Building TRUST in 2025 What Top Leaders Wish They Knew - Charles Feltman

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. We have a phenomenal episode for you, a conversation with Charles Felton. He is the author of the business classic, The Thin Book of Trust. This book has sold more than 100,000 copies and guys, when I was, when I was... When I, I bought the book on Amazon, right, and the very first quote is from Brene Brown.

"I have used his definitions of trust and distrust in every book I've ever written." Yes, the Brene Brown, one of the leaders, one of the absolute gurus, one of the best and deepest thinkers on the idea of trust and leadership and connection and communication. Brene uses Charles' definitions of trust and distrust in her books, and that just gives you a little preview on what you're gonna get today from Charles Felton. Couldn't be more excited to have him on the show and dig into this topic. My friends, if you're listening to this on Spotify, Apple, wherever you listen to podcasts, or you're watching it on YouTube, please, if you're not, subscribe, tell a friend, leave a comment, leave a review.

I read every comment that comes in. I read every review that comes in. I respond to all of them. I love you guys for taking the time to share your thoughts, your feelings about this show, the work we're doing here to help you get better as a leader, to help you become the person that you were meant to be, that God intended you to be to hit peak performance. Ah, I'm all jacked up today.

In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. To talk about the weather when we meet each other, or we're just, like, not real humans, I guess. I guess that's what it is, right? Like, you have to... You're forced to talk about the weather always when you first meet somebody.

Yes, yes. Well, in a funny way, interesting that w- 'cause our topic is to some degree trust- Do you think that that's something that we've just, like, has come up through our culture and just literally every business meeting ever, the first time you meet with someone, your first five minutes are talking about where you're from and what the weather is? And then everyone commiserates, and then you kinda, like, have this moment of awkward silence, and then you go, "Well, let's talk about what we really came here to talk about." And it's like every conversation every time. It's, like, built into our DNA.

It, it... Well, I think it's more built into our DNA than the cultural because it's true of anyone I've spoken to all over the world. So to that point, when I was going down the rabbit hole digging deep into... Th- there was one stat that's, like, was right at the top that just caught my attention immediately, which was this disconnect between, you know, 86% of leaders feel that they're trustworthy, yet only 60% of employees or team members actually trust leadership. And, and, like, there's this disconnect between those two things, and that just immediately caught me, and, like, where does that come from?

Well, I wanna dig in and kinda... There's so many people in leadership positions, more towards even the early side of their career, that listen to this show, right? Tends to be entrepreneurs, people who've, who maybe have found leadership positions but tend to be newer to leadership positions, and they might not even, one, be aware that that gap in trust exists, and two, I'd love to take our time together and really work through things we can do as individuals and organizationally to start to bridge that gap. Well, let me just say that that little poll that I did, which is unscientific, it's, you know, it was totally informal, it came out of my own curiosity about that. I wanted to see what was going on.

And so the leaders that are, you know, that I talked about there, you notice there's a dis- difference between the higher, higher leader, you know, the people at the top, the, you know, C-suite and the, you know, so on. And one's direct managers tend to be trusted more than the top level leadership of a company. And I think part of that is that there is a gap. There's a pretty big gap often between the top leadership and the, the, uh, people who are actually doing the work in the company or even the middle management. There's a pretty big gap.

And part of that is, is that as people move up in an organization, they tend to forget what it was like and what they needed when they were further down in the organization. So they, they tend to act in ways that can cut them off from trust of the people they're leading. They tend to be less and less transparent as they move up in the organization. This is... There, there have been some, there's been some pretty good research around this, that actually leaders do become...

Whether it's intentional or not, they become less transparent, and they become m- more, often more autocratic, and that damages trust, the, the trust that they could have earned of their, you know, the people who report to them, the people further down in the organization that they're attempting to lead. And it varies, too. I mean, there's some leaders at the tops of organizations that are highly trusted, but many of them are not, and it's kind of an unfortunate situation. And there are things that they could do to change that. Do you think...

