Emotional Trust Audit

---
name: emotional-trust-audit
description: "Maps what is building and eroding trust in a relationship or situation — trust degrades silently until it fails loudly. TRIGGERS: 'trust audit', 'why don't they trust us', 'relationship health check', 'what's eroding trust', 'build trust with'."
---

# 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.

---

## 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?

**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**
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.

---

## Human Check-in

Before proceeding, use the `AskUserQuestion` tool:

- **Question:** "How do you want to run this?"
- **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
  - **Refine the framing** — Adjust what we're analyzing before starting

Proceed based on their selection.

## 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]

---

## 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.

---

## What's Next

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

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