On orcas and unicorns

(or, first we connect, *then* we build trust)

As you’re reading this, Adam and I are settling back into home life after a couple of weeks (re)exploring our beautiful Great Southern and South West regions. Among the staple (some would say compulsory) destinations like Busselton, Margaret River, Walpole, Denmark, and Albany, we took ourselves on a little adventure some 35 nautical kilometres off the coast of Bremer Bay to catch the orcas migrating. Before you ask, I definitely stayed INSIDE the boat!

^{I am in awe of these amazing natural wonders}

Seeing these huge killer whales going about their usual day in this deep ocean, with no land in sight, reminded me how small we humans are and how powerful mother’s nature’s animals and oceans can be. The swell was huge (and I’ve been on a few fishing trips in my time), and orcas love a rough ocean so what we saw was amazing. Not just orcas but huge hammer head sharks, massive “Wandering Albatross” birds with 3+ metre wing spans that fly for YEARS without touching land, and scores of pilot whales. The marine biologist on board calls them “angry little sausages” as they race around the surf in haste.

The leadership and team developer in me couldn’t help but notice the pod’s communication strategy 😉. When a pod is hunting large prey, such as another whale, they collaborate to get the work done!  They bring several pods (what us humans may think of as silos in our workplaces) together for the hunt, each with a role and team leader, and team members specialised in specific parts of the hunt… which is too gruesome to describe here.

To say the least, it was impressive!

Naturaliste Charters, our fantastic tour crew, also had David Riggs onboard. He’s the discoverer of Bremer Bay Canyon and the gathering of orcas found here.

The nonconformist in me loved learning that, despite many attempts, there’s thousands of dollars lying at the bottom of the trench, in the form of sabotaged trackers because orcas persistently remove any human effort to find out where they come from… or where they go after feeding off our WA shore, in early February each year. Clearly there’s a trust issue from the orcas’ point of view!

_{Adam and I, enjoying the majestic view and enjoying a bit of the unplugged life}

I had planned to round out the leisure with a little work, a Conscious Vulnerability Keynote to a CEO’s annual retreat in Bunker Bay. But lockdowns and mask wearing suddenly became part of WA life (thankfully for a short while only) so we headed home instead.

Before all that excitement, however, I hosted a fantastic Little LIFT Live webinar on 27 January with some great leaders where we explored the world of (re)building trust. Why? Because without trust, all the other goodness, like connection, collaboration, innovation and agility, can’t happen.

Just in case you have believed (until now) that trust is a unicorn, every month this year, I’m  sharing the reasons why it isn’t, and my tools, skills and tips on how to ensure magic isn’t required to build trusting teams and become the trusted leader everyone wants to follow.

My niece, who knows ALL about unicorns, can list, in great detail, the exact criteria for a unicorn. Therefore, having undertaken due diligence in consulting an absolute expert on this topic, let me confirm here and now: trust is NOT a unicorn.

I understand the confusion. Trust can often feel it has an unknown quantity; what it’s really made of, where it comes from, how to “do” it, how to keep it, can you measure it?

It *seems* like it’s something you either have — if you’re lucky — or you don’t.

But this myth reinforces the false belief that it’s not a buildable skill, nor something every single person can do. And I’m absolutely not negotiable on this: Trust is a learnable skill.

As a leadership developer for 20+ years, I know that when I hear: “I can’t talk about trust in performance conversations with my staff,” this is driven by fear and lack of self-trust in having the essential skills and tools to hold these conversations effectively.

I can tell that someone believes that trust is a unicorn when they say: “Some people are good at building trust and I’m just not.” Or “Trust just happens over time or suddenly but you can’t make it happen.”

Want to change your view (or lift your skills) about trust?

Then please watch LIFT’s webinar recording (at the top of this post) to find out:

• Why trust is a learnable skill (and what can go wrong when we believe it’s magical)
• Why leaders need to build trust to engage and influence aka become trusted leaders
• How trust is an integral part of the connection cycle (how does it fit in with psychological safety, collaboration and innovation?)
• The anatomy of trust (hint: it’s BRAVING!)
• Why, and how, every interaction we have is an opportunity to build trust (and increases or decreases our trust bank accounts)
• What habits and behaviours we can cultivate to show we are purposefully building trust, how to actually do them (and understanding why)
• Why vulnerability is important in trust (re)building
• And, as always, the importance of boundaries! (I recently talked about boundaries in my FREE webinar with Dr Sam Hardy on 18 Feb)

When we believe trust is a buildable skill, not magic, we practise and we take daily action to develop it. We increase our self-trust which leads to confidence — in ourselves and others. We empathise rather than judge ourselves, others, the situation (and do so far less harshly, if we do).

We improve and we build a culture of continuous improvement and innovation…with the safety for everyone to ‘speak up and out’, which is not possible without trust. Why? Because we can only openly acknowledge there’s room to improve, to hear opposing ideas, to share solutions, and genuinely consider the best path forward, if we work/live in a culture of trust.  And we have to feel psychologically safe to do this. We need substantiated belief (regular evidence) that our team members, management and leaders will do, and provide a safe space to be at our best.

So, please watch my webinar recording (at the top of this post) and let me know, what have been your trust-building issues and successes? If trust rebuilding in your leadership is something you want to look at in more detail, you can always book a 15 minute conversation with me.

PS: Hey LIFT Community..!

You may notice some off the later slides in this Little LIFT LIVE get a bit ahead of me talking… who knew something else could move faster than I speak?!

We’ll work on improving for next time. In the meantime, I hope you still enjoy the key messages, tools and skills shared in this slightly imperfect video, jam packed full of leadership learning for you.

PPS: If you missed my free webinar with Dr Sam Hardy on “Working with Boundaries in Conflict” email: [email protected] and we’ll send you a link to the video and our online course offers, too.