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November 7, 2024 42 mins

In this episode of From Crisis to Justice, Parag Amin sits down with Dr. Darryl Stickel, a world-renowned expert on trust and executive coach with over 20 years of experience. Dr. Stickel shares his incredible journey of resilience and how trust became the foundation of his life’s work. From facing personal challenges to advising global organizations, Dr. Stickel explains why trust is a business owner’s most powerful asset.

 

Join Parag and Dr. Stickel as they uncover how mastering trust can transform relationships, both personal and professional. Here’s what you’ll learn:

 

1. The Essentials of Trust-Building: Discover the practical steps to building trust that lasts, essential for business growth.

 

2. The Power of Vulnerability: How showing genuine vulnerability can actually strengthen business relationships and drive loyalty.

 

3. Trust as Competitive Advantage: Real-world examples of how trust fuels sustainable success in any industry.

 

Whether you’re looking to lead a more motivated team, build stronger client relationships, or gain a lasting edge over competitors, this episode provides actionable insights for building trust that can elevate your business.

 

Learn more about Parag's business law firm: lawpla.com
Discover more about Parag: paraglamin.com
 
Learn more about Darryl Stickel and how he helps leaders build trust within their team: https://www.trustunlimited.com/
 
 
 
 
Join Our Newsletter for Business Law Insights and Updates: https://tinyurl.com/LawPLAsignup

 

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, I'm Parag Amin.
Welcome to my podcast.
From crisis to justice.
As a lawyer and entrepreneur, I'mpassionate about helping small business
owners successfully navigate situationsthat can kill a business.
As a kid, I watched my dad's dreamsof being an entrepreneur destroyed
by an unethical businessman, and I don'twant that to happen to you or your family.

(00:22):
That's why I started my law firm.
I want to protect and defend businessowners and their legacies from crisis.
Welcome to.
From crisis to justice.
Welcome back, everyone.
From the Crisis to Justice podcast.
I'm your host, Parag Amin.
Today I'm joined by a very special guest,doctor Darryl Stickle.

(00:46):
He's the world's leading thoughtleader on trust.
He teaches leaders how to find and usetheir most powerful tool, which is trust.
He's an executive coachwith over 20 years of experience.
He holds a PhD in businessfrom Duke University.
He's lectured at Harvard about trust.
Doctor Stickle, thank you so muchfor joining us here today.

(01:07):
It's a pleasure to be here with youand your audience.
And, earlier, before we got on,you said it's okay if I call you Darryl.
Yeah. Please do.
I tend to be kind of informal.
Love that.
Yeah,and that's one of the things I noticed,
as well, when we were talking beforestarting the podcast.
So, Darryl, how did you get startedin this area of trust?

(01:27):
So so that's a good question.
I mean, I was bornand raised in a small town
in northern British Columbia,and it was fairly isolated and
people had to pull together.
And so there's this sense of communitythat if you could help, help somebody,
you should. And,
so that was
that was part of my upbringing,part of my experience.

(01:49):
And then when I was a young man, in 1984,
I was attacked by a fan with a clubwhile I was playing junior hockey.
And shattered my helmet.
I ended up
being taken by ambulance to the hospital.
According to one of my teammates, I.
I stopped breathingthree times on the way to the hospital.
And it was a profound concussion.

(02:14):
And I'm
legally blind, and I knew that Iwas going to lose my vision.
It's a progressive hereditary
retinal disorder, and I knew thatI was going to lose my eyesight.
And so I had plannedon thinking for a living.
And now all of a sudden, I couldn't think.
And so I experienced anxiety and fear

(02:34):
and helplessness and hopelessness.
And it heightened my sense of empathyfor others.
And so
eventually,I went to the University of Victoria,
and I was doing my undergraduate degreein psychology.
People would just come up to me.
Strangers would sit down
next to me on the bus and say,I'm having a really hard time.
And and so I wanted to understand

(02:56):
what it was that caused peopleto open up to me like that.
And so I worked with troubledteens and families in crisis.
I worked with street kids.
I worked on crisis lines
to hone those skillsand to better understand them.
And then I ended upworking for the Ministry of

(03:18):
or Federal TreatyNegotiations Office in British Columbia.
We were negotiating landclaim settlements with natives.
And they asked me these sort of deepphilosophical questions like,
what is self-government?
Or what will the provincelook like 50 years after claims or settle?
The last question they asked me was,how do we convince a group of people
we've shafted for over 100 years?
They should trust us?