I really like this idea that we forget, like, we needed when we're in that position. And do you think that that forgetfulness, is it ego? Is it stress of the position? Is it preconceived notions on what a leader in this position is supposed to be? Or is it just- time away from doing that day-to-day work or some other factor?

I think it's a combination. I think a big part of it r- really is the role that we think we're supposed to play in that, at, at that level. That we're supposed to know everything, right? You know, the leader is supposed to have all the answers. The leader is supposed to not have any doubts, which in effect makes us less transparent.

We, we, leaders at that level really don't want to divulge in any way their insecurity around not knowing, so they act as if they know even if they don't, and that, that doesn't go over that well. People lower down in the organization get it anyway. They see it. They're like, "What, what's going on here," you know? So one of the things that leaders can do is when they genuinely are not sure, when they don't know, acknowledge it.

Don't know, we're gonna find out. We're gonna figure it out. This is new to me. This is a new m- new situation. We've never confronted it.

I've never confronted it, but nonetheless, we can learn. We can figure it out, and we'll get through it. So, you know, acknowledging I don't have the answer now, and I do have the capacity to go after it and figure it out. Yeah. I, I actually learned this lesson the hard way.

I've, uh, started a national digital commercial insurance agency back in 2020, and my, my expertise has come out of the insurance industry. I've been, uh, an executive in the insurance industry for a long time. And I started my own insurance agency and built on tech and idea, whatever, all good. And for the first year and a half, I think o- one, because I was kind of... Early on you play all these different roles, so I had my hands in most of the pieces, right?

And as I s- as the organization started to grow, and as you described earlier, I stopped having my hands in all the pieces and started focusing more on the things that someone in the, in the CEO position needed to focus on. I kept pretending as if I was supposed to have all the answers. And one day on a call, and it was a team call, we had, I think, low 20s at this point in terms of number of people in the organization. Someone asked me a question about something that I just had no clue how to solve the problem. And it was not intentional, but I just said, I literally had that kind of reaction, like, "Ah, I have no idea how to solve that," like, literally on the call, right?

And I said, "I'm... You know, I need one of you to figure it out. Like, I don't know. Like, I literally don't know what the answer to this problem is," right? And then we moved on.

What woke me up to this idea was I got three emails after that meeting from different team members. One, uh, you know, with, with solutions, all, all with individual solutions that we then used to actually come up with what we did. But there was one of the emails that said, and it was from, uh, I think she was kind of boots on the ground CSR, customer rep, and she said, "I've never been on a call with my boss before and have him say he didn't know the answer to a problem. Thank you." And it was like, it was like a, a gut punch and a light bulb going off at the same exact time, right?

Like, I was like, "Oh my God, wait a minute. I don't actually need to know everything. That's what all these other humans that I hired are for," right? Like, they have an- they have answers to questions too. And then that, like, completely changed, you know, how, you know, how I've operated as a leader since.

But it was really an eye-opening moment for me that, like, I had been trying to be this thing, as you mentioned, like the role I was supposed to play, and I was doing it wrong. And, and really the course of our business changed 'cause then all of a sudden I started going, "Well, actually, I don't know that thing over there. I don't know that thing over there either, so... " Well, you guys gotta start. And then all of a sudden, incredible solutions started coming from places that you wouldn't have otherwise traditionally expected, which, which really helped us grow.

So, you know, I can, I can be a testament to, to exactly what you're saying. You know, I, I had... Actually, how we got connected was through one of your team members. I had done an episode with an individual who his position was w- we need more autocratic leadership, but almost in, like, a benevolent dictator kind of way. Not, uh, dictator's the wrong word.

He did not like that word. He liked autocratic. But, like, I guess, one, I'd love your take on just that, that term autocratic in general, especially 'cause the audience would have heard it, uh, positioned before. But also, like, his main point was you need a, you need someone making decisions, that w- that we've gotten too committee-based. And he believed, and this is really where I'm interested in your take, is that an individual making a decision, if using some of the principles of trust that you're describing, w- you could generate more trust in an organization that way than if it were nine people in a room, you know, kinda closed off making a decision, that it, it felt more...

