Re-Building Trust – Part I
Are you leading a team that doesn’t trust or listen to you enough? Have you just started managing a group of peers who are resisting your leadership?
Building trust with a new unknown group is relatively easier than RE-BUILDING trust with the existing group of people you are working with. Often new roles, new positions, or new learning, brings an awareness that one needs a change in self brand or style of working. However, because of the existing perceptions, baggage and grudges, it becomes even more painful to change and re-build trust.
The process takes a bit of time, but there’s nothing more gratifying than re-building trust in relationships. You gain much more than you lose in this process.
This blog series is a quick read, for you to understand and work on the 3 steps that can help you re-build that trust and equation in all kinds of relationships. This comes directly from experience, so hope you like it and trust that it works 🙂
STEP 1
INNER VOICE : Carefully listen to your own inner voice when you are with these people. What do you say to yourself in your mind?
One eye opening experience of mine regarding inner voice was that –
Inner voice is not at all related to how close you are to that person or team!
Inner voice is instead a quick processing by the brain, related to a particular situation, however it majorly impacts your “REACTION”.
Brain keeps processing these dialogues and most of the times we ignore this process happening inside us. Let’s take an example –
A team member (Sahil) who works closely with the manager (John), one day in a team meeting tells John – “But John, how could you take the decision of changing shift-timings without consulting us?”
John was taken aback and here’s a quick view to his Inner voice –
- Who are you to question me? I am your boss, I have some rights
- Ho ho ho.. what kind of tone that is? You are putting me into a spot!
- What the hell, will see you later.
Immediately after this inner dialogue – What do you think John’s possible reaction will be?
He clinched and had a visible frown on his face, he looked disappointed, took a sip of water, and consciously put together his words and said – “There are times, when management needs to decide certain things, keeping all dimensions in mind. I expect all of you to follow these new guidelines from next week onward”
Yes, irritation was seen on John’s face, he was able to use politically correct words, but everyone could gauge that he was upset about it. As a result, team lost the trust on sharing their opinions with their manager John. Despite the fact, that John gave a politically correct answer, there was a long lasting deficit in trust with his team.
In a lot of my sessions, people ask me – how can we prevent ourselves from reacting to situations that we regret later. Here’s the answer – Be conscious about what is your inner dialogue at that time?
Your “Inner dialogue” is directly proportional to your reaction/response
If John could have revised his inner dialogue to the following –
- My team expects a lot out of me
- I’m glad they are open enough to have such a dialogue with me, instead of gossiping behind me
- It’s not about me, it’s about the new decision that they are upset with
- Any change, brings about a fear in people, let me handle it carefully to ensure they understand how it will help them.
What do you think John’s reaction/response will be?
ACTIVITY 1: Think about that ONE situation that triggers your reaction every-time! What do you tell yourself? What can you tell yourself instead next time when it happens? Re-programme your brain in advance for that situation and observe the results.
In Summary : Difficult situations are the ones where TRUST is assessed and built. It has nothing to do with your relationship with those people at other times. Your small reactions in those difficult moments impact trust and relationships, hence, the first step is to take care of the “Inner dialogue” that is being processed in the brain.
To read part 2 Click here