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The Key Elements Of Trust

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When working with clients on trust, many of whom work for corporations and are faced with issues of trust (or lack thereof) daily, understanding the three key elements of trust can be very helpful to them. My guess is they will also be helpful to you - first in enabling you to better distinguish specifically why you don 't trust someone and second in helping you become more effective in building trust yourself (or repairing it when damaged).

To illustrate the inter-relationship between the three core elements of trust, picture this in your mind. Envision three circles drawn on a piece of paper all interlocking together in a Venn diagram so that each overlaps with each other and in the middle, is a space in which all three overlap. That space symbolizes the presence of all three elements of trust.

Whenever a person is perceived to act in a way that undermines trust in any of these three areas, trust overall is diminished. Let 's take a look now at each one of these areas.

Competence: The element of competence is what I call 'domain specific ' in that it depends on what area of expertise or skill you are assessing someone to be trustworthy in. For instance, I trust my husband implicitly; but I wouldn 't trust him to give me a root canal. You may trust your spouse or a colleague to be sincere and reliable, but would you may not trust them enough to remove the dead tree from your backyard or do your tax return (you get the idea?). So the question you want to ask here is

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