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Build Trust from the Courtroom to the Boardroom
110 Plays10 months ago
Trust is the secret weapon for high-performing organizations! A Watson Wyatt study, featured by Forbes, shows that high-trust enterprises outperform low-trust companies by a staggering 286% in total return to shareholders. But how do you cultivate trust within a multi-generational workforce? Join us as we explore the intricate art of trust-building in today’s diverse workplace. Drawing inspiration from the courtroom, where lawyers expertly earn the trust of juries, we’ll reveal practical strategies to bridge generational gaps and enhance organizational culture. Catch the latest episode on how mastering the art of trust can transform your team’s performance and help you become a true leader of persuasion!
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Transcript
Introduction to the CPO Playbook Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello everyone, I'm Felicia Shakiba, and you're listening to the CPO Playbook Podcast. Join me and my guests as we feature insightful conversations with HR leaders, people scientists, and executives from diverse industries and functions, offering valuable perspectives on the future of work.
Exploring Modern Work Complexities
00:00:23
Speaker
Discover a unique outlook on navigating the complexities of the modern-day working world, exploring innovative strategies in talent management and corporate culture from the chief people officer's perspective. Tune in to stay ahead of the game when it comes to all things people related.
Trust and Shareholder Returns: A Study Insight
00:00:45
Speaker
According to a Watson-Wyatt study cited by Forbes, high trust enterprises triumphed over their low trust counterparts by a staggering 286% in terms of total return to shareholders.
00:01:00
Speaker
The cultivation of trust within your organization plays a pivotal role in establishing robust relationships with your clientele or customers which are direct reflections of trust with employees. However, this endeavor is by no means an easy undertaking.
00:01:18
Speaker
It's evident that constructing trust is undeniably one of the most arduous responsibilities that leaders and executives grapple with. The current landscape of business compounds the challenges encountered in fostering trust, akin to the high-pressure environment of a courtroom.
Featuring Juliette Huck: Persuasion Strategies
00:01:36
Speaker
Joining us today is Juliette Huck. She is a master of persuasive communication, having spent over 25 years in the courtroom crafting stories that convince juries
00:01:48
Speaker
to secure billions of dollars in decisions and participated in cases involving Scott Peterson, Kobe Bryant, ExxonMobil, and Enron, to name a few. She is the CEO and founder of the HUC Group. Juliette, thank you so much for being here. Welcome. Thank you very much for having me. I'm super excited. Juliette, you are in the human business. What does that mean?
00:02:16
Speaker
That means that when you're a persuasion strategist, you have to understand how people not only think, but how they feel. Being a persuasion strategist in the legal world and having to work with lawyers on how to explain really complicated stories to jurors and get them to understand and believe you.
00:02:34
Speaker
It's a very interesting process on how we as human beings actually process information and make decisions. One of the things I always say, it's really about common sense values. And when I say I'm in the human business, I think HRs is not human.
00:02:51
Speaker
starts off right. It's all about people, how they think, their experiences, and especially just things that we have in common that we don't stop a lot of times to look at and think about. And so I think it's really important that if you need something from anybody else, you have to stop and look at them first, unless my golden rule is get out of your own shoes and get in the middle of shoes of your decision maker. I agree with that. I mean, I think it's really hard to build trust without getting to know who you're talking to.
00:03:18
Speaker
But with that said, much of your work has been displayed in the courtroom, where you've helped witnesses tell their stories and lawyers, summarize entire trials in hopes of persuading juries. So what are the critical elements that you recommend to anyone telling a story on how to build trust with and ultimately persuade their audience?
Building Trust: Know Your Audience
00:03:43
Speaker
I've written a book called The Equation of Persuasion. One of the first things I do talk about is, who was your decision maker? If you don't, look at the first part of the formula about building trust, the ability to relate, and getting to know who you're talking to. It's a huge misstep because you come in about your own story.
00:04:00
Speaker
And as most of us know and listen to somebody else's story for a good hour, it's always difficult to do. You need some kind of connection, the ability to relate. I always say that the first part of my formula is about relationship and creating relationship. And how do you do that? Well, you find something you can relate to and building the trust. As I've worked through multiple, multiple cases, I've seen this formula work in multiple arenas.
