Coaching practices for Trust Dimensions Feltman

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

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

  • I keep everything at work behind a polished, guarded front
  • Trust with this person has cracked and I just keep apologizing for "not being trustworthy" in this big vague way
  • I won’t hand anyone real responsibility until they’ve completely proven themselves first
  • To smooth things over I say "sounds good," "I’m fine with it," "I understand" when none of it is actually true
  • I’m competent and I deliver, but people still hold me at arm’s length

Practices that may help

  1. 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.
  2. 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
  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. 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
  5. 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.
  6. Build sincerity by saying only what you mean
    Only make commitments and assertions you actually believe — and retract the ones you don’t.
    The Trust Triangle
  7. Audit and reduce your self-orientation
    Self-orientation is the denominator: a small increase in it wipes out gains in all three numerator variables.
    The Trust Equation, Made Practical
  8. Demonstrate care through visible acts in the other person’s interest
    Show that your interests and theirs are genuinely aligned — not only when it’s convenient.
    The Trust Triangle
  9. 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
  10. Create and protect the couple bubble
    Agree that you each put the relationship above any third party, including family of origin.
    Secure-Functioning Relationships

Related concerns

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.

Practice this with IX Coach

Try this practice