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David Maister, Charles Green, and Robert Galford published the Trust Equation in 2000. Credibility, reliability, and intimacy raise trust as they go up. Self-orientation, the degree to which someone seems focused on their own agenda rather than yours, lowers it, regardless of how credible or reliable that person appears.
Each dimension can fail independently. A person can trust someone's expertise and distrust their motives. A stakeholder can find you entirely credible and still not trust you, because you have been unreliable on follow-through or because every interaction feels like being steered toward a conclusion you already reached.
Credibility and reliability are more tangible and easier to measure, so most people lean on them. Intimacy and especially self-orientation are the most impactful to shift. Someone who walks into every conversation with a clear agenda signals that the conversation is about getting to their answer, and the signal is perceived and accumulates over time.
Where did the Trust Equation come from?
It appears in the 2000 book The Trusted Advisor by David Maister, Charles Green, and Robert Galford. Maister was a former Harvard Business School professor who went on to advise professional services firms such as law, consulting, and accounting practices. The book was written for advisors whose work depends on clients trusting their judgment.
Why can people trust expertise but doubt motives?
Psychologist Susan Fiske and colleagues proposed in the stereotype content model that people judge others on two main dimensions, warmth and competence. Warmth covers perceived intent, and competence covers perceived ability. Fiske's research found that people often judge warmth first and weigh it heavily, which is why a highly capable person can still be distrusted.