Building Trust (or perhaps Demo-ing it)

So the amazing story of AJ and Hakim continues (see here, here, and here). Now, I don't really care about the story or the outcome, it's just amazing to see that the story doesn't die and that it's surreally not ever going the way I would expect!

So, I was sitting in my office this morning when I got an email  . . .yet again . . . from AJ the other day and he asked . . . again, yet again . . . if I had gotten a chance to speak with Hakim. 

"No," I told him. "I haven't heard from Hakim."

This was when AJ said something I didn't expect. 

"Well, did you reach out to him?"

I almost dropped the phone. Again, for those just joining this conversation, Hakim failed to show up for a call and since then has done the absolute bare minimum to try and re-start our conversation. Worse, Hakim is the one who wants my help, and yet he does less than nothing to try to either repair the problem he's created or to continue to build the trust needed to move forward. From my perspective, this could be the most absurd business relationship I've ever been a part of.

"Well, no, AJ," I told him. "I didn't reach out to Hakim. I've been busy with some other stuff and it's his project, not mine so I really think it's up to him at this point."

"Well, I told him I'd try and set something up."

So, that's the point of this post. Throughout this entire ordeal, AJ has been using the trust he built with me over years to help broker this side deal between me and Hakim. Hakim has already ruined the chance he had to build trust. 

AJ, has a trust to spare with me, but that might be going away rather quickly. Now it seems that he's leveraging his trust to help Hakim. Worse, and this I have absolutely no patience for, he's being lazy. He is brokering this meeting through the laziest way and using the least effort possible. I knew that Hakim was a flake and I couldn't rely on him. Now I wonder if AJ can be trusted. 

The conversation ended with "Well, if you get a chance you should really call him." 

I will not have a chance. In my mind the relationship is done and building it back up to a point where it could move forward would take far more effort than either AJ or Hakim have displayed up to this point. They are starting from behind the starting line now. This is the fourth time AJ has tried to get this together. 

Then there is that thing about habits that I wrote about (here). We as humans get into habits and for different people we express tendencies that once set hang around insidiously. Hakim is in the habit now of waiting for me to call him. AJ is in the habit of people doing the work for him. I'm in the habit of thinking this is ridiculous and can't wit to see where it goes. Hard to break those habits once they form. 

I've heard from Hakim just once. I've never seen a lazier business person.

I am actually looking forward to seeing if this continues cause I just can't imagine it will!

Common Decency and Trust

I had a friend contact me the other day and recommend that I get in contact with a friend of his, Hakim. I naturally said, "sure." So, this guy, the friend recommended wrote and asked me when I was free. I told him I'd be free all the next morning on my way to the airport for a good long call. It was all set up.



That morning meeting time came, and no call from Hakim. Odd thinks I.



After ten or fifteen minutes of no call or email, I call him. Nothing. I leave a message and let him know I'll be free for the next half hour or more.



No call comes.



I board my plane. I keep expecting a call, and still nothing.



It's when I land that I see Hakim has called. I listen to the message. He asks me to call him when I land. So I do. Nothing.

It's two days later that I hear from my friend who made the initial contact. He's asking me if I ever hooked up and got to talk to his recommended guy. I tell him no. Apparently, he had called his friend and asked his friend to try and help him set up another meeting. In my world, it's no longer on me to get this set up. I've tried enough times to meet Hakim, it's now Hakim's role to get this fixed if he wants my business. Hakim should have written and not tried the "phone call" to get his message across. He should have emailed, texted and then eventually tried to entice another call. But he had basically struck out at this point, he should have tried to get another turn at the bat.



This reminded me of my roommate in that once she hung up on me when she was too busy. I was furious. I kept expecting a call of apology. None came. The other day I wrote about emotion having a place in relationships (here), that was one day where emotion played a strong part in our relationship.  In that instance, trust had been undermined. It took a while, but it was rebuilt.



