selfishness. It is a language—and a lifestyle—of understanding, validation, and help. It’s about them, not you. Even when relationships change, and goals are forgotten, words and the sentiments they convey can remain in the brain forever.
Communications Style Inventory
This is a system created by Robin Dreeke for addressing people in the specific manner in which they prefer to be addressed, such as in a highly personal manner, or in a more formal, impersonal manner. The Dreeke “CSI” was derived in part from the Marston DISC system (see DISC), the first popular system of personality typing. The CSI categorizes people into four general types of communicators: Direct, Task-Oriented Communicators; Direct, People-Oriented Communicators; Indirect, Task-Oriented Communicators; and Indirect, People-Oriented Communicators. Dreeke has demonstrated that addressing people in their preferred style of communication is a major asset in inspiring their trust.
5 Ws of Crafting an Encounter
The 5 Ws are part of the fourth step to trust, Craft the Encounter. Applying them properly amplifies the opportunity to inspire trust. Each of the 5 Ws refers to an aspect of a person that significantly determines the most effective way in which to address him or her. They include knowing the following: (1) Who, in detail, the person is, demographically and personally. (2) What the person’s external attributes are, including their occupation, preferred style of dress, and conversational style. (3) When the most likely time is that they will lower their defensive shields. (4) Where the ideal place is for them to lower their defensive shields. (5) Why it is in their best interests to meet you, and to align your mutual goals.
Language of Trust
A concept, created in The Code of Trust, that refers to a specific trust-inspiring style of speaking. The style is based upon a philosophical commitment to humility, reason, respect, and consideration, in contrast to egotism, irrationality, judgmentalism, and selfishness. Various words and phrases compose and animate this language, and others defeat it. Mastering the language is essential to those who seek trust-based leadership.
Hub and Spoke Method
The method devised by Robin Dreeke for helping to create groups that are linked by mutual trust. His system is named after a flight technique, in which a pilot focuses on a central instrument, or hub, then glances at the instruments that surround it, designated as “spokes.” In a tribe of trust, each “spoke” is also the “hub” of his or her own tribe of trust. This can create networks of overlapping tribes, all linked by the quality of mutual trust.
Isopraxis
A behavioral technique aimed at gaining acceptance and affiliation with a person by essentially adopting that person’s style of verbal and nonverbal communication. Although the technique can be effective when it is implemented skillfully, it can become self-defeating when it is used in a clumsy, exaggerated manner.
