How does "Build sincerity by saying only what you mean" work?

Sincerity trust is damaged incrementally by small misalignments between what is said and what is meant — social white lies, overpromising to avoid conflict, saying "I understand" when you don’t. Each instance is small; cumulatively they create the sense that the person’s words are not reliable guides to their actual state. The repair and the prevention are the same: close the gap between internal state and verbal output.

How does "Be transparent about your competence limits" work?

Competence trust is damaged in two ways: by genuinely lacking ability, or by overstating ability and being caught. The second is far more damaging, because it combines a competence gap with a sincerity failure. Proactively naming the limits of your competence ("I know this domain well; this adjacent area I’d need to research") protects sincerity trust and gives the other person accurate information with which to calibrate their reliance on you.

How does "Extend trust deliberately to invite it" work?

Feltman also defines distrust: the decision to not rely on another’s sincerity, reliability, competence, or care. Trust cannot be demanded, only invited — and it is built by extending it first in low-stakes situations, providing the other person the opportunity to demonstrate trustworthiness. Demanding full trust before any extension is a self-fulfilling trap: neither party can demonstrate they’re worthy of it.

The Trust Triangle

Q: How does "Diagnose which trust dimension is broken before trying to repair" work?

When trust breaks down, the instinct is to apologize for "not being trustworthy" — a global statement that addresses none of the four dimensions precisely. Feltman’s insight is that each dimension fails for different reasons and requires different repair. Sincerity failures require honesty correction; reliability failures require behavioral follow-through; competence failures require capability building or role clarification; care failures require visible alignment of interests. Generic trust repair misses the specific lever.

Q: How does "Build reliability by making smaller, keepable promises" work?

Reliability trust is built by the ratio of promises kept to promises made — a ratio that degrades fast when ambition outruns capacity. The common failure is making large, aspirational commitments that feel motivating to state but are routinely unmet, while the relationship learns that promises are estimates. Deliberately scaling down to commitments you can guarantee shifts the evidence base: every kept small promise adds to the reliability account.

Q: How does "Demonstrate care through visible acts in the other person’s interest" work?

Care trust is the belief that the other person considers your interests, not only their own. It is damaged when someone appears to act in their own interest at the other’s expense, even if unintentionally. The repair and the building are the same: make visible the ways in which you considered their interests — especially when it cost you something. Visible sacrifice or advocacy that benefits them at some cost to you is the strongest care signal.

Q: How does "Have explicit trust conversations when trust is at stake" work?

Trust problems are almost universally handled indirectly: through avoidance, rumor, or escalation rather than explicit conversation. Indirect management allows assumptions to harden and the relationship to drift further. An explicit trust conversation — "I want to talk about something that has affected my trust in you" — is uncomfortable but is the only move that addresses the underlying assessment rather than its symptoms.

What is the Trust Triangle and how do you build trust using it?

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.

Most people treat trust as a single thing that you either have or don’t. Charles Feltman’s framework disagrees: trust is a judgment made across four separate dimensions, and knowing which dimension failed is the key to targeted repair. A colleague who is sincere and competent but unreliable has a very different problem than one who seems reliable but doesn’t actually care about your interests. The practices here apply the Trust Triangle to building, maintaining, and repairing trust in real relationships.

Practices

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.

Build sincerity by saying only what you mean

Only make commitments and assertions you actually believe — and retract the ones you don’t.

Build reliability by making smaller, keepable promises

Under-promise consistently, then exceed rather than over-promise and fall short.

Be transparent about your competence limits

Name what you can do, what you can’t, and what you’ll need to learn — before you are found out.

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.

Extend trust deliberately to invite it

Trust others first, in bounded ways, before they have earned every dimension — it is how trust is built.

Have explicit trust conversations when trust is at stake

Name the trust issue directly rather than managing it indirectly.

Practice this with IX Coach

Reading about a practice changes nothing on its own. IX Coach turns these into a guided, adaptive routine — discerning where you are in real time and walking the practice with you, session after session.

Practice this with IX Coach

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The Trust Triangle

Practices

Diagnose which trust dimension is broken before trying to repair

Build sincerity by saying only what you mean

Build reliability by making smaller, keepable promises

Be transparent about your competence limits

Demonstrate care through visible acts in the other person’s interest

Extend trust deliberately to invite it

Have explicit trust conversations when trust is at stake

Practice this with IX Coach

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