00:04:24
Speaker
HR is a perfect example. I've seen it with people that come to me. I had a group of chiropractors that came to me on how to get more people to understand chiropractic and forensic accountants on how they can explain very complicated pieces of information to people that don't have any background in math. And I always start with, who are you talking to? Who is your audience? What do you know about them? And it's really important for me to say, look, we have to stop, especially when you look at a jury pool, you've got 12 people, very different backgrounds, but you'll find similarities.
00:04:53
Speaker
It could be in the town they live in. It could be that they, five of them have children. It could be that three of them are grandmothers or grandparents. So you have to find some common denominators. And then I'm a huge believer in retention and visual persuasion, trying to connect with each other visually.
00:05:09
Speaker
And this is where I think social media, TikTok, more than anything else, has really come to a place where we want to feel happy. So we go someplace that visually makes us happy, which brings happiness. And I find TikTok to be extremely persuasive because it connects with people, relates to people, each other.
The Power of TikTok in Persuasion
00:05:26
Speaker
It's a vehicle for us to relate to each other, connect with each other.
00:05:29
Speaker
So how does one do that in a corporate setting or a legal setting is something I've been fascinated with, even though my background's been advertising and graphic design. Graphic design is still in advertising, you have to relate, you have to sell a product. How do you do that? You have to get to know your audience. And so we have also different levels of audience, let's say generational, specifically. Perfect example for a setting in a corporate setting, you're going to have from boomers to now Gen Zs, right?
00:05:56
Speaker
So you get to that right, so you get to that place where how do you get these generations to mix when they're very specific traits for each generation on what we've all gone through. It's a formula that you have to take steps by step, looking at who's in front of you, how do you relate to them, how do you put trust with them, and how do they retain your information in order to move forward.
00:06:17
Speaker
I'm so glad you brought up the multi-generational workforce that is here, but will be likely more intense as we move forward. Specifically speaking, how do we relate to all of those different generations simultaneously? I mean, some leaders are in organizations and they're talking about transformational change, for example, or different leadership or big changes in the business. How do we as leaders build that trust
00:06:45
Speaker
and ultimately influence the business across all these different backgrounds. If you really look at it, corporations not really that different than a jury. You just have 12 compared to 12,000, right? Or 1,200. So you have to find those common denominators. So when you're looking at, let's say, leadership that's still in the baby boomer error, which I will age myself and tell you I'm there,
00:07:06
Speaker
There are specific traits like how our attention spans are, how our interests look. And then you get to Gen X, which is right behind Baby Boomers, and you have to look at some general characteristics. And there's all kinds of things you can find, statistics on generational likenesses and commonalities. And then you've got millennials who just
00:07:26
Speaker
just know nothing but being on their phone. And then now you've got Gen Z who is kind of like wants to be a little more separated. So you have to, if you can look at some common denominators in all four of those categories that we're seeing right now in the corporate world, our business world, or even in the courtroom, you're going to find things that connect.
Common Values Across Generations: Trust and Honesty
00:07:43
Speaker
And so that's when I go back to common sense values, trust.
00:07:47
Speaker
honesty. There's a whole slew of words that I bring with my little box of words with me when I work with my clients because there are certain things we all know. We know when someone's lying. We know when someone's cheating. There's very specific common words we can all connect to.
00:08:02
Speaker
So how do we take those and then wrap those together and string those together almost in a way that we can all talk as one unit? And that's to me why you get really powerful corporations like Microsoft, Apple, places like this that are listening to the young people, how they work, how they want to work, what's not working for them, but still having structure, which the baby boomer age is only a known structure.
00:08:27
Speaker
it's a weaving together of common interests, but you have to know them first. You can't just start weaving together interests you want to do. You have to go back and find out from your people what is it you want, how do they want to do it. And I think some companies are doing that really well right now, especially after the pandemic. I think it's been summer insisting we go back to the office and others are trying to find a hybrid. And I think eventually it's going to weigh out that there'll be a hybrid because that's how a younger generation now, specifically kids coming out of
00:08:54
Speaker
COVID that were in school, that didn't sit in school, that didn't have structure are only going to be able to know how to work. So how do we weave that together?
