Want To Build Trust? Here Are 3 Stunningly Simple Tips

How well do you know your audience? Not just the superficial data about buying habits and demographics, but truly know someone? From presidential candidates seeking votes to consumer brands interested in increasing customer loyalty, the holy grail for leaders is understanding their audience. How do you make that happen?

The best way to get someone’s attention is to give them yours. In this article, we will learn from two leaders who have built unexpected and authentic relationships with the people they seek to understand.

Japanese photographer Akito Tsuda’s recent and much celebrated exhibit, Pilsen Days, presented by Chicago Public Library captured the heart of this Chicago neighborhood. Despite language and cultural barriers, he was able to earn trust and capture stunning, intimate portraits of the community. Malin Leschly, the Scandinavian Chief Design Officer of the global tech company Logitech, similarly makes authentic connections with her diverse audiences — from the international Creative and Design teams she leads to customers whose experiences she seeks to understand.

Here’s what I learned from them:

1. They Are Genuinely Curious — Asking Questions. Paying Attention.

Being an outsider is often considered an obstacle to overcome, but both Leschly and Tsuda use their outsider positions to their advantage. “I grew up in one culture and the majority of my professional career has been in another culture,” revealed Leschly. Superficially, U.S. and Swedish cultures may appear similar, but are actually quite different — with divergent ideas about nearly everything from health, aesthetics, and functionality.

“The juxtaposition of these two cultures made it very clear to me that how I perceive something, or do something, or say something based on my background, might be mystifying or confusing for someone from another culture. And vice versa,” said Leschly. Therefore, she always seeks to understand other people’s perspectives and is slow to make assumptions. Her secret to gaining insights is remarkably simple. She asks one question: Tell me more.

“[This question] is particularly useful,” she said, “because of its simplicity. When we’re struggling to understand something, we may not know the right question to ask, or how to phrase it.”

In a similar way, Akito Tsuda asked the subjects of his photographs to tell him more about their lives, not through words, but by being present. Tsuda never told people how to pose, but through his quiet, gentle, and open attitude he earned their trust. The community invited him into their lives and their homes and allowed him to see them as they were.

When asked how he earned this level of trust, Tsuda replied: “You have to be there.” Tsuda was present with the people he wanted to understand. He spent mindful time with them. Curator of the exhibit Oscar Arriola noted, “Considering he was learning English and did not speak any Spanish, Akito was nonetheless able to capture beautiful portraits of Pilsen residents and convey their dignity.”

For business leaders, being present means being attentive, listening, asking questions. Whether your workplace is remote or in-person, think about ways you can be practice being there.

PRO-TIP: Practice A Learners’ Mindset

Not all of us are outsiders in our workplaces, but we all can practice having a learner’s mindset like Tsuda and Leschly. In her book Anthro-Vision, anthropologist Gillian Tett clarifies that “people make different webs of meaning” based on their own cultural contexts.” If we can remember that everyone is driven to make meaning based on their own context and cultures, we’ll be more likely to be good listeners and observers.

Lyft CEO David Risher practices being present in a creative way — he calls it “driving to learn” when he spends an afternoon as a Lyft driver, to meet customers, hear their stories, and also learn about the driver’s experience. In his first year on the job as CEO, he’s practiced “driving to learn” nearly every other month.

How can you practice being present at work?

2. They Are Storytellers

Through his photography, Akito Tsuda is able to share other people’s stories. Curator of the exhibit Oscar Arriola explained, “[Tsuda] has long insisted that his Pilsen photographs are not documentary photography in the traditional sense, but are instead collaborations between him and the subject.” His photography makes the community of Pilsen feel seen, heard, and understood. And the recent sharing of his work has on the neighborhood, said Arriola.

For Leschly, storytelling helps create a culture of curiosity. “For the people that we lead,” she said, “to make sense of the stories that we tell — both the explicit stories that we tell and the implicit stories — there needs to be connection and an underlying deeper understanding of the person. And so getting a peek about the person behind the story, I think is helpful.”

