Building trust can only be achieved by consistently demonstrating an ability to deliver solutions to customers needs. Such trust can be lost quickly, by inconsistent behaviors, misunderstood motives of leaders, or when change occurs within the environment where your track record was established.

Tell story of friend who consulted for customer of Malcolm Baldridge recipient. Dilemna was with his review of estimate - nearly every aspect of project anticipated worst-case outcomes, so approch was very expensive. So he asked the customer, can you afford this? Their answer was, yes. So my friend's response was to recommend that they accept the estimate. Trust among stakeholders will allow better trade-offs to be made if estimates were overly aggressive.