Sometimes our work environment could turn toxic with too much fear and too little trust. Poor performance, lack of motivation, corporate politics, and burnout are all symptoms of lack of trust and a broken work culture.
Let’s see how to address this issue and build trust with team members with these simple tips below:
1. Encourage peer to peer communication and feedback – Allow team members to interact with each other and brainstorm ideas, make suggestions/recommendations, critique a decision but facilitate it to ensure that the employees keep it professional. May be have a monthly/bi-monthly open house where team members can exchange ideas/feedback on projects or programs and also make any open requests to the management. Make every team member feel important with this exercise
2. Encourage One on One meetings – For any issue resolution specific to an individual’s career/growth plan it is always better that you keep it one on one so that every employee is comfortable and is inculcated a sense of belonging. Most often just walk up to them and just ask “How’s it going?” and “How was your day” and also encourage your Senior Management to just walk across the bay and interact with your team members to build that trust. One to One meetings could feel crucial to understand the personality and underlying motivations of your team members that can help you make adjustments to boost the team’s performance
3. Encourage Team Building activities – Take your team out for a trip to some nearby resort or adventure park and have them participate in team building activities where the team can gel together and feel a sense of camaraderie while performing those team based activities. Split them into teams where they get to interact with new members. This helps to build trust with each other and would definitely lift the spirits when it comes working as a team and learning from each other’s strengths
4. Admit Mistakes – To err is human. So another way of building trust in the company culture is to admit when the company makes mistakes or you as a manager make a mistake.
The more that the management uphold their promises and commitments, the more trust your team members will have in you!
There is no higher priority for any leadership team or individual leader than to build trust on his or her team. So start right now!
