s4h-emotional-trust-audit

Emotional Trust Audit

Trust does not fail suddenly — it erodes incrementally through small signals that accumulate below the surface. By the time distrust becomes visible in behaviour it is usually already deep. The four drivers of trust — competence, reliability, integrity, benevolence — degrade independently, and repair requires identifying which driver is most damaged rather than applying generic trust-building gestures that target the wrong deficit.

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Your Process

Step 1: Name the Relationship Specify the relationship being audited — two individuals, a team and its stakeholders, a vendor relationship, a product and its users. Be precise about direction: whose trust in whom is being assessed?

Framing check: Confirm the specific relationship and trust direction before continuing. State what you've identified — the two parties and which direction of trust is under audit — in one sentence, then use AskUserQuestion:

• Question: "I'm reading this as: [your one-sentence framing of the relationship and trust direction]. Is that right?"
• Header: "Framing"
• Options:
  • Yes — proceed — framing is correct
  • Adjust — one element is off; user will correct it before you continue
  • Reframe — different situation than read; incorporate the correction before proceeding

Step 2: Assess Each Driver For each of the four trust drivers, identify recent concrete evidence on both sides. Evidence must be specific — named events, observed behaviours, cited decisions. Generalisations don't diagnose.

• Competence — Can they do what they say? Evidence for: delivered results, demonstrated expertise, track record. Evidence against: failures, skill gaps, over-promising relative to delivery.
• Reliability — Do they do what they say? Evidence for: consistent follow-through, keeping commitments under pressure. Evidence against: broken commitments, dropped items, variable responsiveness.
• Integrity — Do they act in line with their stated values? Evidence for: transparent communication when it's costly, decisions consistent across contexts. Evidence against: values invoked selectively, principles abandoned under pressure.
• Benevolence — Do they have my interests at heart? Evidence for: advocacy on behalf of the other party, proactive disclosure of relevant information. Evidence against: decisions made without considering impact, information withheld.

Step 3: Identify the Most Damaged Driver Before narrowing: Show the complete driver assessment to the user first. Use AskUserQuestion:

• Question: "I've assessed all four trust drivers. Before I identify the most damaged one, are there any you'd flag as especially critical, or any signals I've missed?"
• Header: "Prioritise"
• Options:
  • Proceed with your selection — the assessment looks right
  • Flag one — user will name a specific driver to prioritise
  • Add a missing signal — user will describe evidence not yet captured

Where is the deficit largest relative to what the relationship requires to function? This is the repair priority — not where there's the most noise, but where the structural deficit is deepest.

Step 4: Highest-Leverage Trust-Building Action What single specific act would most credibly signal strength on the most damaged driver? The action must be proportionate and credible — visible enough to register, consistent enough to be believed, not so large it looks performative.

Step 5: Behaviour to Stop What is actively eroding trust right now that must stop before any repair action can land? Repair actions launched while trust-eroding behaviour continues produce no signal — the erosion cancels the repair.

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Human Check-in

Before proceeding, use the AskUserQuestion tool. State your interpretation of the situation in 1–2 sentences — what is being analyzed and what the core question is — then ask:

• Question: "My read: [your 1–2 sentence interpretation]. How do you want to proceed?"
• Header: "Scope"
• Options:
  • Full analysis — Complete all steps, reasoning shown throughout
  • Key findings only — Bottom-line output, skip step-by-step detail
  • Trust deficits only — What's actively eroding trust right now
  • Reframe — The read is off; correct it and the analysis will follow the corrected framing

Proceed based on their selection. If the user reframes, incorporate the correction before running any analysis.

Output Format

Driver Assessment

Driver	Evidence Building Trust	Evidence Eroding Trust	Net Assessment
Competence	[specific evidence]	[specific evidence]	[strong/neutral/deficit]
Reliability	[specific evidence]	[specific evidence]	[strong/neutral/deficit]
Integrity	[specific evidence]	[specific evidence]	[strong/neutral/deficit]
Benevolence	[specific evidence]	[specific evidence]	[strong/neutral/deficit]

Most Damaged Driver: [driver + one-sentence rationale]

Highest-Leverage Action: [specific, concrete act — what, by whom, by when]

Behaviour to Stop: [what must cease for repair actions to have any effect]

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Notes

Trust is rebuilt through consistent small acts, not dramatic gestures. The action recommended here is a first step, not a solution — sustainable repair requires sustained consistency. The behaviour-to-stop is non-negotiable and must precede everything else; repair while erosion continues is wasted effort.

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What's Next

After delivering this output, use AskUserQuestion to offer the next move:

• Question: "Trust audited. What's next?"
• Header: "Next"
• Options:
  • /s4h-communication-audience-modeling — Model communication based on the trust level found
  • /s4h-strategy-alliance — Build trust as a concrete alliance strategy
  • /s4h-social-incentive-analysis — Align incentives to build trust over time
  • Done — Wrap up and synthesise what we have so far