RTC Blog

How long does it take to build trust? Reduce trust?

Warren Buffett once said, “It takes 20 years to build trust and 5 minutes to lose it.” Yesterday, we witnessed this (again).

Building Trust: Thom Brennaman is the broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds. Thom has been the broadcaster for the Reds since 1986. Thom’s dad, Marty, (who my grandmother adored) was the broadcaster for the Reds from 1974-2019. That’s about 34 years for Thom and 45 years for his dad in the business with this organization.

Reducing Trust: Yesterday, while providing commentary for the first game of a home doubleheader between the Reds and the Kansas City Royals, Brenneman was caught on mic referring to an undisclosed location as “one of the fag capitals of the world.” While this video is 44 seconds, the actual comment took less than 5 seconds.

5 innings later, Brennaman apologized, was taken off air during the game and the Reds suspended him immediately.

Ryan’s sidenote: It is unbelievable during the video that immediately after he says, “I pride myself and think of myself as being a man of faith” the guy hits a home run. You can’t make this stuff up.

Lessons learned: If you’re building a coaching culture on your team and in your organization, here are three lessons learned.

#1. Man, 2020. 2020 has been the most bizarre year where anything might happen so don’t assume you know what someone else is going to say or do. Now is the time to start asking more questions and making less assumptions.

#2. It’s 2020. Either assume you are “mic’d up” all the time or if you can’t make that assumption, don’t say something offensive. Thom Brennaman is going to be judged on this 5 seconds of his career vs. 34 years.

#3. Warren Buffett’s concept is correct, but in this case (like others) it only took seconds not minutes. What are you doing to build trust on your team? What are you doing that reduces trust on your team?

Finally, here’s a leadership thought-starter for you: If you were Thom’s boss, what would you do? I look forward to your replies.

How do you influence others?

There are many ways to influence another person. Some are more effective than others. The way you influence is the way you will be remembered. Here are three main categories of influence.

Category #1: “Do-To”. Do-To involves giving advice, directives, and orders. There are times Do-To is effective such as when you are an expert on a topic or safety is an issue or time is urgent. Do-To can produce short-term results, but over time this style of influence increases fear in others, reduces trust, and discourages initiative.

Category #2: “Do-For”. Do-For involves taking on the work of others and doing it for them. There are times when Do-For is effective such as: On-boarding a new employee or when a teammate has a legitimate emergency the team picks up the slack. Do-For can produce short-term results but over time this style enables others, reduces trust, and discourages initiative.

Category #3: “Do-With”. Do-With involves working together to achieve a goal. Do-With can initially be seen as time-consuming or soft, but over time Do-With creates accountability, raises standards, builds trust, and encourages initiative.

“Do With is that fine line between giving orders and enabling others.” – Dr. Robert Wubbolding

From Your Seat to the Street Action Items

Give yourself a mini-360 on your influencing style: What is your current primary default style of influence (Do-To, Do-For, or Do-With)? What do other people say is your primary style of influence?

Check out this short 4-minute video demonstrating Do-To, Do-For, and Do-With

Take your style to the next level. Our RealTime Coaching suite of products & workshops will teach you how to evolve your influencing style.

Why choose RTC?

When I googled “Coaching Programs” I got over 300,000,000 results. Out of 300,000,00, why would you and your organization choose to use RTC? Everyone has their own personal reasons for attending our programs, but here are a few high-level differentiators for your organization to use RTC.

#1. Entrepreneurial Coaching: RTC is a business-focused program. As entrepreneurial coaches we invest the majority of time in the present and the future. While we learn from the past, we don’t dwell in the past. In addition, as entrepreneurs we incorporate interactive, doing approaches. RTC is 65% experiential exercises.

#2. RTC is the only coaching program integrating a Talent Insights™ report within the program. RTC partners with TTI Success Insights to provide valid, reliable assessments to use with the program. The Talent Insights™ report provides simple, practical, and valuable self-awareness insights to the participants. The report allows our participants to level-up from communicating via The Golden Rule to communicating via The Platinum Rule.

#3. RTC tackles coaching when your scales are out of balance. The majority of coaching programs only provide guidance and tools when someone else’s scales are out of balance. This is basic coaching which RTC covers in the first half of the program. Once the basic foundation is set, the second half of RTC focuses on the more difficult issues which is when your scales are out of balance.

#4. RTC is simple, practical, and valuable. Participants will be coaching by the end of day one. They will immediately have tools to take from their seat to the street. Improvements and behavioral changes are easily implemented.

Click here to check out: A 10-Minute Taste of RTC