A Story Habit for Building Trust

Some claim that trust is the fundamental idea holding all relationships together. With that in mind, a story habit for building trust is pivotal in maintaining a great working relationship with your team.

For example, even before the pandemic, improving patient experience has always been a goal, a project for most medical institutions. In that regard, project directors need to step up. They are expected to lead a team to collaborate on a project to enhance the patient experience across an entire medical practice.

However, without trust within the team, the members will not be able to carry out the project to the full term. The venture may just be a series of failed attempts that will negatively impact many stakeholders, more specifically the medical institutions and the patients.

How can you build trust then? With the help of your story habit.

A workplace culture thrives with a dynamic strategy that empowers employees to understand and embody an organization’s core values. This strategy is storytelling.

Storytelling is a powerful tool that leaders, such as Project Directors, can use to inspire, motivate, and inform their teams. A story habit that enables trust is essential for connecting on a human level. Although your subordinates may respect your intelligence, experience, and knowledge, they will only trust you when they feel a connection to your humanity, the aspect of you that goes beyond your professional abilities.

That’s why this article is so relevant. It can help you understand how valuable it is for you to develop a story habit for building trust.

Ready to learn all about this story habit? Let’s start!

Ways how to use a Story Habit for Building Trust

You can build trust in different ways. You can use the story habit to build trust in the workplace, as a leader, and in teams.

The workplace is an environment made up of people from all walks of life. They have diverse cultures, backgrounds, and upbringings that may hinder them from connecting in a way where work can thrive.

For instance, if you are a project director, you get to work on various projects. That means that one venture and the people connected to it are different from the next ones. Since you spearhead the team, it’s up to you to ensure that there’s mutual respect, honesty, and safety in the work environment.

Your story habit exerts your influence over all the people in the workplace. Remember that storytelling does not only mean communicating with them face-to-face. In the workplace, stories or narratives can be expressed through emails, proposals, briefs, the launch of new projects or products, and presentations.

You have to be a trustworthy leader. You cannot expect those who follow you to do what you expect them to do if they don’t trust you. The projects will fall flat if the people don’t feel a certain connection with you.

Team members agree that a committed and competent leader is needed to help them finish their projects. How can they come up with strategies and programs to improve the patient experience if you don’t illustrate the kind of leader they need?

Here’s where your story habit can take place.  A business objective can be shared and necessary concepts can be taught better with the help of storytelling.

Of course, these members need to trust each other. Without trust, they are less likely to innovate, collaborate, think creatively, and be productive. It’s possible that they will spend time protecting their own interests rather than assisting the group in achieving its objectives.

Before storytelling, our field of vision is constrained to seeing people behind the desk, going about their business. Sharing stories allows us to see the real person.

You can encourage the team to share their entire selves, along with all of their experiences and wisdom. Their life-changing experiences can help build deeper levels of trust.

For more on building trust, check this link.

Benefits of a Story Habit for Building Trust

There are many advantages to having trust through a story habit. Here are some of them:

Loyalty

You need a team that stays true to your group objectives. If you have built trust with your storytelling habit, there’s organizational loyalty.

Organizational loyalty leads to achieving the organization’s goals, values, and mission. One of those is fulfilling the tasks given by a project director.

Respect

When there’s trust, you have the opportunity to respect each other. This situation allows members to work together more efficiently.

A person would gladly work with a person on a project because the former knows that the latter is someone who is respectable and respectful. This knowledge is achieved through the storytelling habit.

Ability

When you lead a team on different projects for different clients, you want the cream of the crop. You require people who can work to the best of their ability. These people need to be skilled and knowledgeable in their respective roles for the venture to become a success.

If they don’t trust each other, these abilities are not utilized to their full potential. So, it’s imperative that you build trust so there’s no room for mistakes and failure.

Consistency

One project does not make you an excellent Project Director. One successful endeavor does not make your team the best. Consistency is key.

For the team to have a consistent body of excellent projects, there should be trust. The members can carry on the same dedication, commitment, and hard work they did from one project to the next because there’s faith in each other.  

Final Thoughts

A company’s greatest asset is its team members. Without trust, these members all go in different directions, thereby breaking the “one team, one goal” concept.

As the team leader, it’s your job to build trust within your team that can be carried over to the entire workplace. But of course, you have to start with yourself. A trustworthy leader you should be.

Loyalty, respect, ability, and consistency are all important to a team’s success. These are not difficult to create in the workplace. You only need help from a friend.

That friend is a story habit for building trust. Allow this habit to define your leadership.