Trust is the foundation of healthy groups (and everything)

Here’s an excerpt from my forthcoming book, Make Light Work in Groups. I’m writing about frameworks that have guided my work for decades, and falling even more in love with them. I was first introduced to Trust Theory through my mother when I was a teenager. She came home from her first experience a changed woman, and her shift from fear to trust was contagious. I hope this helps you value what some part of you already knows: Trust is fundamental, and we get to choose.

Trust Theory

The core of Jack Gibb’s Trust Theory is a simple idea: higher levels of trust correlate to higher levels of functioning in groups.

Imagine a spectrum from fear to trust. Every group and organization is operating within a particular band along the spectrum from high fear to high trust. The higher the levels of trust, the more creative, innovative, dynamic and effective the group or organization will be.

Gibb distinquished ten levels of trust, along with their corresponding leadership styles and assumptions about how to get things done. According to Gibb, in most group contexts, individuals are scattered within two to three levels on his scale, and where there are wider discrepancies, it is hard for people to be in the same group.

TORI

Gibb also expressed Trust Theory in the acronym “TORI” which stands for Trust, Openness, Realization and Interdependence. TORI holds that when there is a high level of TRUST we are freed up to be ourselves, dropping roles and positions. This naturally leads to OPENNESS — information flows between people; people say what they think, know, need and care about. Trust and openness lead to REALIZATION — people express and create in ways that are deeply meaningful. When groups have high levels of trust, openness and realization, they naturally mature into higher levels of INTERDEPENDENCE, boundaries blur and there is ever more synergy and effectiveness.

TORI theory says that the best way to cultivate trust is to create a “high quality environment”.

By creating a high quality environment, you create conditions for trust to emerge. Once there is trust, energy flows, and that flow leads naturally to openness, realization and interdependence. It is that simple.

How to create a high trust environment

According to Trust Theory, the most powerful lever for creating a high trust environment is choosing one’s own internal environment:

“Clear evidence from biofeedback and from more clinical approaches demonstrates that supposedly “involuntary” and “unconscious” processes can be brought under voluntary and conscious control. I give myself my trust and my joy. I create my life. I create my own mindbodyspirit in ways that would once have been discussed only in the wildest fantasies of science fiction.” Jack Gibb, Trust: A New View of Personal and Organizational Development, Los Angeles, The Guild of Tudors Press, 1978. pg 69.

In other words, I can choose to trust both myself and my environment. I can shift myself out of fear and into trust. Making this choice has a profound effect on how I experience my environment, and it ripples out to profoundly effect how others experience the same environment. There is a contagion effect.

I think of it as throwing my hat into the ring. Or taking a plunge. I choose to trust myself. I am enough. I don’t need to take on a role or mask to protect myself and keep myself safe. I don’t need to be careful about what I say or do. I can trust what flows through me. I can let myself flow.

This trust in my essential goodness allows me to trust the essential goodness in others. I won’t be “killed”, or humiliated. I trust that I can handle what results from me being me. It is safe for me to unfold.

The environment is high quality BECAUSE I choose to see it that way and act accordingly. I create my own environment through my internal choices.

I can have this stance towards life, towards myself, and towards my environment, regardless of my formal role in the group or organization.

This is not so much about being a leader, as being myself.

The more I can be myself, trusting that it is safe for me to show up without leaving anything at the door, the more I create safety for others to do the same.

This emphasis on authenticity has a powerful impact on groups. When I drop the “role” of group facilitator, paradoxically I am much more effective at supporting groups to be effective. I find the same thing as a parent, coach and instructor. It is as if my stepping out from behind a cardboard cut out predefined role sends a signal that everyone else can be themselves too.

Try it for yourself. Trust Theory is the foundation of everything I do.

Related posts:

Why I’m writing “Make Light Work in Groups”

Effective Group Decision Making

Decision Making — the importance of discernment

I recently tuned in for guidance on whether to go to a conference.

At first I framed my inquiry in isolation: It furthers the Make Light Work body of work for me to participate in XXX conference. My intuitive response was “Yes”, but I sensed a hesitancy. This nudged me to reframe the issue, this time including more context: Taking into consideration all the ways I can further Make Light Work, it is a high priority for me to participate in conference XXX. This time I got a “No”.

Experiences like this remind me of my early encounters with computer programming, back in the days when one talked to computers through cards with holes punched in them. Until I was diligent about including every single step, my programs were “Garbage in, Garbage out.”  I.e. not the basis for making wise decisions.

Here’s a checklist of factors that you might need to include when tuning in about a specific decision:

• What is the appropriate timeframe — today, this week, this year…?
• What is the context — How much is on the table — e.g my energy on this project, my energy on all current projects, all my energy?
• What is the best duration? I.e. this action is a priority, but for 5 minutes, not 50.
• Am I aware of enough of the context and/or possibilities to tune in at this point?
• Is it appropriate for me to be the one tuning in? (It’s important not to usurp decisions that rightly belong with a client or family member.)

