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CHAPTER
11

REBUILDING TRUST WITHIN ORGANIZATIONS

Budgets are decreasing, employees’ benefit packages are being cut, and some unscrupulous leaders are getting wealthy while many employees are paying the price. Fortunately, most leaders are conscientious, trying to do the right thing in the face of all odds. How do these leaders rebuild trust within their organizations, given the changing business landscape? What can they do?

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It was a Tuesday in November, cold, damp, and overcast, as many are in the Northwest. At the plant, anxiety was high and morale was low. In the lunchroom, people speculated about what was to come next. “Have you heard when the next cut will be? Who do you think will go this time?” A worker from across the table chimed in, “I have given seventeen years of faithful service to this company. From now on, I don’t trust anybody—it’s every man for himself!” Out on the production line, employees were moving the product, but performance was nothing like a year earlier, before the restructuring began. The plant manager peered out of his upper mezzanine office window overlooking the production floor. “Overall labor costs are lower, but production is declining, and morale has hit rock bottom!” he muttered to himself. “What am I going to do?”

Stories like this are commonplace. Change is happening in all organizations. Leaders face the challenge of managing change in a way that is the least damaging to trust.

Traditionally, leaders have approached change with an assumption that what is good for the organization is good for the people. Yet many change efforts based on that assumption have failed to produce desired results. Not wanting to repeat mistakes, leaders are becoming aware that sound business decisions must be executed with sensitivity to human needs. Tough decisions still have to be made, yet it is possible and necessary to implement them in a way that doesn’t destroy trust. Aware leaders are more inclined to manage change with respect and sensitivity for all involved. When leaders fail to do so, they betray the people they serve and their leadership role.

THE IMPACT OF CHANGE ON PEOPLE

Organizations depend on relationships to get work done. Relationships depend on trust to succeed. Sometimes the mechanics of managing change overshadow relationships and compromise people’s dignity, respect, and trust. The following examples illustrate this.

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Camille was conducting an outplacement seminar designed to offer support to people who had just lost their jobs. Ten minutes before the session was to begin, Camille stepped into the hallway for some water when a manager approached her. “Camille,” he asked, “can you hold up the session for fifteen minutes? I have two employees who need to be in your workshop today but haven’t been informed yet.”

The manager in this vignette was insensitive to the needs of his employees. He was going to rush into informing them that they were losing their jobs and then send them immediately into a workshop about résumé writing.

Over a number of months, as the La Petite Company downsized one of their divisions, they sold unneeded hardware and furniture. Following an employee’s last day, the furniture was removed from his or her office. Jacque, a purchasing agent within this division, knew he was going to go through some type of job transition but did not know when it would happen or what it would be like. He was hoping for a transfer to another branch of the company. The next Monday, Jacque came into work and discovered that his desk and chair were gone. When he inquired about the missing furniture, he learned that he was out of a job.

Organizational change doesn’t have to happen this way. As we’ve mentioned elsewhere, the betrayal people often experience is a result not of change itself but of how it is managed. Employees want to be a part of the process, not apart from the process. They want to hear the truth and have an opportunity to ask questions and become informed. All employees, leaving and staying, need to have trust in their environment. How leaders manage change affects whether trust will be built or broken and desired outcomes achieved.

WHEN PEOPLE SEE CHANGE AS LOSS

People may experience change as a loss—the loss of relationships with those laid off or the dissolution of the “family” company environment that once existed. People may resent that they are doing more work for the same pay with fewer benefits and that opportunities to earn more are limited.

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With every change comes gain, loss, and grief. In organizations, often one person’s gain is another person’s loss. The people initiating the changes are usually the ones to gain. If I am the one gaining, it is harder for me to see how the other person loses. In our culture, we are taught that it is not good to cause other people to lose, so we mentally minimize their loss. This phenomenon makes it harder for us to see the pain many employees experience with change.

Often the organization in which people work is not the same place they “signed on for” initially. People may experience changes as losses. They need to talk about and grieve those losses. They need to acknowledge that what they once had is no longer. The longer the employee’s tenure, the greater the feelings of loss and the greater the need to grieve. In a world where everything is changing rapidly, many people who previously looked to their workplace as a source of stability now regard it as out of control. It frightens them.

