Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
The Case of Trust vs. Trustiness
I’m not absolutely sure that “trustiness” is even a word but the picture that Seth Godin paints with his recent blog still gives us much to think about. Be sure to follow the link and read his post.
As a CPA, are you building trust or are you simply talking about trust to obtain more business and to lure better people to your firm, thus using trust as trustiness?
I know, it’s rather confusing but to me trustiness is talking about trust (talking the talk) but not living it in your daily life, especially inside your firm (walking the walk).
Be sure to revisit my post of November 14th titled, The Absence of Trust in A CPA Firm and watch the video.
Sometimes when I talk about trust during my presentations I feel that many in the audience are skeptical. They feel like they DO have trust inside their firms. However, when I talk to partner only groups or talk to CPA team member only groups, both sides almost always describe activities that display a definite lack of trust.
To help bring it down to real life, here’s an example I hear over and over.
- Team member: I don’t know when to tell them I’m leaving, I’m not sure how they will re-act, they might escort me to the door right away and that would be embarrassing.
- Owner: When someone gives notice, we usually ask them to go ahead and leave right away. We’re afraid that they will be such a negative influence on everyone around them.
I have seen cases where the team member is right with being hesitant because owners have demonstrated that you can’t predict their reaction and I’ve also seen cases where the owner should be concerned because the team member would probably spread negatives vibes on purpose.
Trust is a tough topic but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it. Talk about it openly and maybe host a round-table lunch and learn where trust is the topic of discussion. Have each table explore ways to build more trust inside the firm and then take steps to implement some of the ideas.
For more information, read my post of March 29th – Trust Is Not A Soft Skill. It mentions a great book, The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey.
- "Trust no one."
[...] many firms will ask them to leave immediately, often because firm management believes the person will not act professionally while working out their notice. If you truly believe that about a team member working at your firm, [...]