She also uses her skills in observation and listening to help other people tell their stories. In the context user experience, she’s learned that open-ended questions that help users tell their own stories are the most insightful. “We use very open questions. How does this work? What do you think? Because only then can we figure out maybe they’re doing something that we didn’t expect. They’ll surprise us. It happens all the time when we do user research. People surprise us because they don’t do or use things the way we may have intended when we designed something. That sparks new opportunities for us.”

PRO-TIP: Learn How To Facilitate Storytelling At Work

You don’t have to be a natural-born storyteller to embrace the power of storytelling. Anyone can learn to become a storyteller and, more importantly, a story facilitator who helps draw the stories out of others. The necessary skills include:

• active listening
• asking good questions
• understanding the fundamental components of good storytelling.

Certified Story Facilitator Rissa Reddan has learned the power of storytelling and uses Crazy Good Questions to start many of her meetings. The questions have helped her teams to connect. “It helps everything when there’s a baseline relationship in play,” reported Reddan.

3. They Remain True To Their Own Aesthetics

While their outsider position helped Tsuda and Leschly learn about their audiences, they remain firmly grounded in the aesthetics of their cultural upbringing. “There’s a lot of similarities in Japanese aesthetics and Scandinavian,” observed Leschly. “And it’s this love of simplicity, ease of use, that it’s fit for purpose. It’s about appreciating natural beauty and appreciating things for what they are. Not too stylized.” This aesthetic rings true in Tsuda’s photography as well as the inclusive designs of Logitech.

Tsuda wasn’t looking for flashes of exceptionalism when he took photographs in Pilsen, instead he found beauty in “everyday moments.” Curator Arriola shared, “One striking detail I’ve noticed in his photos is that the vast majority of the images feature people expressing laughter and joy. I can only imagine how much of a reflection that is of Akito’s attitude.”

For Leschly, her Swedish heritage still inspires her. Her family used to travel by car around Europe on their summer holidays. “On these trips being asked where we were from and hearing others’ perceptions of Sweden shaped my sense of heritage,” said Leschly. “At that time equality, design, and making people’s everyday lives easier were all aspects of my heritage that others brought up as unique characteristics of Sweden, and it made me aware of aspects of my heritage that I would not have reflected on otherwise.”

From a young age she was drawn to the way design could reflect these values. “I distinctly remember the day when all of that came together into an experience in one object,” recounted Leschly. “I was at a summer camp on a farm in the Swedish countryside, on after-dinner clean-up duty. It fell on me to scrub the big pot.” A fellow camper saw her struggling to clean the pot and showed her how to turn the scrub brush around and use the sharp edge to scour the pot.

“I so vividly remember thinking to myself: Wow, someone actually thought of this experience, how this edge would make it easier for anyone to clean their dishes. It would take me years to actually end up in a design career, but that was the inflection moment for my heritage and my career to come together.”

PRO-TIP: Appreciate Simplicity And Purpose In The Workplace

Malin Leschly says Scandinavian design has three tenants: “love of simplicity, ease of use, fit for purpose.” She explained,“that’s why design is so pervasive when you go to the Scandinavian countries. You grab the door handle in a roadside restaurant, and it just fits in your hands….You sit down in a chair in a 7/11 and there’s a lit candle in the morning because of the darkness. The little seating area is very simple, but there’s a thoughtfulness to the simplicity.”

Scandinavian design is informed by two questions: “Who will use this and why?” But these two questions are not only pertinent for designers. How can asking these questions help you think through your next project at work?

The Takeaway

Skilled photographer Akito Tsuda and dynamic designer Malin Leschly are genuinely curious and their curiosity drives them to observe and be present with the audiences they want to understand. As Leschly said, “Good ideas can come from anywhere. And it’s very important to listen, because only then will you pick up the good ideas.”

What’s more, building trust — as Leschly and Tsuda model for us — creates meaningful relationships that will have a lasting impact. After 20 years in storage, Tsuda’s Pilsen photographs were once more embraced wholeheartedly by the community they represent, bringing focus on the history, the people, and the challenges Pilsen faces today.