It felt less tangible was kinda what he was saying. It didn't, it didn't feel like you could really grab onto something if it were this group of people versus a single individual that they thought was making the decision. Do you think there's a case to be made there, obviously with the glossing that I've put on the idea? Yeah. I think...

Well, let me s- sort of take a step back and say one of the things that builds trust, i- whether you're the leader and you're, you're taking an autocratic approach, uh, or you are doing, you're, you're arriving at decisions through consensus or whatever the process is, what builds trust is making sure that the people involved understand what the process is. They understand this is how we're doing it, and it also helps to explain this is why we're doing it this way. We- we're not just doing it randomly this way. We actually have... We've thought about it, and this seems to be the, the process that will work best for us, in our opinion, or my opinion or whatever it is.

So in terms of, you know, whether that opinion or that, that choice, that decision is made by one individual after, you know, taking counsel with other people, or if it's made by a small group of people, or you get input from a, a larger group, whatever it is- That's important, is that everybody understands. The other, another piece of that that's really important is that, and that you've-- I'm sure you've heard this phrase before, disagree and commit. So if you're working with a group... If I'm leading a team, and on that team, you know, we've got, like, maybe eight, nine people, and we have a decision to make, and we have some differences of opinion, what's really important in the, in the process is for people to be able to really speak freely about their opinion, to support their opinion, and also listen to other people who might have different opinions. In fact, when someone, any of the people on that team can say, "Hey, here's my, h-here's my opinion" or, "Here's my proposal," poke holes in it, you know?

Tear it up. Let's see if we can come up with something better. That's very powerful decision, you know, decision process. But at some point, whether the leader makes the decision or the whole team comes to a consensus, even if you still disagree, the idea is that you commit to it outside of that environment, outside of that meeting. You don't go leaving the team, the team meeting, and start badmouthing the decision or second-guessing the decision or, you know, then going into the boss' office and saying, "Hey, you know, I have a different of opinion.

We gotta change this," da, da, da. No. At that point, until you have new data, you stick with the decision, and you support it fully. That also builds strong trust throughout the organization. When, when people further down in the organization see that happening at the top or even in the middle, it builds strong trust.

It doesn't feel, however, like that is our natural inclination. Most of the larger organizations that I worked with earlier in my career, et cetera, it tends, when these committees get formed or decision-making bodies get formed, they tend to be hand-selected with the individuals that you know are gonna vote alongside you or are gonna vote in a similar pattern. Tends to be a way a lot of these... You know, you, you get, you get labeled as the disagreeable one or the, you know, this guy's always got, you know, something else, something different to say. And why do you feel like, why do you feel like it seems like we really have to work to get to what you just described?

And how, if you're part of an organization and you, you wanna build m- you wanna build a space where people can feel like they can come in and disagree or take different viewpoints, and they're not going to be punished for that, how do we start to build that? How do we, how do we let an employee know, who may have a different opinion, that they're gonna be, I hate this term, but safe sharing that opinion and not being penalized down the road for sharing it in a meeting? Well, that, that comes with experience. When people are penalized, when people... Y- whether it's, you know, the team leader or other people on the team that penalize them in some way, then they're gonna just, you know, "Oh, okay, I'm not gonna say anything.

I'm not gonna speak up, even if I think I have a better idea. Um, I'm sure as heck not gonna bring it up in this conversation." So, or the opposite, when somebody does bring up, you know, a contradictory idea and, you know, tries to lay it out for the rest of the group and actually gets encouraged for having a different idea, thanked for having a different idea. Even if that idea isn't taken up, even if it gets, if something else, it goes in a different direction, that person still gets it, that it's okay to do it. So that, a big part of that falls to the team leader.

They have to go first in that regard. And other people on the team, when the team leader does that, genuinely does that, then the other people on the team tend to follow suit. So you create the, you know, what, uh, I'm sure you've heard the term psychological safety, right? So there's this one-on-one trust between the team leader and the individual team members and also between each of the individual team members that's the foundation for, for psychological safety, the sense that these individuals actually have my interests in mind. They actually have my back here, and they wanna know.

