Learn Why Your Ability Can Break Trust (and How to Fix it)
In this series on trust I’ve been sharing my thoughts invoked by Dr. Henry Cloud’s book Trust. He melted my mind when he revealed that there are 5 essentials to trust which caused me to think of Trust like a diamond because it is multi-faced, expensive, and is created through heat and pressure over time.
As we’ve established earlier, trust is the currency of life. And if you believe as I do that creativity is a team sport, Creators must not only understand, but master Trust if we want to create anything bigger than just our efforts can manage.
We’ve already looked at the facets of Understanding, and Motive. Today we turn the diamond to facet number 3: Ability.
Now I’m assuming that the concept of Ability is fairly simple, right? It refers to the skills, knowledge, and expertise required to effectively carry out a particular task or responsibility (key word “required”).
To put it another way,
“If you want the responsibility, you must have the ability.”
Fairly straightforward. But if you have been in your industry for any amount of time, you know, that's not always the case. We have all experienced that employee or co-worker that possessed a responsibility without possessing the ability to fulfill said responsibility. And because of that trust is on shaky ground between them and everyone else they work with especially the boss.
How can ability break Trust?
Reason #1: Past success
According to the research found in the book The Peter principle, the authors discovered that “every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”
The reason? When people perform well in their job, they will typically get promoted to the next level. Keep performing well, keep getting promoted. This process will naturally continue until the employee reaches a level where they can no longer perform well. What happens after that? Well, results will vary: some get stuck, quit, get demoted or fired all together.
Dr. Cloud had his own experience with the Peter Principle. A company asked him to help them with their struggling new CEO. It turned out that the CEO was formerly the companies COO whom the board promoted from within. Upon hearing that Dr. Cloud asked the board chairman a very powerful question, “So, where did he get the E?
Do you get it? The Board Chairman didn’t so Dr. Cloud had to explain it to him. COO stands for Chief Operating Officer which requires the ability to make sure operations run well. CEO stands for Chief Executive Officer which requires the ability to see future opportunities, setting strategy and leading people into that future. Those are two very different skill sets. But the board gave the former COO the CEO position because he excelled as COO. They assumed his current ability would just translate to the new position, which it clearly did not.
Have you seen that happen in your own industry? Maybe it happened to you? What’s ironic about this is the entire reason you were given the promotion in the first place was because of Trust. And sometimes we get promoted not because of our past success but because of …
Reason #2: Present relationships
This is a Trust twilight zone because you being a trustworthy person can actually set you up for failure if you don’t see this facet...
A good relationship is never enough for a specific ability.”
- Dr. Henry Cloud
Think about a time in your life when you had to move. Do you remember who showed up to help you? My guess is you trusted them to help you because they obviously understood you needed help, and their motive was definitely for your good because, and I’m assuming here, they didn’t help you move because of that little pizza you bought as a thank you. And I bet you could trust their ability to move boxes from the house to the truck.
Now, taking all that trust you have in them, would you trust this same person to do your open heart surgery? And unless they just happen to be a heart surgeon, I bet you’re saying “Heeck no!”
This example makes it seem obvious. But Dr. Cloud says that it’s hard to see this in real life because of the halo effect.
“Often, when people enter into arenas of trust with people they know or like, a kind of halo effect goes to work toward that person and they trust them in unvetted arenas.”
- Dr. Henry Cloud
That phrase, “unvetted arenas” is the key. Trusting someone solely based on their relationship with you, such as friendship or family ties, is like giving them a pass from having to take the test which qualifies them. So whether we’re the ones giving out the position or taking the position, no one wins if there isn’t a process to qualify the person for the job.
So what do we do? I believe the answer to fix trust when it comes to ability starts with Role clarity.
I teach this principle in my Life Story Framework Course. The basic idea is: in order for us to have role clarity, whether it’s in our personal or professional life, we must be clear on 2 areas.
How to have role clarity
Know your identity
Your Role Identity is about what you believe about yourself. It’s based off of the idea of Identity based habits which I discovered in James Clear’s book: Atomic Habits. In the 2nd chapter entitled “How Your Habits Shape Your identity and vice versa) Clear identifies 3 layers of behavior change: Identity, Processes and Outcomes.
“Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe.”
He notes that the problem isn’t with any one level but the direction we take them in. If we go outside in, we focus on outcomes first. Remember, outcomes are about what you get, which connects to the Peter Principle where the position is the outcome. But, if we go inside out, we focus on who we want to become. Said another way: Become the person who can handle the position.
2. Know your responsibilities
The only way to know if you are ready for the role is if you know the responsibilities that come with it. Every responsibility requires a certain skill. And skills are developed through habits over time. The higher the skill level, the more time it takes to develop it.
If you’re a Creator who is handing out positions, do your business a favor and bring Role Clarity to each and every job. If you want a new position or have been offered one, but are unsure of the requirements, find them out and begin to hone any skill necessary to do that job well before blindly accepting it.
And remember the reason for seeking after Role Clarity is to strengthen and polish the Ability facet of the Trust diamond.
If you know another Creator who would like this topic, share this blog with them.