(03:40):
And I just thought,wow, that's a good question.
And so I went to Dukeand I started studying
and trying to understandhow to build trust in hostile environments
and and to understandwhy these disputes were so resilient,
why they seem to last for so long,even though they didn't seem to really
benefit anyone.

(04:01):
And so I finished my doctoral thesis,
went to work for McKinsey and company,big management consulting firm,
and they said, well, you got the bestclient hands we've ever seen.
We're going to send youto the worst places possible.
And so I got a chanceto apply the model and

(04:23):
see it in action.
And, and it was a whole new kindof learning.
And then in 2001,I was involved in a car accident,
ended up with post-concussion syndrome.
Just couldn't
work 80 hours a week anymore.
And, you know,I still struggle with fatigue.
And and I'll have momentsof concentration lapse.

(04:45):
But a friend of mine had left McKinsey
and become head of strategyfor a mutual fund company.
And he said, just come talk to usabout sustainable competitive advantage.
And so I found myself
in front of hundreds of peopleat this retreat, this offsite,
saying sustainable competitive advantagemeans you do something
better than your competition,that they can't copy

(05:06):
and you don't do anything.
I can't copy your mutual fund copy.
I could buy one share of every fundyou've got.
And and now I can replicate those
because I know how they're all built,and I don't have to pay the fund advisor
so I can sell you sell the discount.
I said the only thing you could dois build
deep, long term relationshipswith your customers.

(05:27):
And they went, that's it.
That's our strategy.
And so I spent the next 18 monthsbuilding a workshop
based on my doctoral thesis, problemsolving with them,
applying the concepts, consulting,solving problems that they'd run across.
And after 18 months,they hired a professional survey firm,
found out that trust wasthe primary driver of the sales decision

(05:51):
that they had become
dramatically more trustedthan any of their competitors.
And they generated $0.75of every new dollar
that came into the industryfor the next two years.
They were part of a global investmentorganization,
and that organization startedsending teams from all over the world
to figure out what they were doingbecause they were dominating.

(06:13):
And so from that, I knew,
okay,what I have is a perfect but it works.
And so I spent the next 25 yearshelping people better understand
what trust is, how it works,and most importantly, how to build it.
And so I engaged in skill buildingand helping people solve problems
in in high tech and heavy industry, in

(06:36):
government, in nonprofits.
I helped the Canadian militarytry to figure out how to build trust
with the locals in Afghanistan.
And through all of this, I'm learning,
and it's just beenan incredible experience.
The impact that you can have and the waythat you can change behavior patterns.
Yeah, 100%.
So so what is the right way to buildtrust with someone?

(06:59):
So I the model I developed starts offwith what is trust.
So let's let's have a shared understandingof what that is first.
And it's trust is the willingnessto make yourself vulnerable
when you can't completely predicthow someone else is going to be case.
And so it's got elements of uncertaintyand vulnerability cooked into it.

(07:20):
And for me,I believe that it's uncertainty
times vulnerabilitygives us a level of perceived risk.
And we each have a threshold of riskthat we're comfortable with.
And so if our perception goesbeyond that threshold, we don't trust
if it's beneath it, then we do.
And so that means that buildingtrust is actually really simple.
It's where does uncertainty come fromand how do I take steps to reduce it.

(07:43):
And where does vulnerability come from?
How do I take steps to better understandit and minimize it for the other person?
Because in early relationships, we've gotreally high levels of uncertainty,
which means we can only toleratea small range of vulnerability.
But as that relationship gets deeper,the uncertainty goes down.
And the range of vulnerabilitywe can tolerate starts to grow.

(08:06):
And so what
we can do to buildtrust is systematically understand
where uncertainty comes fromand take steps to reduce it.
So the best way for us to build
trust is to understandthe other person's perspective,
and to start leaning in to
try to make it easier for them to predicthow we're going to behave.

