Ability-Trust-Appeal (Relationship Triangle)

Three components of professional relationships—and why appeal matters most

Evan LaPointe
Improve strategy, influence, and decision-making by understanding your brain

Ability-Trust-Appeal (Relationship Triangle)

"The surprise ending is that the third one matters the most, which is scary in some cases... Your ability is actually not the most important part of a relationship, biologically speaking." - Evan LaPointe

What It Is

Every professional relationship has three fundamental components: Ability, Trust, and Appeal. While most people focus on demonstrating ability (skills, knowledge, utility), the research shows Appeal—what kind of experience you are—is actually the most important factor in relationship quality and influence.

This framework explains why brilliant engineers get excluded from important meetings, why some less-skilled people accumulate enormous networks, and why investing in your ability alone often backfires.

How It Works

1. Ability (The Skills You Bring)

  • Your knowledge, competence, and utility to others
  • What you can deliver: expertise, output, problem-solving
  • Important but least critical for relationship strength
  • Can always be supplemented by others if relationships are strong

2. Trust (Risk Assessment)

Trust operates on a spectrum from negative to three positive levels:

Negative Trust: This person is dangerous—they harm, undermine, or don't deliver

Trust Level 1: Simple delegation of non-critical tasks

  • "Bring chips to the cookout"
  • Tasks where failure has low consequences
  • Most colleague relationships stay here

Trust Level 2: Delegation with confidence

  • "I trust them to do this as well as I would"
  • Enables true scalability of teams
  • Required for high-functioning organizations

Trust Level 3: Beyond my capability

  • "Their mind works better than mine on this topic"
  • Like Steven Spielberg trusting John Williams to score a film
  • No second-guessing or micromanaging
  • This is where compounding returns emerge

3. Appeal (What Kind of Experience You Are)

  • How people feel when they interact with you
  • Whether others look forward to being around you
  • The most important component biologically
  • Determines whether you're in the room at all

The Hierarchy

Appeal > Trust > Ability

If your appeal is low, your ability becomes worthless because:

  • People avoid you, creating "protective covering" around you as a node
  • Information doesn't flow to you
  • You're excluded from important meetings and decisions
  • Your utility can never be deployed

Conversely, people with high appeal but questionable trust or low ability still accumulate rich relationships—"great friends" who are unreliable but wonderful to be around.

How to Apply It

  1. Start with appeal audit - Ask yourself: What kind of experience am I? Don't worry about the other pieces yet if this answer is negative

  2. Check your profile for warnings - Low politeness, high assertiveness, and low openness all create unpleasant experiences for others

  3. Trust builds on appeal - You can't establish deep trust if people don't want to spend time with you

  4. Ability is the ceiling, not the floor - Your skills determine your maximum contribution, but appeal determines your minimum inclusion

  5. Energy and positivity matter - The most effective leaders bring energy: "Oh, who's ready to make some decisions?"

Warning Signs of Low Appeal

  • Colleagues respond slowly to your messages
  • You're not invited to informal discussions
  • People give you short answers
  • You're the last to know about decisions
  • Others' body language closes when you enter a room

When to Use It

  • When evaluating why you're not advancing despite strong skills
  • When diagnosing team dysfunction
  • Before giving feedback that might affect relationships
  • When deciding who to include in a project team
  • When investing in your own professional development

Source

  • Guest: Evan LaPointe
  • Episode: "Improve strategy, influence, and decision-making by understanding your brain"
  • Key Discussion: (01:24:14) - Full explanation of the three relationship factors
  • YouTube: Watch on YouTube

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