Colin Gautrey

Are You an Ethical Influencer? 21 Questions

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It is very rare that I meet an unethical influencer ― thankfully! However, there are many I meet whom I wonder about. They operate on the fringes of integrity, in my view. Trouble is, as I have explained elsewhere, integrity means different things to different people. Right and wrong quickly descend into “it depends”. And this is a growing dilemma given the global diversity so many of us now live with. When I am training people about influence, perhaps conveniently, I often dodge the ethical question. Partly due to the wide divergence of opinion, but mainly because I want people to take responsibility for their own actions ― at the end of the day people on my training workshops have to live with their own conscience. Yet, I do have an increasingly clear personal notion of Read More

Exercise: Helping You to Build Trust More Effectively

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If you have read the other articles here about trust, you should have a pretty good grasp now of what trust is, how it works, and how things can go wrong. Now it is time to make sure you are integrating this into your own world. This exercise is intended to challenge you to become more aware of trust in your work, and also, perhaps most importantly of all, move you towards building greater levels of trust in your relationships. Read More

Extra Thoughts on Building Trust in a New Relationship

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If you want to build trust, take care of these seven dangers which could hinder or even destroy your attempts to develop trust in a relationship. To get the most from this, we are assuming that you have already read Building Trust in a New Relationship and also the simple Trust Building Example.
  1. Trusting Too Soon. If you place a great deal more trust in someone than they would reasonably expect, they are highly likely to close up and trust you less. This is particularly so if they come from the “distrust until they have to” end of the spectrum. The bigger the gap, the bigger the discord. Would you trust someone who gushes forth their innermost thoughts within five minutes of meeting you? If you have a tendency to do this ― don’t! Do whatever you can to hold yourself back.
  2. Read More

Trust Building Example

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In Building Trust in a New Relationship, we talked about four steps of trust building.. At a high level, that’s how it works. What we consider here is an example of how this might work and, more importantly, illustrating the trail of thoughts which might go through the minds of those involved.

Step 1: Trust Orientation

Imagine what it would be like if two people started a relationship coming from either end of the spectrum ― one person trusting too much (let’s call him Sanjay), and the other too little (Sally). Sanjay will enter the relationship full of optimism and positive expectation, looking for the clues that prove he is right ― Sally is someone who is highly trustable. On the other hand, Sally will enter with a large amount of suspicion, perhaps fuelled by the core value that “most people are out to get you, it’s a dog-eat-dog world”. It also happens Read More

Building Trust in a New Relationship

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The importance of trust in building long-term relationships should be evident to all. A few months back, I suggested a few ways of Building Trust Beyond the Obvious and here I want to step back a little and explore how trust begins when we meet someone for the first time. Understanding the process by which trust emerges can enhance the possibility that you will get it moving a little quicker ― trust doesn’t have to take a lifetime to build. Assuming you have already read Trust and Integrity Made Simple, you will understand that both parties will have mutual feelings of trust, and that these levels may vary. The best relationships have broadly equal feeling of trust on both sides. Any serious imbalance is going to cause problems, sooner or later. Read More

Being Secretive and Hiding Inconvenient Truths

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"Whatever you do, don't tell them that!" "But, when they find out, it'll come back to bite us." "We'll worry about that when and if it happens. Now, go get them to agree to our plan." Sound familiar? While this is often seen as an expedient tactic, it is usually short-sighted and creates a multiple of problems upstream. However there are exceptions. My starting position is that to maximise success, you should proactively pursue open and honest communication, even with those who oppose you. This topic arose on a workshop a few weeks ago in a workshop as we were reviewing delegates experience of using my Stakeholder Influence Process (see Chapter 13 of Advocates & Enemies. When we analyse stakeholders, one of the dimensions under consideration is “agreement”. Between the positive and the negative there is what I call the grey zone, or rather those people whom you are unsure about ― you don’t quite know if they have bought into your idea or not. The general strategy is to work with those stakeholders to move them out of the grey zone; even if this is into the negative agreement space ― at least then you know what you have to deal with. However, one delegate suggested that his strategy is Read More

The Problems When You Curry Favour

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When someone offers to do you a favour, what do you think? Are you grateful, pleased to have someone willing to lend a hand? Or, are you suspicious, wondering why they would want to help and suspecting they are driven by selfish intent? According to recent research at London Business School, your reaction is likely to be determined by the power relationship between you and the favour giver. If you are more powerful, there is a good chance that you will be suspicious. Less powerful, and you will probably be grateful. Apparently, the context seems to matter little ― work or marital relationships are similarly affected. Read More

13 Questions to Ask Your Advocates

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Getting someone in your network to the position of Advocate can take quite a bit of hard work. Building the relationship, creating trust and demonstrating value can take months, if not years. Of course, that presupposes premeditated action — it is more likely that you just landed there by chance. And doesn’t it feel great noticing how an individual promotes “brand you” to everyone they meet? Finding out through others that “so and so” has been telling everyone how fast you deliver, or how quickly you cut through the trivia and get down to business. Even more rewarding is when they are heard to be recommending you for inclusion on exciting new projects. Because it is more likely that you happened upon your Advocates by chance, you might like to do a little re-evaluation to make sure you have the right people doing the job for you. To get your thinking off to a quick start, here are a few interview-type questions you could (but probably never will) ask of a potential Advocate… Read More

Building Trust Beyond the Obvious

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Over recent months we have been engaged in debates about trust on many platforms. This has convinced me even more of the benefits of focusing on building trust in relationships. On workshops, I often ask the question, "How can you build greater trust in your relationships?" The response is usually fairly predictable and comes down to doing what you say you're going to do, telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth — and several similar ideas. Yet, I think we can go beyond this. Here are a few ideas... Read More

Trust and Integrity Made Simple

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Trust and integrity are two intertwined concepts that usually crop up when I start talking about influence. Although interconnected, they are different, and a clear understanding of them can help you to build influence more quickly. However, despite the temptation to dive into a philosophical debate, you can simplify these greatly and then get moving again with your influence. Trust is the degree to which you can predict someone or something. When it comes to people, what you are assessing is how well you can predict what they will do or, how they will react, to a given situation. Will they do what they say they will do? Will they keep your secrets? Will they tell you the truth? Read More

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