(08:28):
Okay.
So can you give us an everyday exampleof that, of reducing uncertainty
to make the person feel comfortable?
Yeah, absolutely.
And so where does uncertainty come from?
It comes from us as individuals.
And it comes from the contextthat we're embedded in.
And so if I explain my context to
you really well so you're a lawyer.

(08:52):
You have rules and regulations.
You've got the bar that overseesyour behavior.
You've got all kinds of constraintswithin the context.
And as people come to understand those,
they're better able to predicthow you're going to behave.
And we see thatwith professional services like yours.

(09:14):
If we want to talk about where
individual uncertainty comes from,there are three levers that we talk about.
There's benevolence, integrityand ability.
And benevolence is the belief.
You've got my best interest at heartand that you'll act in my best interest.
Integrity isdo you follow through on your promises
and do your actionsline up with the values that you express?

(09:35):
And ability is do I have the capacity
to do what I say I'm going to do?
And so when I look at your one sheet,
I see incredible examples of ability.
You got your law degree at USC.
You've got all these awards,the Rising Star Awards,
for almost a decade now.

(09:56):
You've got all kinds of awards
and nominations and prestige.
Right. And that's the ability whatever.
If wewere going to pull the benevolence lever,
we would actually want to talk to someoneabout what their best interest for
what success looks like for them
and then gain an understanding.

(10:18):
And so the example I use often is
tellingpeople have the following conversation.
Approachsomeone and say, I heard this guy Darrell.
He was talking about trust.
He said that benevolence really matters.
And that means having someone's backor doing what's in their best interest.
And I think I do that, but it doesn'talways seem to lend that way.

(10:39):
Do you ever experience that?
Overwhelmingly, the other personis going to say, yeah, I have.
Well, tell me about that. What happened?What did you try to do?
How did it get misinterpreted?
And then you start to narrow the funnel
and you say to someone,never really have to.
Did you ever have a momentwhere it felt like
someone really was benevolent to.

(11:02):
And usually they're going to say,yeah, they're going to
start to think about a momentwhere someone walked out for them
and tried to dowhat was in their best interest.
And you could explore that
and you could say, what was it that madeyou think that they had your back?
What did they do? How did it feel?
Now you're getting hints.
You narrow the funnel further and you say,

(11:25):
what does success mean to you?
What would it look like to youif I was benevolent?
If I had your best interest?
And now
you've created an opportunityfor transparency.
Because
a lot of times when we're acting insomeone's best interest,
it doesn't always land,
right.
And you think about the parent childrelationship.

(11:47):
I ask parents,when I do work with parenting groups,
I'll say, how many of you haveyour kid's best interests at heart?
And all of the hands go up?
Yeah, you can feel the breeze
and then
when I flip that question
and I say, oh, how many of you do that?

(12:08):
It's about 00000.
And so. Oh, oh. How is it?
Oh I missed
It should be so much.
Oh, but it's
part of the challenge hereis that we actually need to include.

(12:28):
Oh, well.
My kids think that I have theirbest interests at heart.
Oh. Include them in the conversation.
I ask them what? Successful. Yeah.
And a lot of times as parents,we're thinking about, oh,
next week, next month, next year,ten years.
We're asking engagement behaviors next.
That would benefit them, years from.

(12:51):
And we don't hold ourselves.
And it often misinterpreted
as controlling or manipulating or nagging.
And then in reality,
we want them to feelis that we've got their back.
We want them to turn to uswhen it matters most.
And so we do that by helping thembe successful the moment,

(13:15):
because we're thinking about the futurethat's thinking about right, that.
And so
when we start to try to pull these levers,I think, you know, in my model
there are ten levers.
We all have the ability to build trust.
Some are better than others.
Those who are
great have a lever that they pull,and it's usually the ability lever, right.

(13:35):
I have these credentialsas much experience as backward.
Those who are better have multiple levers.
And those who are really good havemultiple levels and they know wonderful.
Which one?
And so what I try to do when I workwith folks is expand the number of levers
in their toolkit, and then helpshow them how to pull those levers.

(13:57):
And so we just talked about benevolence.
I gave your listenersa conversation that they could have.
And once they've had that conversation,they can refer back to it and go,
you remember when you told methis is what benevolence would look like?
This is me doing that.
So it reduces the opportunityfor miscommunication
or failed perception on the other part.