00:09:02
Speaker
Where might leaders fall short in building trust with their teams and colleagues? And then how might they bounce back from perhaps losing trust? And you alluded to it earlier, where perhaps leaders might not get to know people or their employees as well as they should prior to making a big move. Where else might they fall short?
00:09:25
Speaker
Well, being a small business owner, I learned a lot, I will tell you that. I've had my own business for over 25 years, and at one point in time was the younger business owner. Now I'm the older business owner, so I went through that generational change almost like on a spectrum. At one point in time, especially with clients, I think part of it is just authenticity. It's being authentic
00:09:47
Speaker
delivering what you say you're going to deliver on from a standpoint of leadership. And I say leadership of do what you say, say what you're going to do, be honest with who you're talking with. Again, very common sense, general principles that I'm hoping most of us have learned. I think the spectrum is, or the pendulum swung a little bit here and there at times, but in the general sense, I think what happens when they fall short is that
00:10:11
Speaker
it's building trust. And trust is earned. Trust is never, ever, ever given. And I know some people that kind of laugh like, wow, you trust until you can't. And then there's the other side of that coin that says, I don't trust anybody until I find out I can, right? So younger generation, and I find this all the time, back checkers, big time, fast. So
00:10:33
Speaker
you better know what you're talking about and be authentic because, and that phone, probably by the way, why you're in a conversation, they're fact checking you as you speak, right? That's because they don't trust. When they start to learn to trust, which takes a little bit more time, I think these days because we do have the internet to fact check our doctor, our lawyer, our accountant, you know, is that do we, if we don't believe them, the first place we go is the internet. Somehow we learn to trust the internet before
00:10:59
Speaker
our doctor, which is so wild to me. But I just think that there's ways that you just have to build that relationship and get to know them personally, professionally. I know people say don't mix personal and business together, but I think there's a line. But I do think you have to understand their interests. You have to understand their outside interests. Are they swimmers? Are they offers? Are they knitters? What makes them happy? And I think some leaders can fall short when
00:11:24
Speaker
alienation occurs, and alienation to me occurs when it's only just about the person who's the decision maker. Because alienation, when you can really bring things together, that's because someone's back down. That's because someone says, hey, what's your idea? Not my way the highway. When that happens, you have to really look at yourself. That's my little book, 50 ways to get your way. It's the how to look at yourself to persuade others. Not always looking at the other person, what you can get from them. And that's a bit of a hard exercise sometimes.
00:11:54
Speaker
It sounds like you have to almost give and learn before you ask for anything in return, like wanting someone to go in a specific direction and persuade someone else to do something.
00:12:08
Speaker
Right. You have to do your homework. I mean, you can't just assume to walk in and not beat somebody for the first time and say, I want you to do this, this, this, and this. That person's saying, they're like, I don't even know what you're talking about, or I hired you to do this, right? And I want you to do this, this, this, and I want to add this on to you. And then you're like, wait a minute, you realize I'm already doing this, this, and this. So it's stopping for a moment and finding out, hey,
00:12:30
Speaker
How was your work-life balance? How was your work-life balance in my generation? That wasn't even a term. There was still, in my generation, not a term. And I'm starting to like it. I'm actually enjoying the fact that I have a little bit of a balance, and I never knew that.
00:12:46
Speaker
that could even be possible that I'd be happier with a work-life balance because I was always just blood, sweat and tears were clients and work. And it was nice to all of a sudden realize you were still appreciated and still have a work-life balance. So I had staff where they would rather have time off, that would be valuable to them.
00:13:03
Speaker
and other staff, they would rather have money. So what I always realized is everybody has a different currency. Currency is not always money. Currency is time. Currency is a trip. Currency is just accolade. There are different currencies for different people. And so what is their currency?
00:13:19
Speaker
And I learned a lot of great things about that when I had my company, because no matter if I gave everybody a raise, there were some people who were still very unhappy. And so I had to come back and find out, okay, this person would rather have time off with their family, and this person over here would rather have money to travel.
00:13:35
Speaker
You have to, again, it all goes back to getting to know your decision maker and the people that you need them to give you what you need. You have to do your homework on their age, their education, their political beliefs, if they have a religious belief or not. If they have what makes them tick, and if you find that thing that ticks, then I always say persuasion is not a call to action, it's a directed action. The only way you can direct somebody in a place you want them to go is if they can relate to what you're talking to.
