Grant Leboff: Just in managing staff, I always find that if you expect the best from people, virtually all the time, you get it. If you expect people to start ripping you off and things, they almost live up to that and they start doing it. But actually they wouldn’t have done if you just allowed them to be. So I really believe in that. What about earning people’s trust? So we talk about giving it. What about in business? You’ve got customers or whatever. What about earning people’s trust? How do you go about that when they don’t know you? Because they may not be as nice…
Nigel Risner: …Okay. So I speak all over the world and I tell all my audiences, trust me until I let you down, it’s going to be a lot easier. If I let you down, you have every right not to trust me. The problem is, we’ve got a belief system that goes back hundreds of years that anybody who’s got a beard, he’s obviously hiding something. Anybody wearing a grey suit is a bit shady, and obviously anyone wearing a white shirt, he’s wearing a grey suit with a beard… Dodgy! Now that may have been right 700 years ago with one man, but we have moved on a bit and the greatest example is car salesmen. Do you remember the old adage that when you shake someone’s hand, it’s got to be firm, they’ve got to give you eye contact? And if they don’t do that, they must be dodgy. Well, my background was in commercial finance. So finance brokers, car salesman, estate agents, were all dodgy!. So we’ve learned, if we have a firm handshake and we look you in the eyes… now we’re trustworthy! So we’ve learnt this system that you can get round all the belief systems, but I will tell you now, trust people, and you’re still going to get let down. Don’t trust people – you’re going to get let down. But the really most difficult person to trust …yourself. If you don’t trust yourself that you’re going to follow your dreams, you’re going to do the actions that you’re going to do, that you call it hurts other people. So when we spoke previously about goal setting, if you don’t follow your own plan, then you assume other people won’t follow their plan. So it’s interlinked. If I’m in the room and I’m focused and I’m passionate and I take action and I really follow the plan, I know things are possible. So if I just assume others will do the same and I watch them focus or they are passionate about their goals and they follow through, why wouldn’t I trust them?
Grant Leboff: Do you think with trust… because that this is something I find – I don’t know what your views are on this – is trust is one of these things that if you give, you just get. If you just automatically assume that you’re a good guy, you are going to turn up this morning and those kinds of things, actually, people just give that back. It’s almost like reciprocal.
Nigel Risner: But 2% may not, but 98% do. If you drive along the motorway, only 2% are bad drivers in that sense, 2% of the population are in prison, 2% steal… Well we know that. So we build into that factor. Do you remember Marks and Spencer in the old days? You could bring it back at any time, because 2% abused it, but 98% didn’t. So have a policy from today that 98% of your customers want you to do, well, and 2% can’t wait for you to fail. But don’t make your business around the 2%. So I know that these interview’s are going to be a phenomenal success, but 2% aren’t going to like it. That’s okay.
Grant Leboff: Okay, well let’s hope the 98% enjoy it and we’ll worry about the other 2%.
Nigel Risner: We don’t need to worry about them. That’s the whole point.
Grant Leboff: Thanks very much.
Nigel Risner: Pleasure.