(14:17):
Yeah. Okay. And so
how longdoes it typically take to build trust.
Well so that's a good question.
And one of the one of the challengesthat we see.
So there's there's
an old phrase, you know,
trust takes a long time to buildand it's to destroy.

(14:37):
And it's never the same onceit's been destroyed.
And I think that's B.S..
We can actually buildtrust fairly quickly.
Trust is not a dichotomous variable,right?
It's not like an old light switch whereyou either trust somebody or you don't.
We trust some people more than others.

(14:59):
And so building deep relationshipscan absolutely take time.
But think about situationswhere you don't know
the other person very well at all, yetyou still trust them.
You know, you go to a doctor's office,they say, take off your clothes and you do
right?
I've tried that in other places.
It doesn't work right.
I say to people, hey, I'm a doctor.
I'm just,you know, not that kind of doctor.

(15:22):
And, you know, we get on an airplane.
You don't know the pilot.
We get in a cab,we cross the street in front of traffic.
There are contextual cuesthat drive us to trust people,
at least at some minimal level.
All the time, it's how societies function.
And so
I tend to think about usbuilding deeper relationships.

(15:45):
And it can actually happen fairly quickly.
And it leads us to be intentional.
Right. And so
one of the reasons I wrote my book is that
I was concerned that the perspective
I had would be lostif something happened to me.

(16:06):
And so I
try to put everything I could in the book,including the full model,
all ten levers that we talk aboutand ways to pull those levers.
And if we're
we need to be intentionalnow more than ever before,
because trust used to accruenaturally over time,
because we're in smaller groups and we'drun into each other over and over again.

(16:30):
That doesn't happen as much anymore.
You know, our relationshipstend to be a mile wide and inch deep.
They tend to be less resilient.
And so we need to be thoughtfulabout conversations we have initially
with folks.
And in the work that I do,I get people to start
applying the model immediatelyin relationships in their lives.

(16:53):
And the results are rapid and dramatic.
And often it
involves having a first conversationwhere you say to someone,
you know, I've been reading this book,or I've been listening to this podcast
where I'm hearingabout the topic of trust.
And there's some suggestions in thereabout how to build stronger relationships.

(17:15):
And I'd like to try that out with you.
What do you think?
And overwhelmingly,the response is positive.
And even that stated intention
gets us moving in a positive direction
and then intentionally pulling the leversaround benevolence intentionally,
you know, having a conversation aboutwhat does excellence look like?

(17:39):
You know, we pull the ability lever
constantly,but we don't always do it really well.
And so, you know,I talk with senior executives
and I'll have a group togetherand I'll say,
what does excellencelook like in your role?
And people give it some thought
and then they'll come backwith a few answers.
And I said, have you includedother stakeholders in that definition?

(18:02):
Because it's one thing for youand I to discuss
what excellence would look likefor my presentation on this podcast.
But if we really wanted to know,
we'd ask your listeners,
right?
And we include them in that conversationsaying,
what is the best podcastThe Frog has done?
What was it that made it fantastic?
What does exceptionallook like for this podcast?

(18:25):
How do I drive interest for you?
How do I serve you in a waythat's compelling and consistent?
And that would actually reallyinform our behavior on here.
Yeah, I agree with that.
In terms of trust, my my view on trust is,is similar to the quote
that you talked about earlier in terms ofif it takes a long time to build that, an

(18:46):
instinct to destroy.
My view on trust is
if somebody has to earn my trust firstly,
and then if somebody then violatesthat trust, it's pretty much gone.
And I treat
my relationships with othersthe same way that I view it
is, you know, it's a it's a privilegeto be trusted.

(19:08):
And a single violation of trust can cost
you the entirety of the trust forever.
And so, because trust is such a privilege,
I think it takes a long time to earn,as do many privileges.
But all it takes is, is a moment
in time to showthat somebody can't handle that privilege.

