The Bank of Trust

You know the type of call it will be from the first five words.

"Heeyyy... how are you doing..."

And before they finish the sentence, you already know what's coming.

A withdrawal.

The Bank of Trust is an invisible balance sheet we all carry. It tracks the investments we've made in each other; the moments we showed up without an agenda, freely recognized someone's effort, or simply made someone's job easier without being asked.

And when the balance is zero, everyone feels it. No amount of small talk changes that math.

In most organizations, people only reach out when they need something. Which means most internal relationships start and stay overdrawn. Ours was no different. We operated from the red. To address this, we became intentional with two words: thank you.

The approach was simple. Every member of my team had one weekly goal: call two people who helped you during the week. Just to say thank you. 30 seconds each.

There were rules.

The call was only allowed to do one thing: say thank you, explain why the help mattered, and hang up. No business. No agenda. No "while I have you." If there was something else to discuss, they had to physically hang up and call back.

The first few calls were awkward. The person on the receiving end didn't know what was happening. They were waiting for the ask that never came. It was like a junior high school dance, awkward and no one was really sure what was happening.

And then it shifted.

Within 24 to 48 hours, the callbacks started. "No one has ever called me just to say thank you." "I thought you were going to ask me for something." "That actually made my week."

The shift also happened within my team. People started making more than two calls. Recognizing others became more frequent and more natural.

Five people making two thank you calls a week is 10 calls. In a month, 40. In a quarter, 120. In a year, nearly 500 intentional moments of recognition rippling across the organization.

We found it to be a simple and effective way to make deposits in the Bank of Trust. So when we asked to make a withdrawal, we had at least something in the account.

The balance sheet started looking different. And so did the culture.