The Trusted Advisor

additional ways of making sure self-orientation stays low: Talk to your client as if he or she is a friend. Even if clients are not actually our friends, we can be friendly with them. Our conversational tone and tenor can be (we would argue, has to be) one of friendship. We’re concerned about our friends and their well-being, and it shows in our co

thoughts on reliability: 1. Make specific commitments to your client around small things: getting that article by tomorrow, placing the call, writing the draft by Monday, looking up a reference. And then deliver on them, quietly, and on time. 2. Send meeting materials in advance so that the client has the option of reviewing them in advance, saving

following list reveals how many “threats” there are to client focus (and temptations for self-orientation): 1. Selfishness 2. Self-consciousness 3. A need to appear on top of things 4. A desire to look intelligent 5. A to-do list on our mind that is a mile long 6. A desire to jump to the solution 7. A desire to win that exceeds the desire to help t

tips on enhancing credibility: 1. Figure out how to tell as much truth as possible, except where doing so would injure others. 2. Don’t tell lies, or even exaggerate. At all. Ever. 3. Avoid saying things that others might construe as lies. For example, “Yes of course, we’ll put our best people on the job.” (Really? Who are the worst? Says who? And

recognize that clumsy attempts to establish intimacy too soon could backfire. Perhaps it comes from a vendor who assumes we share his passion for golf; or a dinner invitation we put off with “Yes, let’s do that, sometime,” or a sharing of personal experiences that is more information than we want to know.

Reliability is about whether clients think you are dependable and can be trusted to behave in consistent ways. Judgments on reliability are strongly affected, if not determined, by the number of times the client has interacted with you.

The most common failure in building trust is the lack of intimacy.

no greater source of distrust than advisors who appear to be more interested in themselves than in trying to be of service to the client. We must work hard to show that our self-orientation is under control.

Intimacy is about “emotional closeness” concerning the issues at hand, so it is obviously the most overtly emotional of the four trust equation components. It is driven by emotional honesty, a willingness to expand the bounds of acceptable topics, while maintaining mutual respect and by respecting boundaries. Greater intimacy means that fewer subje