(19:31):
That I can be gone for a long time,including potentially forever.
Do you think that's the right wayto think about trust that it's
all or nothing or no,or that it can be lost in a moment?
I think perhaps Kent can be lostin a moment forever.
But I think that's the exceptionrather than the rule.
I think
that we're human beingsand we make mistakes,

(19:54):
and that
the more I trust you,the more grace I have for you,
the more generous I amwith my interpretation of your actions,
the more willing I am to hear you outand listen to your rationalization,
or to stick with youwhile you're working through something
or trying to get better.
And so I think that there can becatastrophic events

(20:18):
that destroy trust forever.
But but they're not common.
And and that's backto thinking about trust.
Like it's either present or absent.
We can have interactions
that that build on that trustthat we have with one another.
And then we can have interactionsthat decrease it,
but it doesn't completely go away.

(20:39):
And the example I'm giving you have kids,right? Yes.
I have one daughter.
Okay. Yes. Your daughter.
She's about to turn three in September.
Okay.
So your daughter's going to hit a phasein her life
where she realizesthat she gets in trouble.
Sometimes when things happen,
and she's not goingto, like, getting in trouble.

(21:01):
And so she's going to explore.
Being creative
with the truth.
Right.
And it's going to come a timewhere she outright lies to you
because she doesn't want to get drilled.
I didn't do it.I don't know what happened.
It was the dog.
Whatever.
Do you thinkthat you would never trust her again?

(21:22):
No. I think that in that circumstanceI would.
So because, I mean, it's my daughter.
As opposed to the way I was talking aboutit was more.
So, let's say,
somebody that you're
doing business withor somebody who's not family
has family, I thinkhas also a bit of a built in trust.

(21:45):
And so there's that aspect
of your you're more willingto extend the trust
to family membersthan others, correct? Yes.
For better or worse.
It's the context, right? It'sbarriers to exit.
One of my favorite booksis a book called Barriers to Exit.
If trust disappeared forever,

(22:06):
every time it was violated,there wouldn't be any left in the world.
Because we make mistakes.
We're human beings, and we can havemisperception and miscommunications.
And if we don't take a momentto be curious and give one another grace,
it can be gone forever.
But I would argue that there'sthe potential for it to be rebuilt

(22:30):
and make that
relationship stronger than it ever was.
And we see examples. Okay. Well.
So so how does one. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
No, no, you're you're about to ask me,how do you how do you recover.
Right. That's right.
And how do you decide.
How do you decide if you give somebodyanother chance or not?
You know, if it's.If it's my daughter. Certainly.

(22:52):
Right.
And your daughter.
Her first violation of trustwill probably occur
at the hands of either of youor your or your partner.
Right.
And it'll be because, you know what?
With my kids, I went out of my way
to make sure that they weren'toverly vulnerable to anyone else.
I protected them.

(23:13):
And so they were most vulnerable to me.
And so.
When we see a trust violation,
let's say that I had showed up
late for a podcast.
Or I said something inappropriate

(23:34):
that outraged you and your listeners.
The first step for me is to apologize.
But it's not enoughjust for me to take ownership.
What I need to do is actually tryto understand the harm that I caused,
how you were vulnerable,and how you were injured
by my defection.

(23:56):
And so for me to be able to say,
this is what happened,
I think this is how it impacted you.
And I'm really sorry that that happened.
And then be able to explain whyit happened.
So sharing my story,trying to understand your story
because we interpretthe world through stories.

(24:20):
And then I need to follow up by saying,
and these are the stepsI'll take to try to make it
so that that doesn't happen again.
Or so it's less likely to happen again.
And so essentially what we've done is
we've seen an increase in the uncertainty.
And so what I need to do is resetso that the vulnerabilities lower again

(24:40):
and start working onreducing that uncertainty again.
So that the range of vulnerabilitiesof the relationship gets deeper.
The range of vulnerabilityyou can tolerate starts to grow.
Partly I do that
by explaining the context,trying to make changes in the context
so that it encouragesmy behavior in proper direction.

(25:04):
And for your part,
you need to understandis this part of who Daryl is,
or is this part of the
context that drove his behavior?
And you know,
in the model that I use, I,I leverage the work.
There's great work doneby other people on vulnerability.

