5 minute read
The Cornerstone of Trust
By Hamlet Vazquez, MCAM-HR
The cornerstone is traditionally the first stone that is laid when a masonry structure is being built. All the other stones or bricks are then built around this cornerstone. It is therefore the most crucial stone in the whole structure.
Similarly, when you are new to a community, trust is the cornerstone upon which the rest of your work at the community will be built around. If you fail to build trust early on, then, the rest of your work will suffer, and you will struggle.
Given the importance of building trust, how does one build such trust in a new community, especially when your predecessor was a longstanding manager with a strong foundation of trust?
The first step in building trust is to become a student of the community and understand the community’s needs and concerns. As you meet the members of the community and staff, learn about the history of the community and ask questions like, “What have been the challenges?” “What have been the successes?”
By doing this, you can gain a better understanding of the community’s pain points and what they expect from you as the community manager. They will appreciate the fact that your first steps as a manager revolve around learning about their community.
This may go without saying, but it is also important to build a strong relationship with the board. This can be done by regularly communicating with them and keeping them informed about the community’s progress and any issues that may arise. Some have found a weekly summary email to the board helpful in keeping the lines of communication open.
Additionally, it is important to work closely with the board to establish clear goals and objectives for the community and to ensure that the community’s needs are being met. Ultimately, you and the board need to be in sync in order for the community to thrive.
Another important aspect of building trust is to be responsive to the community members. This means being available to answer questions and address concerns in a timely manner. This one aspect of trust-building is probably the most important and will make or break trust relatively quickly.
If a member brings up a concern and you tell them that you will look into it, you better look into it and come back to them with what you learned about the issue or, even better, how you are able to help resolve the issue for them.
A series of these successes will get you well on your way to building trust. Personally, I aim for several of these “successes” per week to continue to fill up the “trust tank” with the community.
Another key element of building trust is to be consistent in your actions and communication. This means being consistent in how you treat others and following through on your promises. Just because so-and-so is known to be a difficult resident does not mean that you don’t address his/her concerns as quickly. In fact, for me, it’s tempting to address them more quickly in order to win them over, but one must be careful to not swing to the other extreme.
I have found that consistently addressing issues, irrespective of whether the resident is the sweetest or the most bitter, is the best approach if your goal is to win trust within the community. This kind of consistent behavior will help you establish credibility and reliability, which are essential for building trust with a community.
Finally, it is important to be open to feedback and to be willing to make changes when necessary. This means being willing to listen to the community’s feedback along the way and making changes when necessary to improve the community’s experience.
Additionally, it is important to communicate any changes that are made to the community and to explain why they are being made. It’s tempting in a new community to want to make changes, but part of being a student of a community is learning about their tolerance for change. Too much change or a rapid pace of change will chip away at that cornerstone of trust.
Building trust with a new community and with the board when taking over from a longstanding community manager is a challenging task, but it can be done successfully by doing the following:
- being a student of the community,
- understanding the community’s needs and concerns,
- building a strong relationship with the board,
- being responsive,
- being consistent in your actions and communication, and
- being open to feedback and willing to make changes when necessary.
By following these steps, you will be well on your way to establishing the cornerstone of trust needed for your success and that of the community.
Hamlet Vazquez, MCAM-HR
Hamlet Vazquez, MCAM-HR, is the General Manager at Wilshire Terrace Co-op in Los Angeles.
