As mentioned in an earlier blog, I have been reading a truly life changing book, called ‘The Speed of Trust’ and will be teaching it to my Mangers and using it as a basis for my blogs for the next few months. Today I want to think about how do you feel in a high trust relationship and how do you feel in a low trust relationship?
Reading this book has allowed me to review how I feel about the relationships I am in. This not just business, this is social and friendships as well. As some of you might know, when I moved from Houston, I cut loose a ton of relationships with people, I now realized, I was in a low trust relationship. When you are in a Low Trust relationship with a vendor of yours how does that make you feel? Are you sluggish in working with them and quick to judgment? Do you feel like each email needs to read like a legal brief? Do you feel like the two of you do not share common, if not identical goals? Does it feel like the two of you are working towards ‘who looks right’ instead of ‘what works best’? I am getting exhausted just typing these nonproductive scenarios; just imagine how exhausting it is living through them. Oh, you already have been living in them?
Now think about what a High Trust relationship looks like. Do you have one of those to refer to, or are you tied into nothing but the low trust types? Do you see how the conversations just flow between you and your vendor? Heck, this person is not your vendor; this is one of your most trusted advisors! The collaboration is clean, the responses immediate the language clear and concise and agreed to. I notice there are no surprises in my High Trust relationships. Even if there is something that was unforeseen, it is not treated as a surprise because my vendor is always given the benefit of the doubt.
I fired a vendor earlier this year, someone who I bought a couple of million dollars a year in equipment from. I fired them, not because of price, not because of quality, but simply because I could not trust one word that came out of their mouths. I was tired and exhausted, but it allowed me to understand the high cost and slow speed of low trust relationships. It’s exhausting and never worth it. My new vendor is a complete blessings and I suspect we will double our orders with him by the end of the year. We are reviewing another vendor right now that is high cost and slow speed and based on what I learned earlier this year, I know what to do.
Until next time…………….