Preface
If you feel that trust within your workplace has been broken, you are not alone. It doesn’t mean that you work with “bad” people or that you are naïve. Behaviors that break trust are experienced daily in workplaces around the world. Chances are you’ve breached someone else’s trust at work without even realizing it.
Broken trust is simply the natural outcome of people interacting with one another. There are times when trust is built, and other times when trust is destroyed, or, more often, gradually eroded by a series of small, unintentional breaches. Yet trust can and will be rebuilt if you commit to taking courageous and compassionate steps.
How do you know if you’re experiencing broken trust? You may:
Be less engaged, less committed, and more skeptical
Resist volunteering for assignments
Find yourself feeling isolated at work
Hear that people are talking about you behind your back
Have a nagging feeling of discomfort about something you’ve said or done
See that others are anxious at work and feel awkward in not knowing how to respond
Feel caught in the middle of office politics or co-workers’ interpersonal conflicts
Notice that you are just going through the motions at work
Miss work or often arrive late
These feelings and reactions are normal. We all experience the breach of trust in our relationships, both at work and at home. But not everyone is motivated to work through those feelings and find alternative ways to react. The very fact that you sit with this book in your hands shows that you value connected relationships that honor people for who they are and for what they bring to the workplace and to one another.
This book is for you, no matter where you are with trust at work. You may have experienced the loss of trust as a result of what others have done to you. You may be struggling with the realization that you have inadvertently broken trust, letting others down and causing them pain. You may be looking for direction to help others who are in pain due to patterns of distrust around them. Or, perhaps, you’re relishing the positive energy and performance that comes from knowing that you trust your colleagues and they trust you, and you’re inspired to learn how to maintain that flow. You may simply be interested in a general exploration of rebuilding trust so that you can help sustain effective relationships.
In the twenty years that we’ve been researching trust in the workplace, we have provided training programs and consulting services to hundreds of organizations large and small, public and private, for- and not-for profit, around the world. While many people have attempted to describe trust, we have gone further to develop thoroughly tested, statistically sound instruments to measure trust; these instruments give voice to that which people experience and feel, and provide actionable data. In 1999, we wrote a book called Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace: Building Effective Relationships in Your Organization; we revised and expanded it in 2006. In that book, we provided the following comprehensive overview of trust:
The three specific types of trust and the sixteen concrete behaviors that build them
People’s readiness and willingness to trust themselves and others
The behaviors that break trust
The characteristics that cultivate transformation through trust building
An introduction to the steps to rebuild trust
Time and time again since that book, people have asked us to go deeper into the area of rebuilding trust. Rebuilding Trust in the Workplace is an answer to those requests. We wrote this book because you asked us to. In it, we extend an invitation for you and your colleagues to learn how to renew relationships at work. We give you a place to go to understand your own feelings of hurt, disappointment, letdown and pain that come with broken trust, and to understand the pain of others. You will tap into the hope that is embedded in all relationships—hope that can be uncovered through healing. Through an approach that is both constructive and compassionate, you will learn practical, actionable steps for rebuilding trust. You will deepen your understanding of yourself and of your relationships, and you will discover the gifts pain can bring when you choose to heal.
We begin with an introduction about the nature of trust and how it can be destroyed or eroded, and the impact of broken trust. We explore the topic from three vantage points:
When you’ve been hurt by others
When you’ve hurt someone else
When you want to help others rebuild trust
We describe the pathway to rebuild trust: The Seven Steps for Healing.1 Chapters One through Seven walk you through each Step and provide practical advice for each vantage point so that you can apply the lessons to your specific situation. Information at the beginning of each chapter is relevant to each of the vantage points. You’ll find a recap of the Steps and an overview of the benefits of rebuilding trust in Chapter Eight.
In the chapters, you will find trust tips, reflection questions, and practical how-to exercises to help you put your learning into action, individually and with others, immediately. Because we have discovered that people gain insights from others’ experiences, we tell stories—even a few of our own—throughout the book. In the process of helping organizations, we have listened to and coached thousands of people at all levels. Their voices are reflected in these pages. Additionally, we conducted over twenty-five in-depth interviews specifically for this book. We asked these individuals to share their experience moving through the Seven Steps. The resulting material, shared anonymously under fictitious names, provides real-life examples that we hope are useful to you. At the same time, these interviews proved important and healing for the people we spoke to. Many, especially those who came to terms with their role in hurting others, shed tears while they recounted their healing journeys. Through their tears, they discovered insights about relationships that they will carry with them forever.
Like each of these courageous people, by applying the Seven Steps, you’ll rebuild trust and renew the confidence, commitment, and energy that were eroded by the loss of trust. You will come to know yourself more deeply. You will want to go to work and you will feel safe to be more fully “who” you are. In that place of safety, you’ll give your organization your best thinking, highest intention, full spirit, risk-taking and creativity. And from a place of personal self-discovery, self-trust and authenticity, you will succeed not only professionally, but personally as well.
Dennis and Michelle Reina
April, 2010
Stowe, Vermont