So yesterday I was staring at my screen trying to figure out why my team’s new project felt… off. Like nobody was on the same page. Meetings dragged, shoulders slumped, my coffee went cold – you know that vibe. Then I remembered this old book gathering dust: something about trust at work. Flipped it open right there at my messy desk.
Turns out, it kept hammering three big things. I slapped a sticky note on my monitor:
- Ability – Can people actually do their jobs?
- Benevolence – Do they give a crap?
- Integrity – Can you believe a word they say?
I decided to test-drive this today. Grabbed my laptop and barged into Mike‘s cubicle. Mike’s our quiet backend guy. Always delivers, but you never know if he’s drowning. Said flat-out: “Hey Mike, need you on the Ruby script. Deadline’s tight – you cool with Thursday?” Watched his eyes. That was Ability-check.
He nodded, muttered “yeah.” But his shoulders were tense. So I leaned in, lowered my voice: “Honestly, are we burying you? We got Bob finishing up his API crap now – could throw him your way Thursday morning.” His whole face relaxed. That was Benevolence – showing him I wasn’t just dumping work.
Then came Phil. Phil loves big promises. Yesterday he swore he’d handle the client’s data migration “first thing.” By 11 AM? Still sipping coffee in the break room. Grabbed him, hard stare: “You told Karen the data’d be live by lunch. It’s not done. What’s happening?” Held my ground when he waffled. Integrity check – holding him to his word.
Chaos hit around 2 PM. Sales dropped a monster spreadsheet they “forgot” to send. Total mess. Instead of ghosting Slack like usual? Slapped a message in the team channel: “Sales dumped a bomb on us. 1000+ line spreadsheet. Real talk: we’re sinking if we don’t fix this.” Named names, put my name on it too. Took the heat.
The weird part? Nobody ran for the hills. Mike pinged: “Saw your message. Bob’s free – we got the formatting tools.” Phil actually showed up at my desk (!) offering to coordinate. Felt… lighter.
Drove home thinking: trust ain’t magic fairy dust. It’s grinding through those three things – Can they? Do they care? Can you believe ’em? – every single day. Like oiling a squeaky gate. Does it fix everything? Nah. My car stalled in the garage later and I yelled at the steering wheel. But at work? Feels like we might actually move together instead of tripping each other.
