I’ve been thinking (and writing) a lot about trust and communications lately—related to dialogue as well as broadcasts like presentations and group-wide communications. Here’s my template for how you can rebuild trust you’ve lost when you’re talking to someone. (I’ll take a stab at how it might go for a written communication next week.)

Full disclosure, I’m working on a proposal for a new book. I’ve been working on said proposal for a long time. Because I need to get serious about finishing it, I need to borrow some scheduled Weekly Tip writing time to get ‘er done.

This is the 269^th tip I have written, and I realized the other day that there’s one critical construct I haven’t focused on since Tip #15—and even then, I didn’t cover it very thoroughly. It’s time to circle back.

The construct I’m referring to is a mnemonic device I created when Charlie and I were writing The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook. I call it the Three Ps. I’ve since come to see how important the Three Ps are because they shape our thinking about trust, and mindsets are everything when it comes to trust building.

Last week, I shared five communication pitfalls that leaders are too often felled by during times of great change and uncertainty—specifically related to broadcasts (like presentations and staff-wide emails) as well as dialogue. I promised more trustworthy options this week, so here we are.

I usually work specifically with people who are in client-facing roles, helping them be more influential and impactful by leading with trust. I recently had an opportunity to look at key trust lessons through a different lens, as I worked with a group of senior leaders on how to communicate with staff in more trustworthy ways. I think my preliminary conclusions are worth sharing, so here we are.

I work with so many great thinkers and generally super-smart people who routinely fail to be as influential as they could be simply because they lean too heavily on false assumptions about how rational we human beings are. Today’s tip aims to shed some light on a more effective approach.