Knowing who to trust is an important business skill as much as it’s a social one. Yet, it’s not always so easy to be accurate, and contrary to popular belief, we don’t give it all that much conscious consideration. Two seconds – maybe thirty seconds, tops – that’s all it takes to assess the confidence, competence, status, likeability, warmth, and trustworthiness of someone we’ve just met. In fact, it’s impossible not to make these snap judgments about people. That’s just the way the brain is wired. Because few people have the mental agility to consciously perceive and process all the factors needed to make these calculations, they rely on unconscious estimates – or assumptions – based on past experiences and preconceptions. These estimates are also highly influenced by surprisingly small factors, like what they wear, what their voice sounds like, whether their posture mimics our own, if they mention the names of people we know or admire, and even the shape of their face. As a matter of fact, these factors can enhance or undermine someone’s credibility to the extent that it actually nullifies our ability to make sound judgments about them.This post is back-dated to September 27th 2016
The very first job of a leader is to inspire trust. Trust is the single most essential element to our ability to deliver extraordinary results in an enduring way. Trust is integral to building high-performance because it enables an organisation to work as it should. It’s the first defence against dysfunction, and the first step towards delivering better outcomes. Employees work better when they feel like they have the trust of their superiors. When there’s no one hovering over them, assessing every aspect of their behaviour and performance, they feel that sense of faith, they feel like they have the support of their employers. And likewise, a leader needed the faith, trust, and belief of his workforces in order to achieve anything. A unit, a business, was only as valuable as the sum of its parts. This was something Levi knew well, he’d known it as intimately and naturally as breathing. He could trust his men to do their jobs, hell, some of them even went above and beyond the call of duty of their own volition. The Italian had no trouble trusting the people that worked for him to do as they were supposed to. It was the social aspect of trust that made the man stumble.
Levi was uncomfortable with situations he couldn’t control, even if he understood that he couldn’t control everything. So when he came in contact with strangers who seemed to have the motivation to be more than that – acquaintance level, for instance – it immediately put the Italian on the defensive. Just recently, he’d come to feel that way because of one of his neighbours. The woman lived in West Towers, so she wasn’t technically one of his neighbours, but that knowledge hadn’t stopped her from trying to do that obligatory friendly thing. One day, she’d left a post-it note on the apartment door offering to buy Bester cat food on her next trip to the pet store. Normal people would have found this endearing, kind, charming. Levi was not normal people. Alarm bells were ringing in his head, and of course he replied the way he felt was most logical, by confronting her about the post-it note face-to-face. At least he was polite about it, and somehow found the social grace to get an invite to her apartment. The pair talked most of the night, changing the subject from what Levi should do with his rare night if she was so inclined to be helpful, to learning more about each other.
At no point did Heather confess that she was actually named Hannah Lynn.
The Italian had had to find that much out himself, and Shiro had been quick to inform him that it wasn’t a particularly difficult job even if it was a peculiar one. As far as the Japanese man could tell, Hannah Lynn was pretty much everything she’d professed to being. A physical therapist, born in Illinois, Hannah had moved to Kobe, Japan, when her parents – as named – had divorced. Said parents had remarried, to separate partners, and Hannah did indeed have a sister who lived in Kobe. That piece of subterfuge had made the Italian more suspicious than the Japanese man, strangely enough. With all the trouble going on in Kobe right now, Shiro should have been far more alarmed than he appeared, and Levi figured the reaction was genuine enough since Shiro wasn’t all that proficient with a poker face. Levi suspected that while Shiro should be expectedly alarmed by some random female appearing in Levi’s life, specifically from Kobe, Shiro was probably just distracted with what he deemed a larger problem: that Levi was taking his focus off of work and putting it into women again. Because experience had taught the Shark – and should have taught Levi by now – that this particular scenario always ended so ******* spectacularly. Shiro didn’t air his worries, but Levi knew the characteristic roll of those obsidian eyes so well that he could read the thoughts flickering behind them: “Oh great, here we go again...”
