Trust is a word that’s often overused in the staffing as well as the professional world. It’s marginally thrown around as a trigger device to give someone a sense of security in order to conduct business with you. Instead, it should be more of an actionable term that is demonstrated through time and effort and firmly established through traction and repeated completion of promises.
In staffing, one should treat this term as the equivalent of the Hope diamond and realize that everyone you come into contact with is a customer. If it’s a client, what can be perceived as little things such as promising to call a client when you say you will or keeping an accurate Outlook calendar regarding following up on items and key actions are paramount. With candidates, it can be giving clear and promised feedback on a submittal or a recently completed interview with a client.
Because our business has so many transactional items that need and have to be completed daily, we often marginalize these actions because we feel they can wait and returned to later or that will only follow up if it’s good news. A great sports analogy is that Vince Lombardi, the famous coach of the Green Bay Packers, would practice the same running play with his star player, Paul Hornung, every day. The play was simple and the Packers’ playbook was small but if the play was run correctly, it was indefensible and was a keystone to many of the team’s world championships. It was practiced so much, the players became tired of rehearsing it but Coach Lombardi’s philosophy was that if all 11 players acted as one and trusted each other regarding their respective duties, there was no way the play or success could be stopped. If he saw even the slightest deviance, lack of effort or marginal action in how the play was performed, it was repeated over and over until perfection was established as a mantra.
That same regimen of activity should be used in our daily portfolio as staffing professionals. If we repeatedly establish an action plan of activities on a daily and weekly basis, the law of averages tends to bear out and success follows. In conjunction with that, we should try to conduct ourselves with integrity and realize that by establishing and following our own high standards, the value of repeatedly holding ourselves accountable will ensure that success ensues but it gives us the true sense of doing things the right way.
Philosopher Elbert Hubbard was quoted as stating the line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it: so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. The true difference is that customers will realize when you are not as consistent with your actions and intent as you’ve previously been but more importantly, you will. This among many other reasons is that trust is a cornerstone to not only your personal integrity but your professional success as well.