(25:25):
You know, we talk about Bernie Brown'swork on vulnerability.
We talk about Amy Edmondsonwork on social psychological safety.
They talk about being vulnerable.
And actually,one of the best ways for us to build
trust with oneanother is to be vulnerable first.
Right.
So if I make myself vulnerable to you,

(25:48):
it initiates a norm of reciprocity.
It makes you feel like, hey,I should be vulnerable back.
And so if I make myself just a little bitvulnerable and you don't respond
that I know this is probablynot fertile ground right now.
So ifI make myself a little bit vulnerable
and then you respond in kind,we start this kind of dance

(26:09):
where we explorethe range of the relationship.
And I, you know, I try to be transparent.
So from the momentyou and I started talking,
I felt a connection
and I thought, oh, look, this guy,
I'd like to spend more timehanging out with Perro.

(26:30):
He's clearly intelligent,really articulate.
He's someone I'd like to havein my circle, my orbit.
Someone I can chat with on occasion.
And so, by making that explicit,
we start to reduce the
areas of possible misunderstanding.

(26:52):
We start to reduce the uncertaintyfor one another. And
I can do my best if I've made a violation
to try to behave in a better way.
And then it's
your decisionabout whether to accept that or not,
because we're not going to be super closewith everyone.
There's some peoplewe shouldn't be vulnerable with

(27:13):
because they have the wrong incentives,or they're just a little bit
wired in a way that isn't good for us.
Yeah, I love that.
So so I think you're saying essentiallytrust ingredients as long as the person
has shown a willingness or an ability toto accept trust with grace and handle it,
then trust in a little bit more, startwith the vulnerability of letting them,

(27:38):
you show some vulnerability first,see if they're willing
to show some vulnerability andand then you go from there.
But if it's if there's no reciprocity,if they don't return in kind,
then you've got an early indicationthat perhaps
this is not the right placeto extend trust.
Exactly. And
a lot of times we let other peoplechoose, right.

(28:00):
If we're smart.
You know, when I used to work with streetkids, I would position myself somewhere
and let them approach meand choose the distance.
And so by letting other people choose,
by having empathy for other folks,by having these conversations,
and this is one of the things,
you know, before we started,we were talking about

(28:23):
there can be a social stigmaabout saying you don't trust someone.
What we found is that oncewe show people the model and give them
the vocabulary, they're able to talk aboutuncertainty and vulnerability.
It's not as personal,
right?
And so if if you say to me,do you trust me?
The right response is with what?

(28:46):
And if I'm sort of
suggesting to you that our relationshipcould be deeper and closer,
then I would start by saying,
well, there's some things I don't know.
I've got some uncertainty
because we haven'tspent a lot of time together.
You know, we have a sharedmutual connection that connected us.

(29:07):
We've had a few brief exchangesand interactions.
We can have this conversation,
but I need to know more.
BeforeI was willing to be more vulnerable.
Well, that's not offensive at all.
Right.
And you can hear that and go,no, I get that.
That makes sense.
That's not about me.
That's about his understanding of me.

(29:30):
And really, all I need to do iscommunicate more clearly and effectively.
And a lot of times what we're trying to dois help people close the gap
between how much they should be trustedand how much they actually are.
And so as it relates to trust,
how do you decide whether to,
especially if somebody has violatedthe trust to extend the trust.

(29:52):
Again that's a deeply personal decision.
A lot of times what I find helpful
is and
for me it makes sense because I,I developed the, the model for trust
and I, I've lived it for,
you know, over 20 years.

(30:12):
But I'll start going throughsome of the questions, the levers
and asking questions about,well, what are your values
and what are the things you're comfortablewith?
What does good look like for you?
So the ability lever,
what do you think my interests areand what are you willing to do
to help protect them?

(30:33):
What matters most to me
and I don't really understand your contextvery well.
So how do you get rewarded?
How do you get evaluated?
What are the things that
impose constraints on you in your life?
And so I would have questions that wouldtry to reduce my own uncertainty.
And I'd start with a really small rangeof vulnerability.

(30:55):
Okay. Start back on the trustgradient again.
Just start over. Yeah.
And you know, if
one of the challenges we see is
we've got these virtuousand vicious cycles, right.
You and I mean,we kind of like each other.
We start on a positive trajectory.
We start trusting each other.
And it it's cycles, right?

(31:15):
It creates this virtuous cycle because
I told you about uncertainty timesvulnerability equals risk.
That is the trust decisionthat leads to a perceived outcome.
Right.
And we interpret the world through story.
So I may think the outcome was greatand that you're responsible for it.
That's how I evaluate the outcomes.
Was it good or badand who gets the credit.

