Dear Madeleine, I manage three large global teams. They do similar customer service, but for different product lines. They all have very seasoned team leads and produce excellent results. Our business really took off because of the pandemic and we implemented a data-driven way to measure results that has worked well. For a long time…
In our new book Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust, my coauthor, Randy Conley, and I cover a lot of topics—fifty-two, to be exact. As the subtitle suggests, a primary focus of the book is the area of trust in leadership. To be truly trustworthy, a leader…
“Relationships And Results.” Which of those three words is most important? I posed that question to over 100 participants in a series of workshops I recently conducted for a client. As you might suspect, about half the people thought relationships was the most important word. Their rationale essentially boiled down to people are the ones…
By their very nature, unionized workplaces and industries often promote a culture of distrust between stakeholders. Each party is suspicious of the other and is afraid of being taken advantage of, so they hold their cards close to their vest and try to cut the best deal possible for their stakeholders. It’s us on one…
Trust is often one of those things we don’t think about until we don’t have it. Much like oxygen, we take it for granted, but once it’s gone…YIKES! We suddenly realize how critically important it is and we’ll do just about anything to get it back. The good news about broken trust, if there is…
If you’ve seen the movie Meet the Parents, you probably remember “the circle of trust.” Robert De Niro’s character, Jack, a former CIA agent and overly protective father, is obsessed with making sure his future son-in-law Greg is a trustworthy and honorable husband for Pam, his only daughter. From his point of view, a person is…
While recently teaching a class on Building Trust, I found myself giving the participants this admonishment: “Just like anything in life, you’re going to get out of this what you put into it.” I’m not quite sure where that came from, but I suspect it was the words of advice given to me over the…
How can an organization have a problem with low trust yet none of its leaders consider themselves untrustworthy? Sounds crazy, right? It must be possible in some sort of cosmic, twilight zone kind of way. Organizations frequently ask us to help them address low trust, yet when we work with the individual managers, none of…
High performing teams are a joy to watch, aren’t they? Team members are committed to the team’s purpose, each other, and work seamlessly together to achieve the team’s goal. Each person knows his or her role, is highly motivated, and will willingly sacrifice their moment in the spotlight if it helps the team win. Why?…
Addressing low trust in a relationship is a challenging issue. As soon as the “t” word—trust—is mentioned, emotions start to rise, defensiveness climbs, and people begin to feel uneasy about where the conversation is headed. When I conduct workshops on building trust, participants often ask me for advice about how they can tell someone they…