DEALING WITH THE EMOTIONAL SIDE OF CHANGE

Dealing with the emotional side of change is difficult but necessary. Many leaders are uncomfortable watching their people experience the pain of change and are uncomfortable experiencing their own pain. They often consider this to be touchy-feely stuff, not the stuff of “real business.” During times of change, leaders tend to retreat to the “hard side” of business for many reasons: it is where they are most comfortable, where their role is more tangibly defined, where they are skilled, and where they are the safest. In the retreat to the safe side, they fail to honor themselves, their relationships, and the real needs of the people they serve. They fail to honor the essence of leadership. Their search for safety results in a betrayal of themselves, their role, and those they serve.

Aware leaders recognize the high cost of betrayal to individuals, to relationships, and to performance. It robs individuals of their ability to believe in themselves. Their ability to contribute wholeheartedly to the organization is diminished. When people feel betrayed, they pull back. Morale declines, as does productivity. People’s capacity to trust themselves is diminished with their readiness to trust their leaders.

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Effective leaders acknowledge their employees’ feelings of fear and loss and work to restore their confidence. Otherwise, the betrayal continues, and people’s capacity to trust in their leaders and their organization further plummets. Survivors go into a state of resignation: they take fewer risks, blame others, go through the motions, and are not as productive as they once were. If employees have been burned before, they are less willing to give their all and come through when needed. If leaders do not deal with feelings of betrayal, they will unwittingly destroy two of the very qualities they need to be competitive: their employees’ trust and their performance.

HELPING PEOPLE HEAL FROM BETRAYAL

We have explored how people experience betrayal. Quite often, it occurs during change. The Reina Trust & Betrayal Model provides a framework to honor relationships while managing change. Here we explore how the Seven Steps for Healing (see Figure 5 in Chapter 8) can help you work through betrayal and manage change.

Healing begins when we observe and acknowledge that betrayal (intentional and unintentional) has occurred and that we understand its impact on others. As a leader, you can take certain actions during the healing process that can have a positive impact on people. The Reina Trust & Betrayal Model will help you and others remain aware of the behaviors essential to healing that are too easily dropped, especially during times of rapid change. Our model also provides a common language and perspective that engages people in healing. Although leaders have significant responsibility to rebuild trust, they do not have sole responsibility. Rebuilding trust is everybody’s job!

Step 1: Observe and Acknowledge What Has Happened

“Mr. Smith needs to effectively address the ‘pay package’ issue at the organizational level. If benefits or merit pay are going to be negatively affected, he needs to manage the message through an effective and timely information program. Tell all that you can as soon as you can! I think he underestimates the level of awareness and impact this has on employees.”

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Aware leaders acknowledge the negative impact of change. They realize that employees are whole human beings with feelings. They know that people who do not feel supported to deal with their feelings and concerns are less able to heal from their experience of betrayal. They are not able to fully show up for work.

Start with awareness. Similar to healing at the individual level, the first step to healing at the organizational level requires awareness. One of the greatest mistakes leaders make in challenging times is to assume that once a major change has taken place, trust will return on its own. This view is both unrealistic and irresponsible.

Assess the health of your organization. Observe and assess the climate within the organization. Notice what your people are experiencing and acknowledge it. Pay attention to what is building and breaking trust. Many organizations that we serve use the Reina Organizational Trust Scale, which measures the level of trust in the organization as perceived by management and employees. Find out what is important to people. Listen to what they are saying at the water cooler, in the break rooms, and on the shop floor. When witnessing anger, don’t just notice the anger. Listen to it. Quite often anger represents deeper feelings of hurt and disappointment. Remember, people in pain need to be listened to. They need someone they can trust to turn to for support and understanding. They need help to understand their own experience.

Acknowledge feelings. Effective leaders consciously acknowledge their employees’ feelings of frustration, disappointment, and betrayal. It is only after acknowledging the feelings of betrayal that leaders are able to respond to them. Leaders must work very hard not to get defensive or try to justify or rationalize what happened. They must remember that people are entitled to their feelings. It is the role of a leader to listen, observe, and acknowledge. This is the first step to healing the wounds.