They wanna hear from me. And then that begins to build that sense of psychological safety. Doesn't happen overnight, and it happens through experience, through how we work together. Yeah. This is...

You know, I think about, like, the culture that Ray Dalio has created inside of his organization. He's written books about it. He's done a lot of interviews around how they, their team, in some regard, and I'm, again, I'm kind of glazing this idea, but they're almost ranked based on how often they bring... I don't wanna call them dissenting, 'cause they're not meant, it's not meant to be negative in any way. But, but as, as often as someone is willing to bring alternative ideas to the conversation and present them in a qual- They're, they're, like, ranked inside their organization almost for being disagreeable but in a positive way.

And he, he equates that to the massive growth that they've had and the sustained massive growth that they've had to the fact that they're literally incentivized to come up with alternative ideas, to be disagreeable, to, to present arguments that go against the, the, the common or, or accepted narrative inside the organization. And you think about the, like, emotional strength that you have to have, one, to do it, and two, the cultural strength th-that he's created that they feel like they can do that and not, and not be penalized. I mean, that's an enviable or-organizational culture, I think. That's kind of w-where we would like to get. Not easy, and certainly taking time, but i- does that feel like the direction that ultimately we're trying to go?

Well, in my experience, that ki- Yes. To... The short answer is yes. I, I wanna point to something, though, that you said there, you know, being disagreeable. I think bringing up contradictory ideas, approaches, thoughts, you know, "Have, have, have we thought about this?

What if we tried this?" There are people who do that very skillfully, and there are people who d- Are not skilled in doing. They, they come across as disagreeable, and that actually can be a problem. So one of the things that I think is important if a leader is wanting to create that kind of team, that kind of organization where people can do that and feel comfortable about that, they have to help those people who are not skillful at disagreeing in a positive way to be able to do it, to be a-- to, to shift so that they can bring their contradictory or, or alternate views in without ruffling feathers on a personal level. So keep it at the level of ideas as opposed to making it personal.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, you know, that was one of the things, you know, as our organization grew and we started to have this culture of alternative ideas, right? I think it started to be... At first it was all very positive, and then, you know, people start doing these internal calculations, you know, these calculations in their head of how often their idea is accepted and this person's...

And then, you know, and, and, you know, we had at a certain point to do like a-- We'd have a hard conversation around framing, and that was one of the... Like, there was like a month of my life at the organization where I was working with individuals around framing their arguments to be not his idea or her idea, but the idea, right? Like, what is the thing they said, not, you know, you don't like the way his tone, right? We s- we got into these crazy semantic nonsense, in my mind, in my mind, I know they're important, but in my mind as a leader, arguments around the tone used in Slack. And I was like, "Guys, one, we can't hear them, so, like, th- that diminishes tone.

Two, not everyone is great at conveying in a short form context like Slack. They're i- you know, they're not perfectly articulating all their ideas." Like, you know, as, you know, we had to talk about not filling in the blanks between the words 'cause people would, like, inject wor... And I'd be like, "Wait a minute. He didn't actually write that," or, "She didn't actually write that.

She wrote this. You've stuck this word and this word in h- these two places and made it sound like they're accusing you of something, when really they're just, you know, asking a question from a different direction." And that framing exercise was one of the most exhausting things I've ever done as a leader. But we did start to get better at it. Not perfect, but, you know, w- I guess if, if, if I were, you know, getting free consulting from you, which is essentially what a podcast is in, in general, you know, like, how, how would you help leaders who are out there going, "You know, I'm, I'm trying to create this space.

I'm trying to help people, but geez, they just... We always seem to drop back into, 'He said it this way,' or, 'She said it that way,' or, you know, 'She said this, but I know what she really means.'" Like, h- how do we start to pull our team and, and even ourselves out of the person delivering the message and extract just the message and try to, you know, remove that human attachment that, that oftentimes can corrupt the message they're trying to get across? So I don't wanna put myself out there as a communications expert because, uh, that, that's f- you know, really... I mean, I certainly have, uh, helped people improve their communication.

