In any workplace, gaining the trust of colleagues is the basis for success. Without trust, your colleagues may hesitate, wondering whether they should approve of your ideas and whether they should support you. Trust or not, often means different effects: achieving goals or failing.
When I was an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), I wrote evaluation and analysis reports for the President of the United States and other policymakers. I worked with my colleagues in the Operations Division, met with intelligence personnel, and collected information that was valuable to the United States.
In this job, trust plays an indispensable role. When I left the CIA to work on threat intelligence at a large technology company, I immediately realized that the skills acquired in the CIA were of great help, and the ability to build trust was particularly beneficial. In the field of information security dominated by men, as a woman, I often cannot avoid encountering all kinds of doubts about my qualifications.
Since I can’t share too many details about my professional background, my past career experience is nothing short of dusty. After a few meetings with little success, I began to realize that I needed to shift my focus: before completing the intelligence collection goal, I first need to establish a harmonious relationship with others in order to gain their trust and respect.
To this end, I used a technique I learned in the CIA-You Me, Same Same. Some intelligence officials interpreted it as meaning that one should pretend to be like-minded.
However, the most successful operational intelligence officers often inspire real common interest by constructing their own multi-faceted charm. Let’s take a look at some of the techniques used by CIA agents to establish genuine contact and trust with colleagues.
Find a way to fully develop
The topic is the bond of communication with others. In order to find common topics, you need to develop some interests and hobbies. Have you always wanted to learn something?
Nowadays, even if you sit firmly at home, there are countless opportunities to learn from people all over the world to acquire some new skills. For example, you can taste wine with famous wine tasting masters through the online learning platform MasterClass, learn knitting on the short video platform TikTok, or communicate with other book fans through the virtual book club.
Do you already have a hobby, but you gave it up halfway through your busy life? When work and family responsibilities are overwhelming, it becomes more difficult to find time for hobbies outside of work.
Consider setting aside a dedicated time on the weekly schedule to learn new skills and develop new hobbies. Remember, you don’t need to be comprehensive, and you don’t need to be an expert in every field you try. He knows a little bit about all kinds of topics, even if he has a relatively simple experience sometimes, he can also provide you with inspiration when meeting or contacting others.
Don’t pretend to be anyone else
Just as CIA operational intelligence officers who try to establish false mutual interests with others often fail, if you are not true, your attempts to establish trust will also fail. You need to find a common topic that is of real interest to each other.
If you can’t find a breakthrough to establish a relationship with the other party, you can consider starting with a deep understanding of their interests-but only if you are really interested.
For example, suppose your new colleague is a wine expert. Instead of rushing to buy a book about wine-or sign up for a related course-to impersonate an expert, it is better to express your interest in learning more about wine.
Putting yourself in the role of the student and the other person in the role of the teacher is a great way to build trust, and it’s much more real.
Listen carefully
When you are trying to build a harmonious relationship with others, remember one thing: Generally speaking, people like to talk about themselves and their interests.
Of course, it’s okay to talk about you—it’s also imperative in order to establish the common connection discussed above—but it must be done in a way that allows the two sides to communicate smoothly and guides the other to share more.
If you know that you are naturally talkative and willing to be the focus of everyone’s attention, don’t forget to pass the “microphone” to the other person. Although sharing a similar story is more likely to resonate, remember that sometimes playing the role of a listener is more important.
For example, if someone is excited to share their latest vacation experience and you have visited the place countless times, then your travel experience in that place should not be the center of the conversation.
If the other person happens to ask you if you have been there, you should reply truthfully, but then you still have to throw the topic back cleverly. You can ask about the most satisfactory part of the trip, how the accommodation is, whether you are considering going there again in the future, etc. Perhaps, you can find a way to establish contact by sharing relevant experiences based on the answer from the other party.
Give first, get later
In order to let the other party open their hearts, sometimes you need to start talking and use some of your own information to open the chatterbox. In this way, the other party will share their true feelings in a relaxed situation. This is also the technique taught by the CIA in training to help operational intelligence officers learn to establish rapport and develop secret relationships with intelligence targets.
In the business world, this is equally important. If you want to confide some specific information to you, you can initiate a conversation by revealing similar things in your life. Ideally, this will trigger a frank sharing of topics you are interested in.
For example, if you want to talk to your colleagues about the pressure you face at work, you can try to talk about similar stories that you have experienced recently to attract the other party’s participation.
Whether you want to find a compromise in your mediation, or just want to break the deadlock with your colleagues, “whatever you want must be given first” is an easy way to encourage openness and trust.
Record details
Just as the CIA operational intelligence officer writes the following talk record after each meeting, you can also consider writing down the information you have learned after communicating with your colleagues, so that you can have a more in-depth conversation later.
Here I am not suggesting that you write down any confidential information about the other party, but to record the small details of their life, in case they are full of work and forget these more private important content.
For example, if a colleague mentions that he is preparing for a marathon, and you record it, you can ask about its progress the next time you meet with him. If the other party tells you how many children there are in the family, and what their names are, write them down.
You know, when you remember the details of the other person’s life, you will make people feel that you are special, and the subsequent communication will definitely be smoother.
It is true that improving the ability to build trust with colleagues is only one aspect of winning supporters for your ideas, but when we use these CIA-inspired techniques, we are also laying the foundation for achieving our professional goals.
Whether we can achieve success at work depends largely on whether we can establish good interpersonal relationships and win the trust of colleagues. When we are willing to spend time, energy and mind to connect and understand each other, we are ready to step into our own success.
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