Sensemaking-to-Trust Ladder
Move a new relationship from avoidance to predictable trust
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 94%
Bustamante nests two models into one relationship-building sequence. In his sensemaking “cylinder,” a new relationship moves through avoidance, competition, and compliance. Competition here means reciprocal investment—questions, ideas, disagreement, and attention—not defeating the other person. Compliance means that the parties have established some workable power or participation pattern, even if they merely agree to disagree. This feeds a know-like-trust progression: discovery creates awareness, accumulated interaction produces enough acceptance to continue, and consistency eventually makes some behaviour predictable. Bustamante uses “trust” in this narrow predictive sense, including trust that someone will behave badly. The ethical use of the model is to understand relationship formation and invest consistently, not to trap someone in escalating commitment or misrepresent who you are.
Origin
Bustamante presents sensemaking and know-like-trust as nested influence frameworks derived from intelligence training. Extracted from The Diary of a CEO.
Core principles
- 01New relationships begin with uncertainty and often avoidance
- 02Mutual investment creates enough information to make sense of a relationship
- 03Trust means perceived predictability, not necessarily affection
- 04Influence is earned through repeated interaction
How to run it
- 1
Create discovery
Make the person or idea visible in a context where the other party can freely choose to engage.
Watch out Attention is not consent to continued contact.
- 2
Pass avoidance
Use respectful, relevant interaction to reduce the uncertainty attached to something new.
Pro tip Keep the first investment small and useful.
- 3
Compete through exchange
Exchange questions, ideas, effort, and even disagreement so both parties invest in understanding the relationship.
Pro tip Treat competition as a scrimmage that improves shared understanding.
Watch out Do not mistake conflict intensity for relationship quality.
- 4
Establish compliance
Reach a clear pattern for how the parties will interact on this topic, including a respectful agreement to disagree.
Pro tip Make expectations explicit rather than relying on implied power.
Watch out Compliance obtained through coercion is not healthy trust.
- 5
Build predictability
Behave consistently enough that the other party knows what to expect in the relevant area.
In the wild
Bustamante describes two people who disagree about politics but repeatedly meet for a Friday drink and debate. They may not agree or broadly admire each other, yet the recurring exchange creates a trusted pattern around that activity.
→ Predictability and mutual investment create a limited form of trust despite disagreement.
Common mistakes
Equating trust with goodness
Predicting someone's behaviour does not mean that behaviour is benevolent or that the person deserves broader trust.
Forcing the ladder
Repeated contact that ignores refusal is pressure, not ethical relationship-building.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for ethical relationship-building where both parties can choose whether to engage.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for engineering dependency, overriding consent, or manufacturing trust through deception.
From the transcript
“the bottom third of the cup is what we call avoidance”
“the last third is called compliance”
“trust it just means a predictable outcome”
From the episode
The Manipulation Expert: CIA Spy Reveals You're Being Controlled! "You're Being Manipulated Without Realising It"! Andrew Bustamante