It was almost too easy to rise to that look, to start an argument with the shark that would quickly devolve into a slanging match. And besides, things with Shiro had been… weird lately. Levi didn’t want to risk upsetting things even more than they were, so, he ultimately decided that ignoring the problem was the better option. Levi really didn’t have a clue what was eating the younger man, but he figured it probably had something to do with him being a Vampire again. All of their conversations seemed to circle back to that subject, almost as though Shiro was still in denial about it all, like he was hoping to somehow make it not true if he just understood it a little better. Maybe Shiro thought he was fighting some kind of disease. Levi didn’t understand the logic behind it, but, he should have done. It had taken him years to accept what he was. It wasn’t entirely fair to expect Shiro to be hunky dory in a couple of months. Nothing about their relationship was fair, though. The Italian preferred it like that, when he had the good cards in hand rather than stacked against him, and if that meant sacrificing Shiro’s happiness and security, then so be it.
That wasn’t to say that Levi was a terrible friend necessarily. If Shiro didn’t want to get treated like a ******* doormat, then he had the choice to walk away or fight. Even though the Japanese man stood no chance at actually conquering the Vampiro, Levi would still respect Shiro’s want to do battle and that respect alone might have him change things. But, Shiro seemed to like their arrangement well enough to tuck tail, hold his tongue, and deal with it. If anyone understood Levi’s way of thinking, it should have been Shiro, which was exactly why Shiro was privy to the unfiltered nature of his rage and wickedness. On the flip side, Shiro was also treated to Levi’s nice side, or rather, the part of his personality that didn’t suck quite as much as the rest of it did. The Italian could be very generous, loyal, protecting, nurturing, he could forgive slights, and he could even make a game out of things. It wasn’t all seriousness and grumpiness with him. Really. The man was capable of smiling and laughing when the situation called for it. He was also fully capable of conceding, of accepting his faults, and even understanding when people would do things that seemed totally fucked up.
Like the fact that Heather/Hannah had lied to his face.
The anger passed within five seconds, replaced by curiosity. Why lie about her name and where she was from – that was the question stirring in his skull, running around behind his eyeballs and making him dizzy with its mystery. He watched it pass, run rings about him, and while he dared to question bits and pieces of its nature and fathom it all, Levi kept returning to the same judgement. If he was ever going to understand it, to know for sure, he was going to have to ask Hannah directly. Except, this was a little more personal and sensitive than asking about the post-it note. Levi wasn’t all that socialised in the grand scheme of things, but, he had learned that stepping up to someone’s face and demanding they explain things was a good way to piss someone off and isolate them. If he made Hannah feel the need to retreat into her shell and never speak to him again, then he wouldn’t know why. It was important for him to know why. He didn’t need a higher reason than that either, just an excuse to see her and bring up the subject in a tactful way. Well, hadn’t Shiro mentioned something about the girl’s birthday being tomorrow? He would write her a greeting’s card.
Happy Birthday, Hannah Lynn.
It’s been an interesting experience getting to know you these past couple of instances. Truly.
I don’t tend to trust people, or like them that all much, so I was surprised when it turned out that you were pleasant company.
It would have been better if you could have told me your real name and where you’re from, but, I get it. People lie. Sometimes we have to.
Anyway. Don’t feel too bad about it. It’s your birthday.
Genuinely, I want you to enjoy yourself.
I hope the enclosed gift goes some way to making that happen, because after all, we can’t all be CEOs of some company.
Buon Compleanno, Hannah.
Neighborly yours,
Levi.
And just to show there were no hard feelings, Levi enclosed a voucher for her local winery worth $100. He also attached a small notebook, wrapped in brown paper and a black satin tie. For a bloke, Levi wasn’t half bad at buying gifts, but, he didn’t know too much about Hannah’s likes and dislikes to make a call that was worthy of his skills. Short of buying her camping equipment, something she might wear for a swim in a lake, or a safety harness for her hikes up mountains, Levi had decided that women universally liked stationary. So, he was playing it safe. And, he chose to play it even safer by posting her the gifts. She had his phone number, she could call him if need be. And if that didn’t happen, she couldn’t possibly move out in under 24 hours. He would be back.
