Ms. Cooper

Human Resources, Recruitment & Training

Building a Climate of Understanding and Trust

By Caroline Cooper, President, Zeal Coaching

The success of our relationships determines the success of our business. Studies have shown that one of the bases of good leadership is the trust and confidence your team has in you. If they trust you they will go through hell and high water for you. Trust and confidence is built on good relationships, trustworthiness and good ethics.

But where do we begin in engaging people to build these relationships, and in creating a climate of understanding and trust?

I'm sure we all experienced managers who close down others by over talking and interrupting them. You know the type of person; they fail to listen, dismiss feedback, make assumptions and misunderstand others points of view, leading to mistakes and missed opportunities. They will readily shoot the messenger and disrespect confidences ultimately meaning that others will just bypass them altogether.

They change the goal posts frequently, so no one ever knows where they stand. And when they make a mistake they are quick to blame others and when you dare make a mistake there is all hell to pay for. Confusion, frustration and mistrust reigns.

Self Belief

Building trust starts with a belief in yourself. Are you clear and concise about your own position on issues? Do you tell your team what you really think? Make clear decisions and communicate your stance on issues, and be prepared to defend these when pressed or challenged. Accept that making difficult decisions will be necessary from time to time, and avoid hiding difficult issues under the carpet.

Do you take ownership of problems? Acknowledge and own up when you're wrong but move on by seeking to put things right. This establishes a climate where it's recognized that mistakes do happen, and is more likely to foster an environment where people will take responsibility (and risks) when necessary rather than having to lean too heavily on you and the management team all of the time.

Use your experience, knowledge, and strengths to build credibility and utilize this by giving direction guidance and assistance to others when it's needed and help clarify the way forward.

It's important you remain self-motivated even when things are not going well; are you prone to displaying your frustration, doubts or hesitation; and resort to using negative language, expressing doubt in your own or others' ability?

Building Relationships

The easiest way to start to build a relationship with your team members is to show interest. Find something you have in common. This doesn't have to be work-related; I'm always amazed on workshops how the dynamics of the group change when I asked them to find something that they have in common. This can often be quite bizarre things such as both having owned a similar pet as a child, or a like or dislike for a particular brand of beer or chocolate. Or it can be as simple as both having children of a similar age or living in the same village. Finding something, however small, is a great starting point to start to build rapport with team members.

An open door policy isn't enough. You need to get up and walk around and encourage your management team to do the same. Get to know your staff; the easiest way is to join them at lunch or on their breaks. Be visible and be seen to be interested. It's not just about listening; it's about asking questions.

Listen to Others

Seek feedback by asking your team for their opinions. Ask open and probing questions. Listen actively; by this I mean demonstrate that you are really listening, not just playing lip service to asking for their views. Demonstrate and test your understanding by repeating back what you've heard. Be mindful of your body language, using open gestures to encourage people to speak, and not displaying your disagreement through an inappropriate tone or facial expressions.

Demonstrate you are genuinely keen to hear what your team has to say. Be open and show that their thoughts are valued and make a difference. Share your own thoughts and opinions to encourage discussion. Ask open-ended questions to explore ideas. Be sensitive to the fact that some people are uncomfortable talking in large groups and prefer one-to-one meetings.

In his book “The seven habits of highly effective people”, Stephen Covey uses the term “seek first to understand”. This takes listening to a level beyond active listening to what is described as empathetic listening i.e. listening with intent to understand. This involves looking at the situation from their perspective, beginning to understand how they feel. This doesn't necessarily mean that you agree with them, but it does mean that you fully, deeply understand their perspective; you listen to the feeling, the meaning. To be understood, to be validated, to be appreciated is a basic psychological need, and if do this with your team it will pave the way for them to listen and understand your needs and expectation., Plus it would be a lot easier for you to present things in a way that will appeal to them as you'll have an understanding from their frame of reference.

It's very easy to jump to a solution without securing the support of your team. This begins with consultation and discussion; admittedly it takes more time but in the long run it saves time motivating, and reassuring in persuading your team at later stages.