(31:37):
Who gets the blame.
And itthen feeds back into our next interaction.
And in the middle of all
this is our emotional states,whether we like or dislike somebody else.
And that acts as a filter.
Right.
And part of the reasonwe see these sort of long
term hostile disputes is because

(31:58):
all of our attempts to build trust
or our cognitive and rational,
you know, all the research treatspeople like the rational actors.
And I don't know,
you've got a three year old,so I'm not sure
if you've met people or not,but we're not all rational.
And in fact,
most of ushave moments of irrational behavior.

(32:19):
And so those emotional states,
when we're in a hostile environmentor when we're talking about,
you know, vilification of others, the
the polarization of different nations.
It's emotional.
And that'swhere we need to intervene first.
And so we can have this positive,virtuous cycle going on.

(32:42):
And then all of a sudden you reveal to methat you have a set of values
or beliefs that are really horrific to me.
And I go back and I reevaluate all thoseexchanges through a different lens,
and it can cause us to corkscrewto a negative space very quickly.
And I may decide I was fooled very badly.

(33:04):
I don't want to havethat relationship in my life anymore.
That'swhere the incident you're talking about,
where trust was brokenand it can't be repaired.
Because it's not that it's impossibleto repair, it's that I'm unwilling.
That makes sense. And so.
So let me ask youa deeply personal question, then.

(33:25):
Sure.
What's the what's the biggest
breach of trust you have sufferedand how did you deal with it?
I wow.
So there's a few things that come to mind.

(33:47):
One was, one of my advisors on my master'sthesis.
Asked me to put something in my thesisand then use that to attack me
during my public defense.
And was grandstanding
about it.
And made me look bad.

(34:10):
Made him look good.
I was angry and vindictive.
You know.
I had,
you know, those old screensaverswhere the text used to scroll by.
Yes. I had his name on there, and I said,you know, such and such must die.

(34:34):
And it was a scroll across my screen.
I didn't try to reestablishthat relationship.
I distance myself from that person.
And that's not always the right solution.
In my case, I don't think it really did meharm, because I was getting ready
to move on to another phase ofmy life in another location.

(34:59):
But those
situations of power and balancewhere someone takes advantage.
I don't like bullies being an actin an academic setting
as a doctoral student is probablythe least empowered you can be.
Because what good looks like
is subjectiveand seems to change with the tides,
and it's very political.

(35:22):
It can be a wonderful experienceif you've got the right committee.
It can be an awful experienceif you have the wrong committee.
And so for me,
I am always aware of that.
I try to help people.
I've always had a streak of wantingto stand up for those who struggled

(35:43):
to stand up for themselves.Yeah. That's great.
Yeah.
You and I have that in common,along with other things.
Let me ask you, Daryl, was therewhether signs you think in hindsight
you could and should have spottedas it relates to that advisor,
that you
should have maybe seenthat breach of trust coming?
Yeah, I don't know.

(36:06):
Possibly.
I could have done more exploration.
You know, there have been
I've experienced challengesin a number of different ways.
You know, the fence with the clubbeing visually
impaired.
You know, there are

(36:27):
there are challengesthat you experience in the world.
I think that it's more productiveto think about how we respond
to those challenges.
One of the things I learned as a parent,
I talked about stepping on a rake.
You know, and the visualas you step on the foot of a rake

(36:47):
and the handle comes up and bopsyou in the nose
and I would say to my sons as they weregrowing up, look out, there's a rake.
Look out, there's a rake.
And what I, I came to realize
all they're learningis a dad knows where the rocks are.
And so
I actually started to pull back from thata bit and come alongside.

