A Matter of Trust-February 2013

After you've heard lie after lie There can hardly be a question of why....... Cause it's always been a matter of trust Billy Joel "I don't trust this person." What do you say to a manager who says that about one of his co-workers? Someone who he or she has to work with every day. Trust is the foundation of any relationship and without it, a friendship or partnership will fail. In the workplace, a team without trust cannot fully function, employees lose confidence in their leaders and productivity is diminished. I was presented with that statement recently and I have to admit, I was temporarily a bit tongue tied. The person in question, Kelly, a customer support manager, had been caught in a lie on several occasions over the past 6 months. Her reputation had eroded to the point where her fellow managers couldn't rely on her information and answers. The lack of trust resulted in the other managers excluding Kelly from daily business decisions and going out of their way to avoid her. Kelly and the employees she supervised became isolated from the rest of the team and ultimately the decision was made to release her. During the exit interview, Kelly confessed that she had lied to her co-workers in an effort to deflect blame for some recent service breakdowns in her department. She thought that over time, people would forget about the incident but her lying became her defense mechanism and it became a habit she couldn't break. The good news is Kelly's former team began to flourish under the new management. Unlike Kelly, the new manager created an open and caring environment and insisted on having team members assume accountability for their actions. The department's credibility was slowly restored and what started as a disaster, turned out to be quite a success story. One of the best ways to surface comments that employees may otherwise be reluctant to bring to management's attention, is a through a confidential employee survey. Questions can be developed to help identify potential problem areas and an action plan formulated to address them company wide. Call us at 610-287-1162 or email me at phil@hrsolutionsonline.com to learn more.