00:14:04
Speaker
And if they can't relate, then that's why we have, so it's almost, I don't want to get too political, but we have a divided country because we can't relate to certain things. And it all of a sudden feels divisive because we're not able to sit down, we're not relating, so people just shut off instead of really trying to sit down and get to know. But when I have really depth, serious conversations with others,
00:14:25
Speaker
They're like, wow, okay, I never realized that. And then they can easily start liking you, trusting you, building relationships. Boom. Then you start to be able to connect with them and persuade them that you may need help or you may need money or you need them to do a better job because you now understand who they are. And you've been part of Enormous Cases.
Differentiating Effective Lawyers in Persuasion
00:14:46
Speaker
with lawyers in the courtroom? Between the lawyers who nail it and those who don't, what's the difference there? Perhaps they relate more than the rest, or how do you see it play out in the courtroom?
00:15:01
Speaker
Well, that's a broad question, but I'll try to answer that because it happens in a thousand different ways. I've seen lawyers really tick off jurors, like just offend them. And you'll see it in a verdict. I've also seen lawyers that jurors love.
00:15:17
Speaker
But they just didn't think the facts were there. So that's why human nature is so fascinating to me, because we can try and predict and we can do polls and we can do all these things all day long. But it really has to come down to, do you have something people believe in? This is the formula. Have you built a relationship with them?
00:15:35
Speaker
Do they trust you? Have you visually given them something that they can actually hang their hat on and believe? And then you have to empower them. You have to empower them in a way that allows them to make a decision they feel good about. It's that old saying, I don't know if you're probably too young for this commercial, but it was like, we don't want to just want a client, we want to educate a client. They want you to understand why buying a good suit was a good thing to do. And that was such a persuasive statement because it was like, they want to take the time with you.
00:16:02
Speaker
They want you to understand why, because when you do, it's kind of like a no brainer. I mean, I go back to Walt Disney being one of my most influential, I think, persuasive people ever in the history of existence, and some people probably disagree with me on this, but here's a man and a fictitious mouse, right? And that entrance fee to Disney has never reduced, even during the pandemic.
00:16:26
Speaker
It has only gone up the entrance fee from the early 50s. Like, what does that tell us? That tells us that we are so emotionally connected to something that makes us feel good. We'll be persuaded to do anything. We'll pay $200 to get into a park.
00:16:42
Speaker
And we're very sad if it's sold out and we can't get it. That has connected us emotionally. Then you get in and then there's this like array of visual persuasion to buy this and feel good over here and music over there. And how does this work with our psyche and our ability of something we've known since we were little kids, right? It really got to us as we were children and made us feel good and happy.
00:17:05
Speaker
that you will pay that money, you will be persuaded to want to show up no matter if the park's full or not. So I just always look back at Disney as a very interesting example of how when you really connect with people emotionally, and again, why I feel like our country is somewhat divided because you have people that are very emotional and very emotionally attached to certain subject matters.
Emotional Connection in Business Motivation
00:17:25
Speaker
But in a corporate setting, it's not always about emotion. It's about profit. It's about getting projects done and being successful. But yet you can't do it without some kind of emotional component because of people don't care. It's never going to happen. And you've got to get them to care. And that's where the formula of persuasion, I think, comes in.
00:17:41
Speaker
Finally, how do you measure the success of your efforts to build trust and what metrics might you use to track progress over time? When you get what you need is the first answer. When you really get something you need from someone, that is obviously success, right? To me, you also have to get it with
00:18:02
Speaker
honor, you have to get it with good intentions, you have to get it with the right emotion behind it. But to measure it is really just about, to me, the success of people being happy. People that come to work happy, people that are happy with their team, people that are happy with their boss, people that trust each other, it just makes a world of difference. And I think we saw that with the exchange of Twitter.
00:18:25
Speaker
I definitely think that we saw that there was a camaraderie, a grouping there, and then when that came in and got disrupted, and a different business model, different mindset, that was a very shocking thing, not to continue that same emotional thread throughout Twitter. And you do have to consider that there will be someone who's gonna come in and put the hammer down and say, this is the way it is.
