|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Building Trust in Your Business Relationships - 10 Steps
There are some simple things you can do with your people to ensure that they start to trust you. As a letter from Mike Emmott of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in the UK says, in April 2005's UK Management Today says:-
"Our surveys show that only one in four employees trust senior management to look after their interests"
Is that not appalling? How on earth can businesses develop, survive and above all hang onto their best people if they are seen to be untrustworthy?
It's horrible.
There is an article below which talks a little about 'Rapport Building', but to supplement that, here are Ten Steps to help you build trust with your people.
If you can't keep a promise, then don't make it in the first place - it is a big negative emotion being let down in this way.
Why would you? And if you have to, it's much, much more about you. Your people will really lose faith in you fast.
Sometimes people will tell you things that they don't want broadcast - they need you to hear them sometimes. But keep it to yourself. Do not be the instigator of gossip and rumour.
Keep as little from your people as you can. Communicate as openly as possible. Sometimes you have to hold some information back - it happens, but think really carefully about it.
Treat all of your people equally and show no favourites. I know this is tough - I found it tough, but it needs to be right. Have agreed principles and standards that everyone works to - sorry, but no exceptions.
People make mistakes, do things wrong and need to be told. It's the thing they did, not the person they are. "You're useless", is not a good way to build trust, but, "That wasn't what I would expect of you usually, tell me more about what happened", works better.
If you say you are going to do something. Do it! Your people will love that you do what you say (or apologise at least if you find you can't). And it sets a great example.
There's a whole piece about this, but safe to say if you don't pay attention to people fully, they will not trust you. It's rude and it diminishes the relationship.
Be generous. It is a value-creating action. People hate to get things wrong - they expect a 'bollocking' (as they say!). Help them with a learning from the mistake. "What might you do next time?", is far more valuable.
If you do this with anyone, they will always wonder what you say about them when they aren't there - and what are they saying about you - it's a bad habit.
Building trust is vital if you, your people and your business are going to excel. Working on it is just a discipline. These points will help you.
Copyright 2005 Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He works worldwide, mainly by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders. He has hundreds of hints, tips and ideas at his website, http://www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com. (Note to editors. Feel free to use this article, wherever you think it might be of value - it would be good if you could include a live link)
...helping you, to help your people, to help your business grow...
Reuters
Reuters - 11 hours ago
PK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) prized asset management unit Neuberger Berman has been won by a team consisting of Neuberger's management, ...
Neuberger Berman Management, Lehman to Purchase Investment Unit Bloomberg
Neuberger to Be Acquired by Management MarketWatch
The Nine Lives of Neuberger Berman Management Wall Street Journal Blogs
Wall Street Journal - Bloombergall 308 news articles
MarketWatch - 10 hours ago
The article noted the current market environment and how Olympia Asset Management is taking the opportunity to recruit top talent from Firms like Merrill ...
MarketWatch - 12 hours ago
HOUSTON, Dec 04, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Revention recently announced the release of its most advanced enterprise management solution to date, ...
CNNMoney.com - 10 hours ago
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- UBS Wealth Management US, a unit of UBS AG (UBS), recently added 132 financial advisors who managed $14 billion in client assets as ...
MarketWatch - 17 hours ago
Through an automated workforce management solution -- especially using the SaaS-based delivery model -- organizations can leverage their workforces to ...
Arizona Republic, AZ - 4 hours ago
Still, the merger will provide the resources for the combined company to compete more effectively against Waste Management Inc. of Houston, the No. ...
Republic, Allied Waste to divest assets to do deal Reuters
Trash Firms Are Cleared to Combine Wall Street Journal
Republic Services, Allied Waste OK deal with gov't Forbes
Houston Chronicle - MyWebTimes.comall 94 news articles
MarketWatch - 11 hours ago
By Benjamin Pimentel, MarketWatch SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Shares of Synopsys Inc. were up more than 11% Thursday after the chip design software ...
MarketWatch - 16 hours ago
Foxfire specializes in Warehouse Management Systems (WMS). Comprised of software, hardware, and professional services, Foxfire's WMS solution is ideal for ...
Daily Green
Salt Lake Tribune, United States - 6 hours ago
By Patty Henetz Protests rolled in Thursday against the US Bureau of Land Management's upcoming oil and gas lease sale: Preservationists, conservationists, ...
BLM gets an earful on oil, gas lease sale Deseret News
BLM defends Utah lease sale; Utah defers tracts Oil & Gas Journal
Groups protest drilling-lease auction in US International Herald Tribune
United Press International - Examiner.comall 255 news articles
MarketWatch - 13 hours ago
The three of them worked together as the executive management team of LCAV (LCAV: , , ) to grow the market capitalization of the Company well in excess of ...