A lot of it has to do with... And it's the same with email. It's always, it's always been this since the dawn of email, and probably long before that, people were filling in, you know, uh... They were adding tone and color to words that necess- weren't necessarily there in the first place, or they were in- reinterpreting words in, in different ways. And so one of the things that a leader can do, I think, is to help...

Well, Slack, for example, is a great communication channel, but it, like email, it has its best uses and its not so good uses. And its best uses are for either sh... I think, personal opinion, are for short form, "Hey, c- a meeting is happening today at such and such. Here are the topics," end of story. Or more long form, but making it clear that this is like, "Okay, I'm gonna put this out there.

This is my opinion. This is my argument, if you will, for the case I'm making for this proposal," or whatever it is, and that's just what it is. It's so making it clear that that's what I'm doing. "I'm making a, a long form proposal argument here, and I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this." This gets tricky because younger people tend to...

It, you know, ego is not quite formed fully yet. It's still... People are still defensive. So, you know, if I put my thought out there and somebody attacks it, you know, in quotes, or at least that's how I read that in, in the Slack channel there somewhere or in an email, I'm gonna get really defensive right away, and I'm gonna not trust this person. So again, it's leader's job to help, help ameliorate that, help, help mediate that by helping the individuals see.

Leaders think that their, their leadership is, you know, 95% about making business decisions. No. It's, you know, about 50 maybe percent making business decisions, and 50% supporting their people in building and maintaining trust, in communicating clearly and positively with each other, in dealing with the, the emotions that they're all experiencing. And there was some great research years ago now. Barbara Fredrickson did some good research about positivity and negativity and, you know, it's like, okay, if you have 100% positive emotions, a string of posi- that's actually damaging.

You need to have some, a few negative emotional experiences in, in any given time period or through any given process, um, to have the process be meaningful. And so trying to create a totally constantly positive environment, I think I've read articles lately about toxic positivity and so on, but there's something to that. You know, too much of it, so it doesn't help. So I think it's the leader's job, again, to, to get involved at that level as well, helping their employees build and maintain-- creating the environment in which their employees can build and maintain strong trust with each other, that they can deal with, uh, and help repair damaged trust, um, that they can help their employees communicate more effectively with each other. So yeah, that's a big part of the leader's job, whether they feel comfortable with it, whether they like it or not.

And if they don't feel comfortable with it and they don't like it, it's-- the organization needs to help them get better at it. And you can. We all can. Why a lot of times incredibly high task performers who get elevated to leadership positions often struggle, because maybe they were an incredible salesperson, or they were just the best on the phone with service people, or whatever that thing is, and then they get elevated to a leadership position and they're like, "Wait a minute, I was really good at the decisions that it took to execute this task. Now all of a sudden I'm dealing with people all day?

What the... You know, what the heck's going on here?" When I was training my management team at my company, we came up with a phrase, "In service of." I said, "Your job is no longer to sell insurance policies or service insurance policies or whatever. You are now in service of the humans that do that.

And if you don't want your day-to-day life to be in service of the other humans that do that task, then this is not the right spot for you. And, and you don't have to be great at it today. I need you to want to get to that place, but that's where your mind needs to be. You are no longer the person doing the thing. You are the person in service of the people doing the thing."

And that phrase seemed to really grab them, and we... That became like a mantra. Like, anytime someone started to get a little squirrely, we'd be like, "Just remember, in service of," right? "In ser- I know she's difficult, but we're in service of her 'cause she kills it. You know, she's selling her butt off.

Like, you know, we need to be in service of her. How do we, how do we help her? How do we help the team, you know, work together?" Whatever. And that seemed to really work.

