Tag: vulnerability

The more time passes, the more I think that establishing relationships, or repairing imperfect ones, is mostly about establishing mutual trust. Friends, work colleagues, family members, anyone really. Obviously a heck of a lot of other factors impact whether or not the relationship is enjoyable. But without trust, it’s really hard to maintain most of those other factors (respect, affection, communication, mindfulness, etc).

Been thinking about this a lot lately in the context of building and maintaining happy, healthy teams, but then realized that it applies in a lot of other areas as well.

Next question: how do you establish trust? It has something to do with demonstrating vulnerability, particularly if you’re in the more “powerful” position within a relationship… (Important to remember that power is the sum total of a bajillion possible factors; age, personality, org structure, gender, personal network, race, and much more.) But that’s not a fully-baked thought, there’s definitely more to it than that.