Rebuilding trust in the workplace

With her company going through significant transition, Potts read about 15 business books in January 2010. “I had a handful of books about trust, but the one by Dennis and Michelle Reina really resonated with me,” said Potts. She took notes and gave “Rebuilding Trust in the Workplace: Seven Steps to Renew Confidence, Commitment and Energy” (Berrett-Koehler, 2010) to colleagues.

“Other books made you feel good when you read them, but you’d finish and say ‘So now what?’” she said. “These authors said it was OK to acknowledge that not all of your business relationships were fully trusting and to realize that building trust is never a ‘once and done’ thing. It’s a process. This book gives organizations a way to talk about trust issues without it being uncomfortable and real concrete steps they can take to effect results.”

Although she’d never called an author before, Potts called the Reinas and enlisted their help in coaching her and her firm’s senior leaders.

“We’re a 17-year-old company that is asking ‘How do we maintain our culture, grow and add new people, while working within a dynamic, shifting business environment?’ It’s a challenge,” said Potts, but she knows they are on the right path. “It’s a leader’s constant job to create an environment where people are heard, share, keep agreements and honor each other's talents and gifts. We’ve found the Reinas' principles extremely useful.”

Dennis and Michelle Reina explored the concept of trust for their doctoral theses originally. They began consulting and speaking and co-founded the Reina Trust Building Institute in Stowe, Vt. They have been helping corporate clients measure, develop and restore workplace trust for two decades.

“Trust speaks to our core human need for connection. In all relationships, trust will be built and it will be broken, because we’re all human. So it is essential to learn how to rebuild it,” said Michelle Reina.

The workplace is full of unintentional betrayals that are the consequence of careless actions, and the intentional betrayals of actions taken deliberately to hurt others.

There are minor betrayals like gossiping, blaming, hiding mistakes, withholding information and taking credit for someone’s work, and the major betrayals that are commonly associated with the mismanagement of organizational changes and result in layoffs, mergers and acquisitions.

These betrayals can cause loss of confidence, worker engagement, productivity and profits. While trust issues are nothing new to the workplace, the recession has brought many more of them to the surface, the Reinas said.

“Many of our clients come to us because the change processes they have implemented aren’t delivering the results they want,” said Dennis Reina. “We help them see that the presence or absence of trust is the key to the success or failure of any change initiative. It’s not necessarily what a company is going through that creates the problems, but how it is being implemented and how people are being treated through it.”

“You can make tough decisions and have people’s trust deepen,” added Michelle Reina. The couple showed one multimillion-dollar company that couldn’t afford to meet payroll for two months ways to engage their employees and strengthen relationships.

“The leaders were honest with their workers, empathized, but asked them to commit to going after this one piece of business together, believing it would change their future,” she said. “The people put in long hours, not only for their delayed paychecks, but to put the company on a sound financial footing, and they got the business.”

Seven steps for rebuilding trust

Seeing more leaders struggle to re-engage talent and make key strategic initiatives work in today’s complex economy, Dennis and Michelle Reina offer this seven-step process that can help companies renew trust and restore confidence.

1. Observe and acknowledge what has happened. “Layoffs, lost benefits, longer hours have an impact on people. Most people experience that impact as a loss,” said Dennis Reina. “You need to hear how people have experienced changes. Use surveys, focus groups, town-hall meetings and memos to help you measure the loss of trust.”

2. Allow feelings to surface. “Provide people with a safe environment to express their feelings about business decisions. It gets them out in the open and defuses the rumor mill,” he said.

3. Get and give support. “Allowing people to be heard dissipates some of the negativity and helps people see where they are stuck. Talking it through and sharing important information and direction will help increase the involvement of everyone in solving the problems,” he added. “Leaders should give support to employees and seek support from peers, mentors or coaches.”

4. Reframe the experience. “Help people to see the bigger picture of why decisions were made, what was learned and what new opportunities have been gained,” said Michelle Reina.

5. Take responsibility. “Own up to what is yours to own. Take responsibility for past actions, recognize what you have learned from them and what actions you can take now to improve the situation,” she said.

6. Forgive yourself and others. “It doesn’t mean excusing, it means acknowledging the impact of broken trust and figuring out what needs to be said or done to learn from it and move through it,” he said.

7. Move on. “The most difficult life situations often teach the most valuable lessons,” he said. “You don’t forget, but you choose to take action in the present to create a different future.”

Healing and rebuilding trust is not linear. You may have to cycle through some stages several times to peel back the layers, "but it’s very satisfying work because it affects people from the inside out, and gets to that core need for connection,” said Michelle Reina. “The common reaction from clients is, ‘Wow, we can use this in all parts of our lives.’”