But I wanna transition to, to a scenario that I think has been popularized by Elon Musk, but I think can create trust issues, and I, I just wanted to help you navigate this. And it's something that I, outside of Elon Musk, you know, I didn't even really know he did this until I started to research it, but I had a scenario where I, I needed to make a decision on a thing. So I went all the way down to the boots-on-the-ground level, like the actual salespeople, you know, doing the calls, talking to the customers, and I asked them for their help. And I... You know, and, and I think this was the major mistake, but I bypassed the middle-- the, the manager.

And frankly, I didn't want the manager there 'cause I wanted to get the kinda unfiltered response from the person doing the day-to-day work. I didn't wanna get a filtered version, and I certainly didn't want the day-to-day person to feel like they had to filter because their manager was there, et cetera. And that, if I had to do the calculation, it boosted my trust with the person on the ground, but it definitely had an impact on both the trust from the manager to the boots-on-the-ground person and the manager to me. So I like this idea of go to the person doing the thing to get the answer, but how do we navigate that, say, as an executive level? How do we navigate through the manager layers so that we all know we're working the same direction, no one's being stepped past or stepped on, and we can all kinda, you know, understand what we're trying to do, you know, in this type of scenario?

How do we, how do we work through that process from a trust perspective? Well, so my first question to you, if I were coaching you on this, would be to, to ask you what, what did you say to the middle management folks about what you were up to? Well, see, I think my first problem was I didn't tell the middle management folks. I just called the person directly and said, "Hey, I'm working on something. I wanna get your thought on it."

Right? So that's kinda how I said it. Now, in my mind, I'm going, you know, and again, I don't mean this to sound egotistical, but in my mind I'm like, "I'm the CEO of the company. Like, I should be able to call whoever I want and talk to them on the phone." Like, I didn't-- I wasn't purposefully trying to bypass the manager, but I wanted that person's opinion, and I didn't want it filtered, right?

So that was kinda my idea. So I just picked up the phone and I called him, and I didn't even realize there was a problem until a couple weeks later, there was, like, a passive-aggressive comment in a meeting, and I was like, "Something's wrong." So then I called the manager on the phone, and then that's when this kinda all shook out and I was like... You know, I had to eat some crow and, you know, I apologized. Said, "Look, I'm not trying to step on your toes," whatever.

But yeah, I didn't, I didn't say anything to the manager, you know. So explaining ahead of time what it is you're doing, why you're doing it that way, so that they get it, that it, this is not sort of an end run around their authority. Because, and middle managers, you know, th-th-that's, like, one of the toughest jobs. I... Way, way more difficult in many ways than being CEO.

They just-- Th- They're trying to bridge the gap between strategy at the s- you know, at the C-suite level or, you know, whatever, uh, little ways down from there, to the people who are actually doing the work. And, you know, it's, it's, it's hard. And then when you're-- when it looks like your CEO or your, you know, h- you know, senior leadership is doing an end run around you and, and not including you in this, it just feels crappy. So step one You know, to tell 'em what, what it is you're up to and for the sake of what are you doing it that way? Well, because I wanna hear directly from them.

I don't want them to be influenced by you in the room. I don't want it to come up through you. And, and you know, another thing you can do, of course, is s- say to them, you know, "After I get the, you know, what I wanna get from them, I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna ask you some stuff, too, 'cause I wanna hear some things from you as well." You know, you may wanna, for example, hear, "How would you answer this question?" And if there's a difference there, that would be an, you know, kind of a useful thing to know, too, so.

But yeah, I think the main thing is communicating, communicating, and communicating some more. Well, I was gonna say you can't over-communicate, but you can. That can be bad, too, but I think the important thing is to communicate the essen- you know, the, the important, essential aspects of what it is you're doing and why you're doing it. To that point, kind of bringing up the topic of transparency again, what is the right bal- how do we find harmony with transparency, right? Like I, I always tended to just full transparency, right? 'Cause one, I have hardcore ADHD, ADD.

I, I just move very fast. My brain moves very fast, and I always found trying to be less transparent just like an anchor around my wa- like should I share this? Should I not share this? Like that thought alone just like slowed me down enough that I was like, "Screw it. I'm just gonna tell everything because it's just easier.