Step 2: Allow Feelings to Surface

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Give people permission. Give employees permission to express their concerns, issues, and feelings in a constructive manner. Create safe forums, staffed by skilled facilitators, that support the expression of fear, anger, and frustration. Giving your employees a constructive way to discuss their feelings and experiences helps them let go of the negativity they are holding, freeing up that energy for rebuilding relationships and returning their focus to performance.

Help people verbalize. Help employees give voice to their pain— pain they are afraid or unable to share with anyone. When you give your attention to understanding your employees, you let them know that you respect their pain.

This is the difficult work for leaders, but it is important and necessary work in facilitating healing and navigating change. Your employees don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care—about them and their well-being. People in pain need to have their feelings heard. They need to know that you are able to relate to what they are saying and feeling. When you do not acknowledge your employees’ emotions, they feel unheard, resentful, and distrusting toward you. Another layer of betrayal occurs.

Step 3: Give Employees Support

Recognize your employees’ transitional needs. People have needs that must be met before they can adapt to change. They have informational needs regarding the new direction the organization is taking and the strategies it proposes to get there. They have relationship needs associated with belonging and their role in the new organization. And they need their skills and abilities to be valued. When leaders expect people to embrace change without these fundamental needs’ being addressed, people feel betrayed.

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Back your employees. Your leadership position allows you to be your employees’ advocate. Represent your people’s interests, defend them from unwarranted criticism, and lobby for resources critical to their jobs.¹ By backing your people, you are building contractual trust and meeting the implicit expectations people have of leaders. Furthermore, you demonstrate that you can be trusted to fulfill future commitments, that your people can count on you to do what you say you will do.

Step 4: Reframe the Experience

Put the experience into a larger context. Helping your employees work through their emotions makes it possible for them to begin to heal. This movement gives you an opportunity to rebuild communication trust and helps employees reframe their experience by discussing the bigger picture: the business reasons for change. Honestly acknowledge the changes the organization went through and why. In doing so, you must continue to acknowledge what people have experienced. Only then will employees be in a position to accept the new direction in which the organization is headed and to see their role in it.

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The process of healing from betrayal is a process of inquiry. The questions that people ask will guide their journey.² Responding to their questions honestly will provide employees with understanding, awareness, truth, and renewed hope for a trusting relationship with you and the organization.

Help employees realize there are choices. Experiencing betrayal leaves employees feeling very vulnerable and at the mercy of the forces of change. They may need help seeing that they have choices regarding how they react to their circumstances. The more people are aware that they can choose their actions, the more they are able to take responsibility for those actions. Employees may need help examining their assumptions, breaking out of their self-limiting beliefs, and exploring options and possibilities.

Embrace mistakes. Some of the behaviors discussed that aid in healing may be new for you, and you may not trust your competence in exercising them. It may take some practice developing these skills and becoming comfortable using them. During this time, you may make some mistakes. That does not automatically make you a failure. Embrace these mistakes as opportunities for learning, thereby turning them to your own benefit. After all, they provide valuable feedback regarding what works and what does not.

Just as leaders must be sensitive to employees’ needs, employees need to be sensitive to leaders’ needs. This may mean having some patience and understanding that the leader is grappling with change as well. Therefore, if a leader makes a mistake, it is not necessarily evidence that the leader can’t be trusted. It is evidence that the leader is stretching, growing, and learning. When someone is practicing new ways of relating, people need to be supportive and understanding of his or her learning.

To gain support and understanding, you might find it helpful to share with people that you are learning new skills. Sharing this aspect of yourself demonstrates your trust in them and further extends the invitation to rebuild your relationship with them.

It is possible that you as the leader feel betrayed as well. It is as important that your feelings of betrayal be acknowledged. It is important that you get support to help your people see that.

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Step 5: Take Responsibility

Take responsibility for your role in the process. It is not helpful to try to spin the truth or cover mistakes. It does not serve you or the relationship. Something quite powerful occurs when we tell the impeccable truth—with no exceptions, no justifications, no rationalizations. Telling the truth is the fundamental basis for trust in workplace relationships. It demonstrates one’s trustworthiness. We take responsibility when we acknowledge our mistakes. Three simple words, I am sorry, reflect taking responsibility and go a long way to rebuilding trust.

