Trust by Lanes
Stop asking if you trust someone. Ask what you can predict them doing, and where.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 93%
Dreeke redefines trust away from the emotional carte blanche most people mean by it. Likability is about overlap — shared interests, commonalities, demographics — and is emotional and enjoyable. Trust is a cold prediction: what can I reasonably expect you to do in a given situation? Because the two overlap sometimes, people conflate them, then feel betrayed when someone they like falls short of expectations that person never earned. Dreeke's fix is to think in lanes: you can trust someone deeply in one lane and not at all in another, and neither is a judgment of the person.
Origin
Dreeke opens The Code of Trust by redefining trust, having watched people 'get themselves jammed up' by mistaking liking for predictability. His own example: a close FBI friend he lunches with weekly and trusts with much of his life, but would never hand the keys to a plane.
Core principles
- 01Trust is predicting behaviour, not liking someone.
- 02Likability is overlapping interests, commonalities, priorities, demographics — it's emotional and pleasant, but it isn't trust.
- 03Trust is never a paintbrush verdict; it's lane by lane.
- 04People act in their own best interests as they define them, which is precisely what makes them predictable.
- 05Conflating liking with trust is what breeds frustration and anger when expectations aren't met.
How to run it
- 1
Separate liking from trusting
Name what you actually have with the person. Overlapping interests and warm feeling is likability. Being able to predict what they'll do is trust. Note that you can have either without the other.
Watch out It's great when they overlap, but don't mistake one for the other or you'll get jammed up.
- 2
Define the lane
Instead of 'do I trust X', ask 'what can I reasonably predict X will do in this specific lane?' Skill, stakes and context all define the lane.
Pro tip Dreeke's test case: he trusts his FBI friend with a lot in life, but the friend isn't a pilot, so he isn't getting the keys to the plane.
- 3
Predict from their best interest
Work out what this person believes is in their best interest for safety, security and prosperity for themselves and those they care about. Their actions will follow it, which makes them predictable.
- 4
Set expectations to the lane, not the affection
Calibrate what you ask of the person to what their lane supports. Mismatched expectation is what generates the frustration and anger that rots relationships.
Watch out When you misidentify trust because you like someone and they fall short, negative emotions start seeping in and rooting the relationship.
In the wild
Dreeke rents and flies small planes and has extensive training. He has a close FBI friend he lunches with weekly and trusts with a lot of his life, but that friend has no flight training.
→ He trusts the friend fully in most lanes and not at all in the flying lane — no contradiction, no resentment, no crash.
Common mistakes
The paintbrush verdict
Treating trust as a big swath of a paintbrush — 'I trust you' or 'I don't' — ignores that there are lots of areas you could trust someone and lots you couldn't.
Hoping the behaviour will change
People keep hoping someone will do something differently next time. Absent a new stimulus or priority, they'll keep doing what they think is in their best interest.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone making delegation, hiring, partnership or relationship-boundary calls.
Not ideal for
People who want a simple binary verdict on someone, or contexts where no ongoing observation is possible.
From the transcript
“trust is about understanding and predicting that behavior not about you know the emotional ties to liking because i can like you i mean i…”
“trust first of all it's i go by lanes you know what can i reasonably predict you're going to do in each one of these…”
“when you misidentify trust because you like someone and they fall short of what your expectations are that's when negative emotions like frustration and anger…”
From the episode
Robin Dreeke: FBI Hacks for Building Rapport
Robin Dreeke