I don't have to, I told this person this. I didn't tell this person this," right? Like, but that also comes... You know, there are negatives to being completely transparent, too, and what I ultimately tried to find was a good balance. I don't know that I found it.

So, you know, being that, you know, this is a topic that you definitely have expertise in, I, I would love your opinion on how do we start to find... And I know there's not like a certain number. It's not like you can come back and go, "73%, Ryan." You know me like, what... How do we as leaders start to figure out what a good level of transparency is so that our team knows we're being honest with them, that, that we're sharing with them, but maybe we don't need to barf every single thing onto them that's happening in the organization, every number, et cetera?

I think it starts with the question: What's useful for them to know? What's important for them to know in order for them to do their jobs well, feel like they're part of the team, feel like they're respected and honored in that, in their role? And if you can answer that question, then you can answer... Th- that will lead you directly to what can I tell or should I, should I tell them, should I talk about? I would err, I would...

My advice would be to err on the side of transparency. There are times when we can't be, right? There are things that we, we can't share with, uh, you know, with our teams, especially at the middle management level. One of my, one of my clients, actually more than one of my clients, but one in particular that stands out in my memory because he was a middle manager and he had a team, and his team members had, you know, people reporting to them and kind of on down the line, and the company was doing a RIF. Or actually, it seemed to be in a permanent RIF mode, but there was a big one coming up and everybody knew about it.

It's like, you know, you, you t- n- it wasn't a secret. But he basically knew that some of the, a couple of the people on his team, he was going to have to walk out of the building sometime in the next couple of weeks. And pretty much everybody knew that there was, you know, jobs were gonna be cut. "I know where the cuts are gonna be. I can't tell you that because I have a commitment to my senior leadership that I won't do that, and I'm gonna, as part of my commitment to them as a manager, as a leader in this organization at the level I'm at, I will tell you w- everything that I know that pertains to you as soon as I know it.

I will tell you as much as I can tell you based on my commitment to the organization and what they're asking me to do." And that little speech, I... He probably said it better than I did just now, um, but that little speech really went a long way in building trust so that when he did end up walking that, those one or two people out the door, they felt they still trusted him. They felt good about having worked for him. And the people who were left felt strong trust for this particular leader.

And I've seen that happen not just there, but in, in... I've coached a number of people who have had to do something similar to that, and that's, you know, that's what has happened if they've built trust that way. I don't know if that helps in your- Yeah. No, no, that's perfect, uh, 'cause I think, you know, I, you know, I... It's definitely a struggle.

We can't help but build emotional relationships to the people that we spend eight, nine, 10, you know, however many hours a day we're in this place. We build these emot- You know, even the people who may not be your best friends, you still don't necessarily wanna hurt them. You don't want them to be sad. You don't, you know, all these things, and I think, I think it's a wonderful... The way you put it is a wonderful template because it expresses the emotional concern for them while being open to the limitations that they have based on, on their job and their commitment to the organization, and I don't think you can ask more for that.

I, I would assume you get yourself in trouble in that same position more often than not by going against what maybe management has given you as a directive and oversharing in that moment and trying to, you know, in an effort to try to curb someone's ill feelings towards you, right? Like, I'm gonna, "You know, you may hate this company because they're firing you, but you're gonna still like me 'cause I'm gonna tell you two weeks early." And now that person's walking around for two weeks looking at, you know, eyeballing everybody like, "You know, I'm going, so what do I care," right? And it just creates all this problem. Is oversharing tend to be the issue, or is it under-sharing, uh, versus kinda I'd say classy middle road that you just kinda described?

Well, again, I think that it really comes down to what's, what is the greatest good served for the people who work for me and the company that I work for? And so finding that, that middle ground. But at, where, where you were just, where we- What you just described, that manager who says, "I'm gonna do this so that this person will trust me, even though it, it's not what the company wants me to do," I've coached a few people who are, and I've certainly when I was working in companies saw this, where you have the, the, the manager, the team leader who is so focused on having my team like me and support me that they alienate other people, their boss, other peers in the organization, whatever, by promoting their team's interests above everyone else's interests. Whether it's in, like you described there, telling the team members something that the management, their s- their management wouldn't want them to tell their team, or it's simply just, you know, sort of taking a very antagonistic approach towards anyone else or their leadership. They, they kind of put themselves in a role of defending their team against the bad company here, the bad organization.

