You have worked alongside a peer for two years, and the work has gone well. Lately they copy your boss on the emails they send you, and they check your figures before they use them. Nobody has said a word about it, and you can't point to the week when it changed.
Figure 1. The Trust Equation
What it is
The Trust Equation comes from The Trusted Advisor by David Maister, Charles Green and Robert Galford. It breaks trust into four things you can work on. Credibility is whether people believe what you say. Reliability is whether they can count on what you do. Empathy is whether they feel safe being open with you. Self-Interest is how much of your attention they think goes to your own concerns.
The authors add the first three together and divide by the fourth, so in their model a rise in self-interest pulls everything else down. Their own words for the last two are Intimacy and Self-Orientation, which are broader than the labels this guide uses. Intimacy includes feeling safe enough to be candid with you, and Self-Orientation includes worrying about how you come across. The equation is most useful when you apply it to one relationship and one recent incident.
How it works
Credibility
Do people believe what I tell them?
Say what you know, and say plainly what you don't know yet. Before you give a date or a figure with confidence, check that the evidence supports that much certainty. If you are estimating, call it an estimate. When you get something wrong, correct it yourself, and do it before someone else finds the mistake and has to raise it with you.
Reliability
Can people count on what I said I would do?
Agree a date you can actually meet, and then meet it. When a commitment starts to slip, tell the person on the day you find out, well before the deadline arrives. Small promises count as much as big ones, such as sending the notes you offered or calling back when you said you would. People judge reliability on what they have watched you do over months.
Empathy
Does this person feel safe telling me what is really going on?
Ask what a problem is costing them before you explain your side of it. Listen to the answer without rehearsing your reply, and check that you have understood before you offer advice. When someone tells you something in confidence, keep it. The Levels of Listening model is a practical way to work on this term.
Self-Interest
Whose concerns am I paying attention to?
Self-Interest sits under the line, so in the model it reduces everything above it. Watch what you do when something goes wrong. If your first reply is a long account of why it wasn't your fault, the other person learns that your reputation comes first for you. Apologize before you explain, and ask them for feedback on how you handled it.
Self-assessment
Rate yourself in this relationship
Pick the relationship you have in mind. Score each dimension from 1 to 10.
Credibility
5
Reliability
5
Empathy
5
Self-Interest
1 means little focus on your own concerns, and 10 means a lot.
5
Your Trust Score
3
Where to start
Your lowest ratings are tied. Think about your last difficult moment with this person and start with the area it tested.
A higher number means more trust, and it is most useful for comparing this relationship with itself over time.
When to reach for it
Someone who used to take your word now double-checks it or copies your boss
A colleague keeps pushing back on your recommendations and you can't tell why
You missed a commitment or brushed off a concern, and you want to repair the damage
“I kind of feel like I'm not a priority.”
A worked example
Ridgeway Print, a fictional commercial printer, had a rush brochure job for one of its customers. The production manager told the sales lead it would ship on Thursday. It shipped the following Tuesday, and the sales lead heard about the delay from the customer.
The manager worked through the four terms privately, starting with their own behavior. On Credibility, they had given the Thursday date before checking the press schedule. On Reliability, the job had missed that date, and they had not warned sales before the customer called. On Empathy, they had never asked what the delay had cost the sales lead with that customer. On Self-Interest, their first reply when the sales lead raised it had been a long account of why the press ran late, with no apology in it.
The manager met the sales lead, apologized for the missed date, described what they thought had gone wrong and asked what they had missed. The sales lead said the worst of it was hearing about the delay from the customer. Together they agreed that every date the manager gave sales for the next month would come from the press schedule, and that the manager would report any slip on the day they knew about it. Those two changes addressed the two things that had hurt the sales lead, the unchecked date and the surprise. The manager put a check-in with the sales lead in the calendar for two weeks later.
Try it this week
Choose one working relationship that has become harder. By the end of the week you'll have one change you have agreed with the other person and a date to check whether it helped.
Pick one recent incident in that relationship, such as a missed date or a concern you brushed aside.
Ask yourself privately whether you said anything with more certainty than the evidence supported, and which commitment you left unfinished.
Ask yourself what the incident cost the other person, and what your first reply was when they raised it.
Choose the term where you fell shortest and write down one change you could make to it.
Meet the person, describe what you think happened, ask what you have missed, and agree a change they would find useful.
Put a check-in in your calendar for two weeks from now and ask them then whether the change has helped.
Try it with AI
Copy this prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or any AI assistant and fill in the part in square brackets. It will walk you through the model one step at a time, using your own situation.
Prompt
A working relationship has become harder and I want to repair it: [describe the relationship and one recent incident, such as a missed date or a concern you brushed aside].
If you can open links, read https://www.colincox.com/library/trust-equation first. It explains the Trust Equation from The Trusted Advisor, where credibility, reliability and empathy build trust and self-interest reduces it.
Go through the four one at a time, starting with my own behavior. Ask me one or two questions about each and wait for my answers. On self-interest, ask me what my first reply was when the problem came up. Keep me on what I did, even if I keep wanting to talk about the other person.
Then tell me which of the four I fell shortest on in this incident. Help me plan a short conversation where I describe what I think happened, ask what I've missed and agree one change. Finish by asking when I'll have that conversation and when I'll check back with them.
Leave out names and anything confidential before you paste in your situation.
From Colin's work
I once had a skip-level meeting with someone two levels below me. They were an A player, and in that meeting I was just checking in. I asked, "Look, how are your one-to-ones going with your manager?" They said, "Well, I haven't had one in months."
They told me, "My manager's so busy, I don't want to seem like a bother." I asked, "But really, how does it make you feel?"
They said, "I kind of feel like I'm not a priority."
In my sessions I tell leaders, "Don't cancel one-to-ones. Reschedule them," and when I say it, I tell them this story.