And here’s a wonderful catch-all statement: The way I am framing the inquiry serves the highest. If you don’t get a “Yes”, keep listening for what is trying to come through.

Feeling Overwhelmed?

Here’s an idea from a recent workshop participant: a way to simplify your world:

Put one issue/task on the desktop at a time. This singular focus helps clarify what is “signal” and what is “noise”, making it easier to pick up on your intuitive knowing, and easier for your life to be graced with helpful synchronicities.

It relates to another “focusing” idea that I heard in the same week (so I’ve taken ‘focusing’ to be a flirt!):

Most of us have long To-Do lists, often debilitatingly long. George Kao suggests that we create a real To-Do list that has a maximum of three items. You can move things on and off this list on different days or at different points in the same day. The idea is to keep at bay anything that is beyond your current 1-3 top priorities.

I love the clarity this brings. Reviewing my long list from the perspective of picking the top three has caused me to knock about half off the list all together. They are what Stephen Covey would classify as “Not Urgent, and Not Important.” An instantly lighter load!

For the items that make the short list, my effort is concentrated and I’m much more productive, allowing me to add the next top priority to the short list.

Let me know how this resonates.

Effective Group Decision-making

In 1992 I had an experience of group decision making that has inspired me ever since.

The Findhorn Foundation staff group had gathered in the pale peach living room of Cullerne House, a grand and gracious mansion built from huge blocks of highland granite. Fifty plus of us sat in a ring of chairs interspersed with pillows on the floor.

Our purpose was to make the best possible decision about a highly contentious issue: Should associate members of the wider community be represented on “Core Group” — the precious inner sanctum of the community?

The group was split.  About half felt strongly that the Foundation had become inclusive enough, that associate members hadn’t invested sufficient time or money the way members had, and that the meaning and privilege of membership should not be diluted further.

The other half believed that it was time to open up: some associates were more dedicated and committed than many members; not everyone had the financial and lifestyle freedom to be members (e.g. people with families); the Foundation was evolving and Core Group needed to reflect the new realities.

People felt strongly on both sides. We took time so that everyone who wanted to speak had a chance to be heard. Faces were often red with emotion.

After two hours it was clear that we had gone as far as we could at the personality level, and a respected elder staff member, trusted to be neutral, led us in a brief visualization.

We sat in silence together, with a very few words guiding us to have an inner knowing about what served the highest for all concerned.

After the meditation, the elder suggested we share the bottom line — simply saying “Yes” or “No” to including associate members on core group.

I will never forget the energy in the room as we spoke, one after the other, all around the circle.

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Yes….”

With each “Yes” the room got “soupier”, and in the end our decision was completely unanimous.

The unity was beautiful, profound, clean, unequivocal, and resonate.  It was momentus and miraculous. We had stepped into a new way to be together, and everyone knew there was no going back.

The inspiration

While such unity in a group is extremely rare, it is also profoundly important. It indicates what is possible, and shows powerful ways forward.

What happened that Fall day?  Why was such a profound shift possible?

Here are a few key factors:

• We knew each other well.
• There was strong shared purpose: We all wanted what was best for the community as a whole.
• We’d all been part of the community for 2 or more years.
• Everyone trusted guided visualization as a way to make decisions.

Perhaps the most important difference, though, was that each of us had experienced the difference between what happened when small “s” self was in the driver’s seat, and when we were wise enough to be guided by big “S” Self. We had a kind of maturity — to be able to surrender what we wanted at the personality level when this didn’t line up with insights from within.

This “difference that makes the difference” is huge, and is the impetus for the body of work called Make Light Work.

Emotional Baggage Handling

Yesterday I had a Skype call with a friend who spoke about working really hard to get rid of all her baggage so that she would be ready for the partnership of her dreams. A participant at a book talk last month said the same thing, almost verbatim.

This is inner work run amok.  It’s ass backwards.

When you focus on clearing away “all the baggage”, you end up having more baggage to clear — endless amounts. Kinda like the “War on Poverty/Crime/Terrorists”.  We get more of what we focus on….

The only baggage you need to clear is what comes up on your way as you move forward.

Here’s a simple visual, thanks to some training I had in Psychosynthesis. (I don’t know how to get my computer to include the images directly in the blog….)

The upper triangle represents our higher self/potential, the lower triangle represents current reality, including our baggage.

As we move toward our potential, the two triangles start to overlap, and we are called to deal with issues — starting with just the tip of the lower triangle.

The more we achieve our potential, the more we must deal with issues.  But we don’t have to deal with everything.  There are big parts of the lower triangle that don’t need to be cleared for us to embody our potential.

Both our potential, and our baggage are infinite.  Optimum health is represented by a six pointed star that gets bigger and bigger.  Our humanity means we all, always, have baggage.

I’m appreciating the reminder myself: Only clear what comes up on your way to what you want.