The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust

You claim you are collaborative and yet you … Don’t present your ideas until they are fully formed and polished. Secretly love to win arguments. Practice sales techniques like “Always Be Closing.”

This does not mean decisions are made irrationally—it simply means that decisions are usually made nonrationally. People buy with their hearts, and then rationalize their choice with their minds. The data matter … secondarily.

focus on four specific principles governing trustworthy behavior:

most powerful step in the trust creation process (and the least practiced) is the listening step. The two most common errors in practice are inadequate listening and jumping too quickly to the final, action step—to commit.

In business, reciprocity plays out in the form of listening. Others will be open to your thoughts, perspectives, and point of view once they feel they have been fully heard and understood by you.

greatest opportunity for distinguishing yourself in the realm of trustworthiness: Increase intimacy and lower self-orientation.

Trust and influence go hand in hand. The more someone trusts you, the more likely he is to be influenced by you.

The trust equation is about trustworthiness: It provides a model for the person who wants to earn and deserve trust.

initiate difficult conversations for the benefit of the relationship. This takes courage and skill.

dramatic ending to the play: the decision to put the work out to bid was rescinded, and the firm got the job back. Why? Because the audit partners had been able to prove they understood their clients’ concerns—in a dramatic and effective demonstration of empathy. They showed they had finally been listening. As a result, they won the right to try ag