Building a Culture of Understanding and Trust

Creating a climate of understanding and trust involves an environment where people feel free to speak out knowing that they will be heard. Building a culture of trust and openness whereby colleagues are comfortable to do this can be encouraged by you being open with your own feelings. By being open you will encourage others to speak their mind, to say what they really think, feel and believe. Far better to know this and deal with it, than have people moan behind your back and spread dissatisfaction. Recognize and reward your managers and supervisors who encourage others to openly state their views and establish the appropriate forums to do this.

Don't let things fall apart when deadlines are missed or mistakes are made. Building understanding and trust is not a one-off behavior, but an ongoing creation of trust and openness. Make sure when things go wrong that you don’t blame; encourage the learning and sharing of mistakes so that they don't happen again.

A culture of understanding and trust doesn’t mean you won’t get issues, conflicts and disagreements, but what it does mean is that these are brought into the open and dealt with rather than being left to fester.

If you feel resistance from certain team members to open up, try to tune into what interests them. Think about their style, their language and how they want to learn. It may just be that their style is different to yours; focus on understanding them rather than the task in hand.

The Emotional Bank Account

An emotional bank account is a metaphor that describes the amount of trust that has been built up in a relationship. It's the feeling of assurance you have with another human being.

If you make enough deposits with others through courtesy, kindness, honesty and keeping your commitments to them, you build up a reserve. Others trust in you becomes higher and you can call upon that trust if you need to. When the trust is high, communication is easy, instant and effective. When you are kind, honest, caring and friendly to another person, you make deposits on an Emotional Bank Account. However, if you are unkind, disrespectful, uncaring and mean, you draw from this account.

There are six major deposits we can make to the emotional bank account, some of which we've already touched on:

1. Understanding the individual; one person's mission is another person's minutia. To make a deposit, what is important to another person must be as important to you as the other person is to you.
2. Kindnesses and courtesies are so important. Forms of disrespect make large withdrawals. In relationships, the things that can seem insignificant to you can count for others.
3. Keeping a commitment is a major deposit; breaking one is a major withdrawal. In fact there's probably no larger withdrawal than to make a promise that's important to someone and then not keep that promise.
4. Clarifying expectations. The cause of many relationship difficulties is often rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations around roles and goals. Unclear expectations will lead to misunderstanding, disappointment and withdrawals of trust. Many expectations are implicit and the deposit is to make the expectations clear and explicit in the first place. This takes a real investment of time and effort up front, but saves great amounts of time and effort in the long run. When expectations are not clear and shared, simple misunderstandings become compounded, turning into personality clashes and communication breakdowns.
5. Showing personal integrity; Lack of integrity can undermine almost any other effort to create high trust accounts. Keeping promises and fulfilling expectations is key. One way of manifesting integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present.
6. Apologizing sincerely when you make a withdrawal. Great deposits come in the sincere words - “I was wrong”, “I showed you no respect”, “I'm sorry”. It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize. A person must have a deep sense of security to genuinely apologize. It is one thing to make a mistake, and quite another not to admit it.

The Benefits

If you build trust amongst your team they will share and collaborate, leading to a more cohesive team. If you understand their aspirations and values you can help release their potential and develop them to their fullest. It will also help you to gain buy-in; the better you understand those affected by any changes or initiatives the easier it will be you to overcome the issues and concerns and meet their priorities and present a credible win-win situation.

The way you deal with people in your team, and the relationships you build with them will lay the foundation of their commitment to follow you. The stronger your relationships the stronger their trust and confidence in you.

Caroline Cooper is a business and leadership coach working with hospitality business leaders and owners to enhance business, personal and team performance and effectiveness, with a strong emphasis on the bottom line results. She founded Zeal Coaching in 2004, and now works with a cross section of hospitality businesses. She is a published author of the 'Hotel Success Handbook', on practical sales and marketing for small hotels. During her career Ms. Cooper has provided leadership development and consultancy to a broad range of industries, ranging from FTSE 100 corporate clients, charities, local government and small businesses. Ms. Cooper can be contacted at +44 (0)7887 540914 or caroline@zealcoaching.com Extended Bio...

HotelExecutive.com retains the copyright to the articles published in the Hotel Business Review. Articles cannot be republished without prior written consent by HotelExecutive.com.