00:18:49
Speaker
And some people will follow that. And then there'll be some people that just absolutely can't connect with that. And so you can persuade those to stay and others you absolutely can't. So it's all about that relationship, connection, getting out of your own shoes, getting in the shoes of that decision maker and building the trust. And similarly in organizations,
00:19:07
Speaker
We use employee engagement surveys and as HR business partners, we connect with the business as well as we can to get the qualitative context of things. For the leaders that don't use employee engagement surveys or maybe don't leverage their HR business partners as well, what does that look like when things are going off the path?
00:19:31
Speaker
When you feel like something's going out the path, which I've seen that happen in jurors before, you have to get back on track of building the trust. I go back to the 2016 election. I could have told you the 2016 election, there was a huge piece that was missing for Hillary Clinton, unfortunately. And I was trust. She had a wobbly place.
00:19:48
Speaker
And Donald Trump had all four of them in a very unique, wild way and connected enough people, even people that would not probably vote again today, connected them at the time. They had something to relate to. I think you have to look at the formula a little bit and say, okay, is it balanced?
00:20:04
Speaker
And I can't remember ever this happening when I was employed by other people. Then I walk in and someone asks, are you happy? Are you happy in this job? What is it that you could use more of? Now, I can't promise you the world, but let's put a plan together as to what makes you really want to succeed here. Not a lot of people have that conversation with their employees. It's got to get it done. Here's what's required. This is what I need. And I know there's a lot of people sitting back, well, why do we have to do this for emotion and this and this? Because that's what matters to different generations.
00:20:34
Speaker
younger generation needs that. If you really want to employ the millennials, you got to get into what makes them happy. And if you don't know what that is, then how can you ever deliver that, right? So I think not necessarily always into having to have a survey, perhaps, but what if you just sat down with your employee and just said, or 10 of them, what makes you happy? Let's just put it on the board. And then these are things that make you unhappy. Let's talk about it. I can't deliver every one of these things that you're talking about.
00:21:02
Speaker
But we can find a way to make this somewhat in your range, right? And then give them a range, not so black and white. So the survey thing I think is good, but I think a lot of surveys get too heavy sometimes instead of just asking the straight up question, what do you need to be happy? What do you need to succeed? What is it you need to make sure that you're tying with us and our investment in you and your investment in us so that they feel balanced, that they feel
00:21:24
Speaker
as if they actually matter. I feel that same way with jurors. I feel like jurors want to know they're empowered and their decision is going to matter because otherwise they're just like, that's almost like voting. Why vote? My decision is not going to matter. It matters. So I think the measurement of that is sometimes just simple questions, very simple and full of questions. Thank you so much. I want to give you the opportunity to share anything that we haven't chatted about. Is there anything else that's on your mind?
Compassion and Empathy for Mental Wellness
00:21:52
Speaker
I'm a little bit passionate right now on the mental wellness of people. And I always feel like the mental and the emotional go together. So it's kind of an interesting subject we're talking about from a perspective as well. I think the key component right now is we got to find some compassion and empathy. I think if we can all do that from the courtroom to the boardroom, I think we'll be a much better place. And I do believe it's happening. I just think it's younger generations bringing it more forward, which I'm actually pretty excited about. I really appreciate having me here today, Felice, for sure.
00:22:19
Speaker
Thank you so much, Juliet. This has been awesome. Thank you. That's Juliet Huck, the CEO and founder of the Huck group.
Engagement and Suggestions for CPO Playbook
00:22:34
Speaker
If you like today's podcast, we have more podcasts on innovative HR strategies, talent management, organizational culture, and more, and how to navigate the complexities of modern day HR. Find them at CPOplaybook.com slash podcasts or search CPO Playbook on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Thanks for listening to the CPO Playbook podcast. We'll be back with a new episode next time.
00:23:05
Speaker
I'm Felicia Shakiba.
00:23:09
Speaker
If you love CPO Playbook, the best thing you can do to support us is become a subscriber. You can do that at CPOplaybook.com slash podcast. That's CPOplaybook.com slash podcast. If there's an episode you loved, please share it with a friend. And if you have an idea you would like us to talk about or a guest you'd like to nominate, visit CPOplaybook.com slash contact us to suggest an idea.