How to Get Your Procedures Project Done
Wouldn't it be nice for business owners and executives to be finished with their policies and procedures project already? They know they need to get it done,... Read More
Innovation Management ? the power of decision makers
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are distinct processes that enhance problem... Read More
Group Meeting Disrupters
MEETING DISRUPTERS: If two participants are carrying on a personal discussion that interferes with a meeting, direct a clear and simple question to one of them. In... Read More
Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: A New Managers Tale
This article relates to the Manager/Supervisor competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. This competency evaluates an employee's feelings regarding their direct manager or supervisor. The manager/supervisor... Read More
Is Your Company in Need of Family Therapy?
How Companies Are Like FamiliesLike a family, a company is a group of people who have an ongoing relationship with one another. Companies have several things in... Read More
Resistance - How to Handle It
Do you ever meet with resistance from other people - I bet you do! It might be a customer, a colleague, a member of your team or... Read More
Reflections in the Glass Ceiling
The recent news about one of America's most powerful woman ceo's being removed from office has raised the discussion about gender bias, again. It disappoints me that... Read More
Organize your Office- Seven Solutions
1. Create a filing system with broad categories such as "Insurance" and then break those categories down further into sub-categories (i.e., car, life, medical), alphabetizing them along... Read More
Keep Your Good Workers by Building Good Leaders
A recent report from the American Hospital Association's Commission on the Workforce asked healthcare workers key questions about the performance of their front line managers. The study... Read More
Is Your Business Ethical?
Ethics - in a profession or trade - is that branch of philosophy which studies the principles of right and wrong in human conduct.Is your business ethical?What... Read More
Communication: Managements Responsibility
I've just watched, again, an episode in the Back to the Floor television series, which aired on the BBC (United Kingdom) and PBS (United States). Once more,... Read More
10 Fool Proof Ways To Intensify Your Profits
1. Create benefit intensifiers for your list of ad copy benefits. Example, The Benefit: "Save More Time", The Benefit's Intensifier: "Never Seen Before".2. Use a little humor... Read More
Rapid Culture Change is Possible
Purpose: Show how immersion leadership training makes strategic initiative success possible.Adults learn through experience. We learn behaviors through experience. This is the flagpole fact of the educational... Read More
Quick Tip - Effective Meetings Have SMART Goals
The first step in planning an agenda is to identify the goals for the meeting. Properly done, goals have five S M A R T characteristics. They... Read More
The ?Better Product? fallacy
Another fallacy ingrained in the minds of most marketing managers is the belief that the better product will win the marketing battle.Behind the thinking of many marketing... Read More
Time Management - How to Have Productive Meetings
One of the greatest time wasters of all are unnecessary or poorly run meetings. If you want to dramatically improve your time management skills, then learn how... Read More
Loyalty, Motivation And Work-Life Balance
Managers who aren't loyal to their people can't expect loyalty in return. Companies that complain about employee loyalty have usually done nothing to earn loyalty, often routinely... Read More
What is the Most Difficult Part of an Improvement Program?
Answer: Starting one.Most of us realize that there is probably a better way to perform certain functions or tasks, but improvement programs seem to take second seat... Read More
Motivation - It Starts with Acknowledgement
Acknowledgement is about recognition or attention from another person. It can be physical such as - a pat on the back, a touch or a handshake. It... Read More
Firing Someone Without Resentment
Firing, sacking, letting go or terminating people is unpleasant. There are ways to minimise resentment, but why bother? Because most legal action and unpleasantness stems from dissatisfaction/resentment... Read More
Understand What Flows Through Your Business to Find Improvement
I remember once seeing a cartoon which showed two people working a counter. On the wall behind them was a sign which read, "Quality Work, Low Price,... Read More
The High, High Price of Distrust
A paper manufacturer with over 300 employees once announced that it was planning to move to more spacious and attractive premises thirty miles down the road. When... Read More
Difficult Staff - It Pays To Get To Know Them Better
It's very easy for a business owner or manager to fall into the trap of condemning one of their team as a no-hoper or a problem child.It... Read More
Managing People - No More Mr Tough Guy
I believe the media and our culture sends the wrong messages about how to manage people and this makes it difficult for Business Owners and Managers.We've all... Read More
Competion or Cooperation?
It has been said, there is no better way to hone your skills and improve your performance, than competition. Competing with others, or even with your self,... Read More
Performance Appraisal - Ten Stupid Things Managers Do To Screw It Up
Performance appraisals aren't fun. But a lot of the time they are agonizing because managers do really dumb things, ending up destroying a process that is important... Read More
Five Reasons Why Leaders Fail to Create Successful Change
A bold title, don't you think? I mean, change is a complex thing, so to define five reasons seems to oversimplify the issue.Let me be clear. There... Read More
Christmas Carol Coaching - Help to Get Ahead at Holiday Time!