And that may build trust in that small little pool of people, but it really damages trust throughout the rest of the organization, and that, that's something that I would say is not the right approach, for sure. Yeah. I completely agree. That, yeah, I, I think that's a wonderful point. I wanna transition now to "The Thin Book of Trust," right?

You, more than 100,000 copies sold. You, you recently updated the book. What was the impetus for the update, and, you know, why did you feel like it was necessary now to, to do an update to, to, to the book? Well, so it, it was first published in 2009, which is a while ago, right? And it was published by a husband-wife publishing company, small, small company focused on, you know, thin books for the business market.

And it did really well. They were ready to retire after, you know, quite a number of years. Uh, they did a second edition. We... I added some stuff to it then.

I added a few things, and I made some changes in the second edition that had bothered me since the first edition came out. I could've said that so much better with this... Anyway. So when they told me that they were folding and all the... n- none of the other books in their catalog were really selling anymore, but mine was, and so they, they offered to help me find a publisher, another publisher. So they did.

They found this wonderful publishing company called Berrett-Koehler Publishers. And in order to move the book over to Berrett-Koehler, we needed to come out with a, a new edition, make it something worth, you know, not just, hey, it's the same book, different publisher, but let's make a new edition. Which was great. It fit really well with what I had thought about for the book. There were some things that I wanted to add to it at that point anyway, so there's some new, you know, there's some new things, new s- new ideas, new concepts, some new information, and also a discussion guide at the end, which I thought was a great idea to, uh, put in.

Berrett- the Berrett-Koehler folks actually suggested, and I thought, "Oh, fantastic. Yes, I'd love to do that," because of so many times people have emailed me and said, "Hey, our group of, you know, our team or our group here at this company are, you know, doing a book club and we'd like to have some discussion questions for us because we're reading your book over the next three months or whatever." So yeah, there's all those pieces in it, in the new edition. But also I think that what's important or what's really valuable is that, uh, Berrett-Koehler is a really strong publisher, and it's great to be... You know, it...

I loved that Thin Book Publishing got the book started. Berrett-Koehler is dedicated to keeping it going and, and, you know, f- finding more readers for it. So yeah, I'm happy to be at Berrett-Koehler, and I'm happy to have the third edition out with some new material and, uh, and the discussion guide. Well, Charles, I, I'm, I'm very grateful that you took this time with us, that you share your expertise. The book is tremendous.

Appreciate you. Where can people learn more about you and your work as well as pick up a copy of the book? Well, you can always find me on LinkedIn, Charles Feltman. It's... I think I'm the only one there.

I may be, may be wrong, but I I haven't actually checked it out. I should do that. You can also find me at my website, www.insightcoaching, all one word, I-N-S-I-G-H-T coaching.com. And so you can go there. You can find my book on Amazon, obviously.

You can also buy it from the publisher, and there you order it through, you know, Barnes & Noble. You can order it through pretty much any independent bookseller at this point. So, you just look for "The Thin Book of Trust" or ask for "The Thin Book of Trust," third edition. Guys, and I'll have links to everything in the show notes, so whether you're watching on YouTube or listening to the podcast, however you listen to podcasts, just scroll down. You'll find links.

Highly, highly recommend "The Thin Book of Trust," especially if you are... I like what, you know, the things that I took from it were really not, not just large organizationally, but if you have groups or teams and you're trying to really build that dynamic trust that makes teams rock, this is a wonderful, wonderful resource. I appreciate you, Charles. I appreciate your work, and, uh, thank you again for your time. Thank you, Ryan.

You take care. I really appreciate it. Great conversation. In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. It is 3:00 AM, and a confines-