Trust is built one tiny marble at a time

Acme Industries was struggling with missed deadlines and unclear communication. The CEO introduced a simple exercise: each team chose one BRAVING element and turned it into a specific promise. The R&D group committed to nightly code check-ins; marketing pledged to hold edits three days before launch; operations promised daily status emails by 5 P.M. Slow at first, these tiny acts of Reliability added up—marble by marble—in their collective trust account.

Within two quarters, cross-department projects that once went dark now carried momentum. Engineers trusted marketing to deliver briefs on time. Marketers counted on ops to update them daily. When systems glitched, they rallied together to own mistakes and learn without blame. Turnover dropped, morale rose, and a 15 percent productivity gain followed.

Behavioral scholars confirm that trust grows over repeated, reliable interactions. By operationalizing a single trust behavior and measuring it, Acme didn’t just feel trust—they scored it, sustained it, and watched their bottom line improve.

You’ve picked your BRAVING anchor—let’s say Reliability. At today’s stand-up, state your new team commitment: “I’ll share my daily progress by 5 P.M.” Back at your desk, schedule that update every afternoon like a meeting. When tomorrow’s 5 P.M. bell rings, hit send without excuses. Tomorrow at stand-up, listen for examples of others’ reliability and offer a quick “thank you” for each marble earned. This single habit, practiced together, will begin to shift your culture toward genuine trust.