I've always been fascinated by situations where art imitates real life and right here is a perfect example, which links Christmas and business & personal development.If you... Read More
What One Thing?
A few weeks ago I asked my readers what the most important issue was in their business. Hundreds responded with a variety of answers, but one of... Read More
Rapport - How to Build it with Your Team
I've often heard managers say - "My door is always open, come and talk to me anytime."You have to accept the fact that your team won't always... Read More
Transform Any Business into a Go-Getting Power House by Working SMART
Probably as well known as SWOT, SMART turns goals, objectives and tasks into concrete deliverables. If there is one key to turning busy, ineffectual organisations into models... Read More
Managing Client Relationships
Managing Client Relationships: Even the best run organizations occasionally run into difficult situations with clients, consultants, and vendors. Often times it is not just a business process... Read More
Using Outlook to Count Responses
Here's a productivity tip that will save you a lot of time and trouble if you need to collate responses from staff for any reason, especially if... Read More
The Top 10 Things They Don?t Teach You In Business School
Here are 10 subjects that academia should be teaching their students in business school:1. Generate revenue for your companyWhat academia doesn't teach you is that the real... Read More
Business & Family Safety and Health Rating
For good reason, practically every endeavor in life is rated. I've seen ratings on who or what's #1 in business, industry, NFL, NBA, MLB, person of the... Read More
Morale Boosters: Feed the Troops First
When economic conditions turn tough or when the heavy work load seems never-ending, leaders tend to forget the "basics"?building commitment beyond the paycheck. It's the small things... Read More
The Professor Makes A Minus Power Move
If you think the power move has costs, consider the alternative. We are talking -- four friends -- bringing one another up to date on our personal... Read More
From Boring to Interesting - Making Training Effective
Being a good trainer requires experience and skill. Experience comes from practice and skill from learning the theories, applying them, getting feedback and consciously improving.Some things that... Read More
Juggling Demands in an Organization
JUGGLING DEMANDS: All leaders constantly juggle a multifarious array of demands from those of their organization, employees, and themselves. Good leaders, never drop one demand at the... Read More
Training Adults, Not Teaching Children
Adults are vulnerable to personal and professional embarrassment from poor performance in the training program. Poor performance in the classroom may become the basis for personnel decisions... Read More
Managing Employees Is A Little Like Herding Cats
Q: I started my small business about a year ago and it's grown steadily. I like having my own business, but I'm having a tough time managing... Read More
Big Company Intelligence on a Small Company Budget
Information is the lifeblood of the economy. That's especially true for businesses, because the ability to identify current customers and locate new prospects makes the difference between... Read More
5 Steps to Identify Core Processes
Part Two of Creating Well-Defined Processes SeriesNext Week: ImplementationLast week, we raised the question: how do you know where to begin? How can you identify a gap... Read More
Problem-Solving Success Tip: Look For Sponsors And Solution Owners
Look for sponsors and solution owners rather than problem owners.Everyone participating in the situation owns the problem, like it or not-and nobody likes it. However, if one... Read More
ISO 9001, What Next?
The overriding goal of ISO-14000. (History 1995)As ISO-9000 becomes a way of life for the global business community, ISO-14000 is almost ready to debut with its own... Read More
Business Innovation ? Ignoring Content
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are other useful definitions in this... Read More
Finding Common Ground Through Consensus Decision-Making
It's clear to me that a workplace is a better place when employees truly work in teams, but the most familiar team models we have are those... Read More
How to Say No
Rejection hurts. No one likes to give it or to receive it. We all wish we could live in a world where everyone said "yes." And yet... Read More
Turn Your Speech Into A Leadership Talk
My experience working with thousands of leaders world wide for the past two decades teaches me that most leaders are screwing up their careers.On a daily basis,... Read More
CEO: The Key To Fix ingThe Marketing/Sales Collaboration Problem
We all know that achieving better alignment, synergy and cooperation between company marketing and sales departments is vital, but oh so elusive. Despite all the talk and... Read More
Can Your Corporate Policy Pass the Monkeys, Bananas, and Water-spray Experiment?
Five monkeys were placed in a cage. A banana was hung on a string and a ladder was placed below it. Each time one of the monkeys... Read More
Compensation and Six Sigma Black Belts
One of the more ambiguous elements of a Six Sigma project is the level and type of compensation the organization should give to its Six Sigma leaders... Read More