It also reminded me of another old friend who had the tendency, in fact she was in the habit of blowing off dates, calls,  . . . everything. At what point does one decide that common decency still play a part? At one point I wondered if the stressors and problems associated with the pandemic played a part in this tendency, but we shouldn't give up on common decency because of outside stressors. Like Hakim, there are ways to establish and build trust, he was undermining that effort with everything he was doing. Just like my friend, the trust was gone and despite my efforts, her habit of blowing off her commitments only made the chance to regain trust worse.



Trust is easy to build, but it takes time. Rules we have built-in society, common decency, those are all things that continue to build trust between individuals. Those simple calls that say, "Sorry, I couldn't make our call today," or even better getting in front of the problem and saying, "I overcommitted and won't be about to make our call." Naturally, actually making a call that you set up, these are all things that would build trust and are all things that are built into the common mores and social guidelines.



Where did it end with Hakim? My friend wrote to me again on his behalf. I told my friend that I was open for whenever Hakim wanted to try again. He still hasn't. Funny ole thing trust, hard to build, easy to lose.

Misson Creep

 Another letter in the affair of AJ and Hakim made me think about mission creep (for more see here). 

There was a person for whom I let a lot get by. I remember I broke up with a girl in Seattle just because she didn't make a coffee date she said she would. Could I have salvaged the relationship? Very probably. The problem was that I believed that allowing my slackening of principles would affect us. 

I think it was Life's Little Instruction Book that said, if someone shows up more than fifteen minutes late, just leave. The date or meeting will have been ruined by their showing up so late, so it's best just to leave. Taking that gal who stood me up into consideration, she had already not shown up for a date, so the chance to salvage anything was gone. 

For Hakim and AJ I'm making a stand. 

For too long I gave up too many principles for a friend. They stood me up too often and just as often I allowed them to. I wondered if they did that for others or was it just me? Did they stand up their other friends? I doubted it. Did they stand up their kids? I didn't think so. It was just me. I think they got in the habit of standing me up and after several years of it, it was a part of their nature. The problem was I was the one who had fostered that tendency. I should have done to them what I did to that gal in Seattle. After that first stand up, I should have been gone. Would have made things better in the long run. 

With Hakim and AJ, that's just what I'm doing. I'm nipping it in the bud. 

I should have nipped in the bud that friend who kept standing me up. Would have saved me many years of misery and I would have ended in the same (or similar) place anyway. 

Good lesson on not sacrificing principles. 

Follow Up on Trust

I went to a conference whose keynote speaker was Stephen M.R. Covey, son of Franklin. He was out there selling his book, Speed of Trust, so I wasn't expecting much from the address. Here's a guy trying to hawk his books, using his relationship with a famous father to get him some sales. Meh. I decided to go primarily for the free breakfast.

Now I did meet some very interesting other conference attendees, but what I got out of it was that Covey ain't that bad in front of a crowd. And his book wasn't too bad either. There must be some dominant Covey gene.



Regardless, Speed of Trust is a good read and I would promote to anyone that they read it. One thing it discusses is how hard it is to build trust, and how easy it is to lose it. I don't remember succinctly, but I betcha there are words in there that sound very similar to the old sales guy adage:



It's easier to keep a client than to go find a new one.



I'm betting someone in the Speed of Trust is a chapter on how hard it is to re-establish trust after it's been lost. A few weeks back I wrote about this happening in my life. I wrote about Hakim and my friend AJ and a failed meeting. I also wrote about a friend who had undermined our long-standing trust so much that it was impossible to keep the friendship (see it all here).



I think of these things today because AJ wrote to me again today to ask how things went with Hakim. I told him, he failed to show up, failed to set up a second meeting, haven't heard from him since.



AJ wrote back that that was too bad cause Mohammad was a good guy and AJ was supposed to have helped set up the meeting. I don't have too much to say to that. I didn't even reply. The only reply that I might have would be, "Well, then AJ you didn't do a very good job. You two failed to make your own meeting, failed to set up another, and somehow are expecting me to do it all for you."



I've heard from several readers about this post since I posted it. Many of them have said I'm too harsh and too critical. That's a WHOLE other subject, but I found it interesting that AJ was expecting to just immediately be granted trust again, after that first failure. Speed of Trust, AJ, go read it. And recommend to Hakim that he read it too.