164 ◾ Transforming Teams
“Yes,” said Dave without hesitation.
“Yes,” said Claire with slightly less enthusiasm than
Dave.
“Great. I can check that off the list,” said Eliza as she
placed a check mark next to “Choose to trust.”
“Before we move to the next step, I want to ask you
to do something.”
“Okay, let’s hear it, Boss,” said Dave.
“It’s easy: ‘Listen,’” said Eliza, waiting for their reaction.
“Okay. I’m listening. What am I hearing?” asked Dave.
“You’re listening to Claire and you’re not listening
to your own stories. The more deliberate we are in our
Unpacking Baggage and Restoring Trust ◾ 165
listening skills, the better we are at building relation-
ships. This I actually learned from my eldest daughter.
When she was six, we had a lot of behavioral problems
with Lilly—ts, tantrums, physically hitting her sister
and us. We tried every positive reinforcement, negative
reinforcement, and just plain-old time-out strategy we
could come up with, and nothing worked. I was tell-
ing a friend about how badly things were going, and
she said, ‘When you listen to her, what is she saying?’
And it occurred to me that I had never really deliber-
ately listened to her. So I started to do just that. I just
sat down next to her and listened to her. Truly, it was
miraculous. The more I listened, the better she became.
I even did some research on ‘active listening skills’ and
have learned how powerful a tool it is to really listen
to people. And that’s what I’d like you to do today with
each other. Just really listen to each other,” said Eliza.
“Actually, Eliza, that’s a really good golden nugget—
Listen,” said Dave, trying it out to see how it sounded.
Listen
166 ◾ Transforming Teams
“Are you implying that the rest of them are not really
good?” Eliza asked with mock hurt in her voice. “Yes,
I know it’s good and, more to the point, it’s important.
Please try to do it always and please do it now.
“Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to share
with each other why you have the distrust that you have.
Claire, on Tuesday, you said that you didn’t trust Dave’s
competence. Can you tell us what that was about?”
“Ugh. Eliza, I really hate to dredge up old issues. I
don’t see how that will help us,” said Claire.
Eliza disagreed. “Look—if you are still holding on
to past concerns that have had the impact of affecting
your view of Dave’s sincerity, competence, or reliability,
then we have to discuss it. We don’t have to dwell, but
we do have to do some airing out of past issues before
we can start making solid promises going forward. And
this goes to the point of being vulnerable. It’s uncom-
fortable, I know. But we can’t let past issues fester.”
“All right,” said Claire as she took a deep breath
and collected her thoughts. “You do know this is really
stressing my high Supporter, right?”
“Yes, we know,” reassured Eliza.
“Dave, I hate to bring this up again, but it stems
from that order that got screwed up for MarkMan
Industries. Do you remember? The one where we
manufactured 30 modules that all had to be redone.
Eliza, this was before you joined HDS, but there were
no bonuses paid out that year because of the cost over-
run. We ended up losing the client, getting a hit to our
reputation, and losing out on our bonuses.”
Unpacking Baggage and Restoring Trust ◾ 167
“Of course I remember. Are you saying that you
think it was my fault that the MarkMan asco hap-
pened?” said Dave incredulously.
“Listen, Dave. Just listen,” coached Eliza quietly.
“So Claire,” said Dave after he had taken a deep
breath to calm his emotions, “can you tell me what you
feel was my role in that situation?”
Eliza nodded encouragingly to him, and they both
turned to Claire.
“Well, the spec sheet that you submitted was incor-
rect. It was missing important pieces. I honestly can’t
remember what at this point. But Kirby and the pro-
duction team built the module based on what you gave
them, based on trusting what you gave them. And it
failed . . . miserably.”
Eliza asked, “And how did that make you feel?”
“It really ticked me off because I never really saw
you stand up and take accountability for that failure.
But we all had to by losing out on our bonuses. And
that’s why I always double- and triple-check your spec
sheets. Because I’ve seen what can happen when they
are not carefully reviewed.”
“Wow, Claire. I wish we had discussed this before.
So, let me repeat what you said for clarication. You
assess that my spec sheet was incorrect and because
of that the MarkMan module was manufactured incor-
rectly?” Dave asked.
“Yes, that’s my assessment,” said Claire.
“Okay,” said Dave without saying anything further.
Though he initially looked like his head was about to
168 ◾ Transforming Teams
explode, he kept silent, and his demeanor suddenly
became more reective.
Claire and Eliza looked at Dave, clearly waiting for
him to verbalize his response or reaction.
“Do you have anything you want to share about
that?” Eliza nally asked.
“Oh, sure I do. But I’m still listening. Are we now
at the point when I should talk?” Both Eliza and Claire
were surprised at the tone of his statement, which had
a sincerity to it, as if he were saying, “I really want to
do this correctly.”
Eliza smiled at him and asked, “Claire, is there any-
thing further that you’d like to share with Dave?”
“No,” said Claire. “That experience has really served
as my foundation for working with Dave ever since.”
“Then, Dave, would you share your thoughts?” asked
Eliza.
“Yes. First of all, Claire, thank you for sharing this
with me. I know it wasn’t comfortable for you to say
that in front of me, and I can tell that it’s important for
us to clear the air. And to be honest, my rst reaction is
to be angry, but I can see your perspective on this, and
it makes sense. I really believe that.
“I don’t know whether you talked with Kirby, but
he and I went over those specs with a ne-tooth comb
before the rst component was manufactured. Just so
you know, this was an error that Kirby and I made
together. It wasn’t mine alone,” said Dave.
“I didn’t know that, Dave. You know, Kirby never
talks, so I presumed it was all on you. I’m sorry,” said
Claire sincerely.
..................Content has been hidden....................
You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.