Trustship, Part One

Building Stormproof Relationships

Gary S. Shunk, LCSW

In fair weather, even a weak ship can sail well. During a storm, both ship and captain are tested. While our financial markets are buffeted by extreme winds, many of your clients are experiencing high levels of anxiety as the integrity of their financial plans is tried by trouble. Decisions are being made to change course to correct real or perceived weaknesses.

What relational factor has the greatest influence on these decisions? Trust. Clients make decisions based on the level of trust established with their advisors. The tangible experience of firm and flexible relationships that do not break in crisis, confusion, or mistakes is what I term “trustship”. To help steer clients out of anxious waters, you must purposefully manage trust. Seizing this financial crisis as an opportunity, successful advisors can repair troubled relationships, strengthen existing relationships, and gain new clients.

ANXIETY

In order to practice trust, it is important to understand anxiety. Anxiety is a combination of specific emotions: fear, helplessness, and anger. Add to that an undercurrent of speed. When anxious, a person feels an urgent pressure to fix or change whatever they perceive is making them upset. Left unmanaged, this anxiety sabotages plans and relationships. During a financial crisis, people often move into a reactive mode––making speedy decisions to stop the leak. Quick decision-making is risky. When in a reactive mode, we often treat symptoms and completely miss the root cause.

However, anxiety has a useful purpose. Just as a foghorn attempts to warn a ship of danger, anxiety points to vulnerabilities and tells the brain a situation or person is unsafe or untrustworthy. Our current financial anxiety points to the weaknesses underlying the market, and in many cases, the lack of trust we feel in our financial systems and relationships. Our challenge is to respond to anxiety as a warning signal and aim the ship more wisely.

What can an advisor do?

Since anxiety is a collection of emotions triggered by speed, you need to slow down the communication and separate the emotional signals. To be specific, you need to set aside time to lead clients into conversations that build, maintain, and/or repair trust. You can facilitate the session if you are talented in trust-building. If not, try collaborating with a skilled trust facilitator.

RELATIONSHIPS

An experienced captain holds the trust of his or her crew because of three factors: reputation, integrity, and relationship. Reputation consists of the stories told about the captain more than the stories told by the captain. Integrity is the consistency between what the captain says and what he or she actually does.  Relationship is the experience of being specifically noticed and cared for as a unique individual.

Of these three factors, relationship is the strongest force for trust––yet trust is often confused with credibility. The advisor or client(s) assume that trust should be given based on education, awards, firm, or family affiliations. This definition of trust is too narrow. When crisis hits, credibility does not make a good life vest. Crisis collapses credibility and awakens a sense of betrayal. When people are in trouble, they reach out to trusted relationships.

What can the advisor do?

Trust is built daily and fortified through crisis. As a trustworthy advisor, you practice practical and consistent behaviors. In every client interaction, you must run a thorough check of the Trustship. Am I current with my client? Is the family (if the client is a family) current with each other? Have there been any changes? Any losses? Any conflicts? Am I bored? Are they bored? During times of crisis, advisors need to remain calm and non-defensive. You need to steer your clients out of anxiety toward opportunity by listening carefully with curiosity. Are the stated values actually the true values or a mask? Who is my client, really? What does your client want, really?

TRUST

The idea of trust is immediately associated with relationship. Trust happens between two individuals or between and among the members in a group. Although this idea is absolutely true, there can be confusion about placement that undermines all attempts at building trust. Often, individuals place the burden of trust on the person or persons outside of them. In other words, we wait for the other person to establish trust. Arms crossed and cautious, the inner attitude is one of trial. Are they trustworthy?

In reality, trust is created within an individual. Placing trust inside––rather than outside––awakens confident energy. Arms relaxed and free, the inner attitude is one of curiosity. How can I be trustworthy? What can I do to improve my listening skills? What adjustments can I make in my agenda to more effectively meet my clients’ needs? What are their needs anyway? Do they state them clearly or are they holding back? When is the last time I stepped out from behind the desk to be sincerely personal?

When we focus on trust as a responsibility rather than a right, we exponentially increase our capacity to create working relationships that survive mistakes and crises. Over time, consistent trust behaviors create an invisible bond. This bond is trust equity. Every trust behavior pays into the account. When trouble comes, an abundance of trust gives resilience to a relationship threatened by anxiety.

In our ship analogy, waiting for trust is like a ship captain “hoping” for good weather.  Can the captain control the weather? No. Hoping is external and passive. Instead, the trustworthy captain consistently guides the crew to maintain the ship in top condition. The captain is active and prepared. When the storm comes, the ship is ready.

What can the advisor do?

In a culture devoted to independence, the notion of trust chronically falls to the bottom of our priority list. We are aimed toward success, productivity, and self-reliance. Yet, do you hear the foghorn? This financial crisis––this shared state of anxiety––requires trust to be reprioritized in every interaction, with every client.  How? Building trust consists of behaviors that soothe fear, increase collaboration, quiet anger, and establish patience. In other words, the portal to trust is empathy. Next month, we will explore empathy, an indispensable skill advisors may develop to enhance, deepen, and rebuild trust with clients.

Gary Shunk is a Family Business Consultant, Executive Coach, Keynote Speaker, and expert on the psychology of wealth. He speaks and consults nationally to families of wealth and the advisors who serve them on the emotional dynamics of money.

Gary has over 20 years of experience in the fields of psychology, family therapy, organizational consulting, and leadership development. He has published articles in “Private Wealth Magazine” and “The Wealth Management Exchange,” and been quoted in The New York Times, Private Asset Management, Investment News, ABC News, and Radio New Zealand LIVE. 

Gary is a certificate holder in Family Wealth Advising and Family Business Advising with the Family Firm Institute. He is a licensed psychotherapist with an MSW from the University of Illinois, and maintains a private practice in Chicago. Gary is also an Associate in the Family Business Center of Loyola University in Chicago. His website is: www.wealth-pscyhology.com