I have come to believe that above all else the difference maker for the success of any leader or leadership team is trust.When there’s trust, all good things are possible. Without trust, the writing is on the wall. The absolute worst outcomes occur when avoidance is the dominant practice on a team. Whether helping a new manager become a leader, or a senior leader build a high-growth team culture, the common thread is normalizing a self-awareness practice powered by direct, open dialogue. I’ve learned the importance of trust through many different experiences throughout my life and career:As a young sales person, I learned that the best sales technique was to build trust through direct, open, 2-way dialogue. When I took genuine interest in the person in front of me, they would open up to me and then the sale was easy. As a divorce attorney, I witnessed firsthand the cost of low trust. I found myself in the middle of warring parties who struggled to maintain perspective, often taking positions that were fueled by hurt and resentment rather than what was in their best interests. I saw in high definition that there really were only two options in the vast majority of cases: both parties win or both parties lose. The pursuit of a win-lose almost always hurt both parties. As an entrepreneur, I have seen brands built on devotion to a personality over principles, process, and purpose that fall apart when hard times come. This happens because in most of these cases, there's a culture of power and absence of healthy dialogue and accountability. The relational infrastructure becomes so weak that it cannot withstand any real pressure; and it can't innovate. No matter how complicated a problem is, the ability of human beings to communicate their way to an innovative solution is almost unlimited, if they are communicating openly, directly, with minimal fear.As the steward of BehavioralOS®, I help leaders in the public and private sectors get extraordinary visibility into the behavioral choices that create or limit opportunities for better performance and growth. I do this using a proven method developed by our late Founder, an MIT-educated behavioral scientist, teacher, and author.If you want to talk about how to get the skills and methods for supercharging trust and performance through direct, open dialogue, message me at matt.stone@behavioralos.com.