Confidentiality and the potential loss of trust

Business relationships rely on trust both ways. When we are building these relationships, we communicate trust, reliability, expertise among other skills. But there are occasions when the trust element is questioned, damaging a relationship.

There are several occasions where I have had a conversation with someone, where the content is confidential. It might be a private, personal story, or something specific related to one’s business. There have been two occasions, where I have had to support individuals who are going through difficult personal challenges, or that their business finances are in dire straits. I have known that this conversation goes no further.

I don’t believe this is old fashioned, but being respectful to another individual. Therefore I was delighted when Brene Brown mentioned this during an interview with Marie Forleo; the concept of a ‘Vault’ for specific conversations – where the conversation “Goes no further” because it is a private conversation and a private story. Watch below.

Certainly I have been in the situation on more than one occasion, where my private conversation has become a ‘story’ for others – or gossip…. And with the best will in the world I have struggled to trust that person any more. On one occasion I was at a training day where we shared stories and challenges about our businesses. The agreement was that anything we discussed remained in the room. I was therefore horrified when details of my business that I had shared and discussed, appeared in a blog AND newsletter from another participant in this group. She had grabbed a photo of me from the internet and without my agreement had shared ‘my story’. The same thing happened to another delegate too.

The trainer for this event had established a “Vault” situation, yet the individual involved had failed to respect this, and as a result, lost the respect and trust from a number of people.

If you are sharing information with others, ensure they are trustworthy, or test what you share first, to ensure they aren’t idle gossips or wish to claim your story. And if you are listening to a story, have the respect to put this story in a VAULT. Idol gossiping wins no friends.

If you would like to discuss your communication training with me, do contact me on +44 800 0938 464 or contact me.