Help others take responsibility for their part. When people are in pain, they tend to blame their leaders and behave in ways that contribute to betrayal. We support others in taking responsibility when we help them see their role in creating the climate of betrayal. Employees may not have control over change, but they do have control over how they choose to respond. Even though people may feel betrayed, those feelings do not make betraying in return acceptable.

Make amends and return with dividends. It is the leader’s role to break the chain of betrayal and reverse the spiral of distrust. Because actions speak louder than words, it is important that you take the first step in mending fences with your employees. Remember that rebuilding trust does not simply mean giving back what was taken away. It means returning something in better shape than it was originally in. If you have lost trust by taking valued responsibilities away, you can regain trust by granting people even more significant responsibilities.³ You must not only replace but also make things better. If this is not possible, be honest about the realities of the situation and what you can do to make amends.

Manage expectations. The level of expectations is directly correlated to the opportunity for betrayal. To safeguard yourself and your employees against future betrayals, keenly manage expectations. Employees want to know what is expected of them and what they can expect in return. Emphasize the need to negotiate with them when their expectations cannot be fulfilled. This strengthens contractual trust between you and your employees.

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Keep your promises. Managing promises is important in relationships. Trust is the result of promises kept. Don’t make promises you know you can’t keep; that just sets up you and everyone with whom you have a relationship for a downfall. When you realize that you cannot keep promises, renegotiate them; don’t break them.

Be careful of what you promise and what you appear to promise. When you are attempting to rebuild trust, it is essential that you not try to justify past actions and that you address the perceptions of those who feel betrayed. “It is enough for an employee to have believed that a promise was broken for trust to be violated.”¹

Step 6: Forgive

Recognize that forgiveness is freedom. Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves. It is about freeing ourselves and others from the anger, bitterness, and resentment that can deplete our individual and collective energy and spirit and interfere with relationships and performance. When we help people forgive others, we help them free themselves. With forgiveness, they heal for their future by changing their attitude about the past. We help them see new possibilities.

For most people, forgiveness takes time, and it happens a little at a time. Over time, your employees may be willing to forgive, but you cannot expect them to forget. You can help them heal from the pain they felt, but you cannot erase the events of the past. Occasionally, your employees may still be a bit angry after they forgive. It is natural that they may experience lingering feelings of anger for the perceived wrongs they experienced.

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Occasionally, you as a leader may need to forgive yourself. You did the best you could, and for whatever reason, it still wasn’t enough. Beating yourself up mentally and emotionally is worthless and self-defeating. Acknowledge for yourself what needs to be said or done to put your mind and this issue to rest. Then just do it! Be compassionate and cut yourself some slack during the healing process!

Shift from blaming to focusing on needs. Because forgiveness is a personal matter, it is difficult for people to forgive a system. However, leaders can work to cultivate a more personal and trusting climate where healing and forgiveness can take place. They can begin to do this by helping people shift from blaming the organization or its leaders to focusing on their personal needs as they relate to business needs.

It is important to address persistent resentment and blame in an organization, as they are toxic to the individuals involved and to the whole system. They undermine trust, morale, productivity, creativity, and innovation. People continue to blame when they perceive that those who are responsible have failed to take responsibility. People in return feel that they do not have to take action and are therefore not responsible. People also blame when they are carrying experiences of the past into the present.

It is essential that leaders help people shift from a blaming mode to a problem-solving focus. What do your employees need to resolve the issues, concerns, fears, and pain they are feeling? What conversations need to take place? What still needs to be said? What needs to happen for healing to occur? What will make a difference right now?

Step 7: Let Go and Move On

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Accept what’s so. Leaders can help their people accept what has happened. Acceptance is not condoning what was done but experiencing the reality of what happened without denying, disowning, or resenting it. It is facing the truth without blame. It is helping employees separate themselves from their preoccupation with the past and helping them invest their emotional energies in the present and in creating a different future.