(37:09):
As long as the rake wasn't too bigand say, wow, that looked like it hurt.
So something we could learn fromfrom that.
And how are we going to respondnow that it's happened?
So is there a waywe could avoid it in the future?
And there's something we could do
to make this better.
And you know, the question

(37:29):
you ask really brings that to mind for mebecause.
There may have been some of his colleagues
that could have reached out to you to say,you know, is this a good choice?
But I didn't do that.
And he didn't
really see me giving me many signals

(37:49):
that he was going to be a challenge,beforehand.
We don't. Okay. Yeah. Sometimes.
Yeah.Some things you just don't see coming.
As much as you tryor as much as you reflect on it.
So if you could impart one piece of wisdom
to the listeners about trust,what would that be?
So many of your listeners are leaders.
And my take is that the more senioryou become,

(38:12):
the less direct controlyou have of outcomes.
The more you depend on those you lead toreach your goals and objectives.
And if you want to be
successful, if you want your peopleto go through a wall for you,
you need to build trust with them.
You need to create an environmentwhere they're comfortable making mistakes
and learning and growing and adapting.

(38:34):
And we talked about leading with roomperfections.
You need to create an environment wherepeople are aware that you're not perfect,
and that your expectation isn'tthat they will be perfect.
I love that.
Very useful, very helpful.
But, maybe not too many mistakesthough, right?
I mean.
Know you want to learn, though, right? So.

(38:55):
So think back towhen you were in that role.
What are some of the mistakes you made?
You know, a lot of leaders. I'll ask them,
you know,
what madeyou a great leader five years ago.
Is it the same thingthat makes you a great leader today?
And the answer is always no.
You know,I've learned a evolved and adapted.
Well, what about five years from now

(39:16):
are the things that are going to make youa great leader five years from now.
The same is what makes you a great leader.
No no, no.
So you're going to need to let go ofsome of the things you're really good at
and step into thingsthat will make you great in your new role.
And when you do that,you are going to stumble.
You may fall

(39:36):
and it is in your best interest
to let people know ahead of timethat that's what they should expect.
And then your expectation of them isthat they're going to help you get up.
Learn from it and get better,
because that's the same thingyou should be doing for them.
I completely agree with that.
I think I think life is a it'san endless evolution

(39:56):
of you becoming a better version of you.
And there's aspects to itwhere you should know more today
than you knewfive years ago or ten years ago,
so you should be a betterleader, is how I see it.
And as it relates to mistakes,mistakes happen
and so there's a, there's a differencebetween a careless mistake and a mistake.

(40:16):
That was just a it happenedto be a bad decision in hindsight.
Right. And I try to distinguishbetween those two.
Do you think that's important.
I think it is.
You know, it's mistakes of intent.
Or is it a mistake caused by somebodypushing to the limit of their abilities
and learning new skills? Well, thosewe need to have tolerance for.

(40:37):
I'm asked to speak about innovation.
Well, innovation rarely occurswithout trial and error and mistakes
along the way.
If we don't create an environment wherepeople are trying to learn and adapt,
we become very stale and obsoletepretty quickly.
And so if people's mistakes are lazy
or thoughtless

(40:59):
or pointless, sure,we could have conversations about that,
but we want to create an environmentwhere people, you know, there's an article
by SimCity and one of my former advisorswho talks about the gains of small losses.
If your people are pushingto the limits of their abilities,
they should be making mistakes.
If they aren't,they're being cautious and conservative.

(41:22):
And you could get more from them.
Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that.
Of course not.
Careless mistakes, but the mistakesof pushing to one's limits
and those that that can occur.
And in striving for that greatnessand reaching for that next level.
So Doctor Darrell Stickle, tell
a tell our listeners where they can learnmore about you and find you if you want.

(41:44):
If they want to check out
your social media,you've got your own podcast about trust.
Please tell the listenersabout that. Yeah.
So if you go to Trust unlimited.com,you'll see,
a lot of content.
We have blog sectionthat has videos on it, articles on it
that you can read download for free.

(42:05):
We've got the book BuildingTrust Exceptional Leadership
and an Uncertain World.
Where I try to lay out the model.
We've got a podcastcalled The Imperfect Cafe,
and we'd love to have people drop byand give us a listen.
We have a masterclassthat you can find on the website.
And if you're interested,you could also try to find my,

(42:27):
my guide dog, Drake,who is my constant companion.
Drake and I wander the worldtrying to make it a better place.
I love that.
I love that.
And to the listeners,thank you so much for tuning in this week.
Like and subscribeto hear more podcasts from incredible
thought leaders like DoctorDarryl Stickle and others.
Thanks so much for joining.

(42:49):
Thanks for and thank you, Daryl.
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