Every relationship depends on trust. On a 
winning sports team or corporate team, trust creates a web of strength and efficiency. In a successful organizational culture, team members are greater than the sum of their parts.
But how do you get to that level of trust, and why does it matter more now?
For millennials, trust is huge. A recent Pew Research Center reported that just 19 percent of millennials (born after 1980) say people can be trusted. That’s a big drop from earlier generations, and a gap worth paying attention to. If you want to tap that generation’s imagination and potential—as team members or customers—trust should inspire your corporate identity.
In the face of pressure and competition, trust can set you apart. I experienced this as a sports agent. Building trust was the only path to recruiting some of the top names in pro sports. Managing a team of nine agents and a portfolio of 300 clients made me value trust even more. Trust is key to peak performance.
The core of trust
Let’s start with a core definition of trust. One of the most cited and best is expressed as an equation in the book, “The Trusted Advisor.” I shared my adaptation recently with the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association. It looks like this:
Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Connection) ÷ Self-orientation
Credibility is built with your words, through honest communication and meaning what you say. Reliability rests on the actions that make your words come true; you do what you say in a predictable way. Connection depends on emotions that convey, through empathy and nonverbal communication, that you are willing to trust and are worthy of others’ trust.
Self-orientation reflects what a person cares about most. It speaks to motives. It describes anything that distracts from others and keeps the focus on ourselves. “It’s all about me” is the attitude of self-orientation, and it’s a trust-breaker.
Winning teams create a culture of selflessness where team members (millennials or not) are focused on giving to one another. Their low self-orientation is the foundation of great trust.
How do you create a corporate culture of trust? Gratitude and valuing feedback are key core values, and I’ll discuss those in an upcoming blog.
Here is a link to a short assessment to find out how Trustworthy you are: http://trustedadvisor.com/trustQuotient/dm
