Context and Trust

Working at a distance while collaborating in real time requires applications and technology for interacting which can hide context and subtler communications so important to effective working relationships. As we work with others we may never meet face to face, thinking about behaviors which cultivate trust at a distance is important to creating lasting, meaningful relationships.

In a guide on embracing remote work and myths surrounding worker effectiveness, Trello noted how “tools can mask the intention and humanity of people involved.” This should be a real concern to companies whose products are applications and whose business is based on relationships people have with each other using those applications.

This is the first of a series of blog posts I’m planning for 2019. Each post will focus on a different topic and explore related behaviors which influence trust. The first topic is “context” and how behaviors that communicate contextual awareness and contextual intelligence influence our willingness to trust others.

Contextual awareness

Context describes the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea. Contextual awareness is how well you understand the circumstances and details surrounding a situation, event, statement, or idea. At work, understanding our circumstances means being part of ongoing efforts to deliver value to the business so you should know about those efforts, who is doing what, and the value of what is being delivered.

As a meeting organizer or presenter, you can exercise contextual awareness by making sure everyone knows why they are there, being clear what the meeting is about, making sure everyone can see and hear each other, recognizing when others on a call want to speak and making sure they get a chance. Respecting peoples time and attention by being aware of what is important at the moment is one way to cultivate trust.

Contextual intelligence

If contextual awareness is how well you understand the circumstances and details surrounding a situation, event, statement, or idea, then contextual intelligence is what you do with it. It is knowledge leveraging experience applied to circumstances. “Contextual intelligence is the ability to apply knowledge to real world scenarios and situations. It is the proficiency at adapting knowledge and skills to different situations and environments.”

Developing contextual intelligence is what I hope to promote by writing posts like this. It helps develop my contextual intelligence through the act of distilling personal experience and education to produce a message of value. I had an opportunity recently to exercise this distillation process with a reminder about contextual awareness.

A former teacher invited me to speak as a guest to her class of students attending the same graduate program for which I was an alum. The idea was for me to share something useful or interesting that could help them. I decided to talk about soft skills, contextual awareness, and the cultivation of trust. I get into my talk, going on about trust and alluding to research on it they’d probably read, etc., then ask if trust had come up in their classes or readings yet. Not a single person raised their hand.

From the side of the room the teacher reminds me they are all first year, first semester graduate students.

Realizing the class wasn’t as far into the program as I assumed, I apologized for my lack of awareness and felt embarrassed as I probably could have figured that out myself had I not been so distracted on distilling something valuable to share with them. Pivoting my message, I shared how the courses they could take had influenced my life, career, and opportunities like talking to them. My reaction to lacking contextual awareness was to admit how I’m really bad at it sometimes. We had a good laugh.

Using our experience and lessons to help others via mentoring, coaching, or writing blog posts, are ways to develop contextual intelligence. When others derive value from that mentoring, coaching, or blog post, trust develops. 

Closing

Hopefully you nodded your head a few times reading this, perhaps thinking some of it common sense, which would be great. While talking about this blog post with a coworker in the U.K. he shared that the Dutch term for “common sense” translates to “healthy understanding” (Gezond verstand). What a great way to look at things, with a healthy understanding.

I hope we all desire a healthy understanding of how our behaviors define our culture and cultivate trust when working with others across geographic and organizational boundaries. I certainly do and look forward to continuing this exploration in my next blog post.

References and readings