Realize that you won’t always accomplish your goal. Although you may not always accomplish your goal, it is important that you make a good-faith effort and that your intentions are honorable. It is quite acceptable for leaders to disagree with their employees or not support a particular cause. Effective leaders do so with honesty and integrity.

Take the time; make the commitment. Building trust takes time and commitment. When trust is lost, it is regained only by a sincere dedication to the key behaviors and practices that earned it in the first place. The road back is not easy. However, by listening, telling the truth, keeping your promises, and backing your employees, you will play an instrumental role in assisting your employees and organization to heal from betrayal, rebuild trust, and renew relationships.

Give support! Providing support is a sign of your dedication to the healing and rebuilding process. The number one mistake leaders make is expecting people to immediately move from step 1 (observing and acknowledging what has happened) to step 7 (letting go and moving on) without doing the necessary work of the other steps. We aren’t built to work this way. People in pain cannot simply move on. They need to fully go through the healing process. When people are willing and able to do the work, it will lead to renewal!

Remember, your commitment to practicing transactional trust and the Seven Steps for Healing, and engaging your people in the same, will lead to transformation. Imagine the possibilities!

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TRUST BUILDING IN ACTION

Reflecting on Your Experience

Individually reflect on the following questions and be prepared to discuss your insights and observations with your teammates.

1. Think of a major organizational change that reduced the trust within an organization or even caused a sense of betrayal. What did leaders do that contributed to the betrayal?
2. In this betrayal situation, in what ways did leaders acknowledge, if at all, the emotional price paid by employees? How did the emotional side of this change affect productivity within the organization?
3. After the betrayal occurred, what steps, if any, did the leadership take to promote healing from the betrayal? What would you recommend leaders do to help themselves and their employees let go of the past and move forward?
4. During a major organizational change, what would you recommend leaders do to address the needs of employees? What would you recommend for managing the new expectations that are being created during this change process?
5. How could leaders reframe change in terms of a larger context that would make sense to employees?

Application Exercises

A. Cultivating Trust in Your Organization: The Role of the Senior Management Team. Senior management teams need to address the question, “How do we, as a senior management team, cultivate trust within our organization?” In doing so, they explore ways in which they can provide overarching structure and resources to support the work of the frontline managers and employees.

Instructions:

1. Allocate an uninterrupted block of time for the senior management team to explore the following systemic questions as they relate to their organization. (Offsite retreat settings are ideal for this kind of work.)
   • 195 What does a culture of trust look like within our organization?
   • What and where are our critical trust-related issues?
   • What are the biggest barriers to cultivating trust in our organization?
   • What policies and procedures are detrimental to trust between departments and across the organization?
   • What policies and procedures do we need to rethink, rework, or rewrite?
   • What does each senior manager need in his or her respective division to support the people in the field serving customers?
   • What are the three top needs in each department? What can the members of the senior management team collectively do to support each other in meeting those needs?
2. Designate a skilled facilitator to lead the discussion, making sure roles and working agreements are in place.
3. Capture key points regarding each question on a flipchart. Identify essential issues to work on.
4. Prioritize the top three issues and create an action plan to address them.

Addressing these questions collectively not only begins the process of building trust within the organizational system but also starts the process of building trust among individuals within the senior management team.

B. Identifying Behaviors That Build or Break Trust. A team or group may use this template to identify which behaviors support or build trust and which behaviors detract from and break trust within the organization.

Suggested steps are as follows:

1. Draw a large T on a piece of flipchart paper, and label the top center “Trust Within Our Organization.” Then label the left and right columns “Builds Trust” and “Breaks Trust,” respectively.
2. Have the team identify the specific behaviors that build and break trust within the organization and list them in the appropriate column.
3. Rank and prioritize the behaviors under each column. Select the three behaviors that break trust the most.
4. Strategize ways to resolve these three troublesome behaviors.

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Trust Note

Organizations depend on relationships to get most work done and to coordinate the efforts of their workforces. Relationships depend on trust to succeed. When leaders lose sight of this and orchestrate change without sensitivity to and awareness of the people affected by the change, they betray themselves and their people.