Coaching practices for The Trust Equation After a Setback

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For The Trust Equation After a Setback, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• Even after we patch things up, every new conflict still feels like it could be the one that ends us
• Trust with this person has cracked and I just keep apologizing for "not being trustworthy" in this big vague way
• I keep everything at work behind a polished, guarded front
• With new people I try to fast-forward to being close
• We had a bad fight and now I’m just waiting for things to feel normal again on their own

Practices that may help

1. Let repeated repair build earned security
   Each successful repair teaches "we can break and come back" — which is what makes a relationship feel safe.
   Rupture and Repair
2. The Trust Equation, Made Practical
   The Trust Equation (Maister, Green, and Galford) holds that trustworthiness = (credibility + reliability + intimacy) ÷ self-orientation. The model is a practitioner framework rather than a rigorously tested theory, but it usefully names the levers — especially self-orientation, which is the single biggest trust-killer most leaders overlook.
3. Diagnose which trust dimension is broken before trying to repair
   Name the specific trust assessment that failed — then address that one, not trust in general.
   The Trust Triangle
4. Lower your guard to raise the intimacy score
   Sharing something real about yourself makes others feel safer sharing something real with you.
   The Trust Equation, Made Practical
5. Earn the right to deepen the relationship in stages
   Trust compounds over time — start with technical credibility and expand into intimacy as it is earned.
   The Trust Equation, Made Practical
6. Actively restore the ratio after a major rupture
   After a bad fight, the ratio is temporarily negative -- restoration requires intentional positive investment.
   The Magic Relationship Ratio: Gottman's 5-to-1 Principle
7. Build reliability through small, visible commitments
   Reliability is built not by big promises but by flawlessly keeping small, everyday ones.
   The Trust Equation, Made Practical
8. The Trust Triangle
   Charles Feltman’s Trust Triangle (from The Thin Book of Trust) identifies four distinct assessments that together constitute trust: sincerity (I mean what I say), reliability (I do what I say), competence (I have the ability to do what I say), and care (I have your interests at heart). Trust breaks down when any one of these assessments fails — and repairing trust requires identifying which assessment was damaged.
9. Extend trust deliberately to invite it
   Trust others first, in bounded ways, before they have earned every dimension — it is how trust is built.
   The Trust Triangle
10. Invoke the possible self during setbacks
    When you fail or stall, return to the hoped-for self — not to the outcome goal — as your re-orienting anchor.
    Possible Selves, Made Practical

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