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Relationship
Repair: How to Rebuild Trust Once It's Broken
True
story: A divorcing client had seen a psychologist for several
months. Her soon-to-be-ex-husband, unbeknownst to the client,
contacted the psychologist. Under the erroneous impression that
his client had given permission, the therapist mistakenly agreed
to see him. Worse yet, the client found out about their meeting
from her estranged spouse. Not only did she feel betrayed, it
brought to the surface all of her fears that her therapist, like
her family, would take her husband's side of the story.
The
psychologist made a mistake. However, when the client related
this story to me, it was in reference to singing her former therapist's
praises because of the way he handled it. When she confronted
her therapist, he looked her in the eye and said, "I was wrong
and I'm sorry. I should have checked with you before even speaking
to your husband. What can I do to make things right?"
In the stress and strain of work, most of us will at some point
say or do something we regret. Perhaps we say the wrong thing.
Maybe we unthinkingly betray a confidence. The good news is that
there are often things we can do to repair the relationship. Maybe
it's not so much what we did as what we didn't do; listen empathically,
give undivided attention or respond quickly. In this article,
we'll take a look at how we can rebuild trust with our coworkers
once we've taken our foot out of our mouth.
When You've Blown It in the Beginning
In the early stages of a relationship, everyone is on probation.
Because we don't know the other person, we have a lot of uncertainty
about the other person's intentions and likely actions. Cooperation
entails risk; if the other person takes advantage of our cooperation,
we can suffer personal and/or organizational losses. But if our
success depends on each other's cooperation, such as on a project
team or a human resource department, somebody must make the first
move.
But
what if the first move is the wrong one? Perhaps we make a comment
that offends a colleague or we cut short a manager who's having
a problem with an employee. Perhaps the other person doesn't think
our playful teasing is so playful. Understandably, you might respond
with something like "I didn't mean anything" or "I'm sorry you
were offended."
Don't
say it. "If I offended you, I apologize" is a fake apology: It's
like stealing someone's wallet, and saying, "I'm sorry if you
felt you were inconvenienced." When you say "If I offended you,
I apologize," you're implying that the other person is to blame-for
being so hypersensitive as to be offended, or so selfish a to
demand an apology. You're making it clear that you're not sorry
for anything YOU did; you just resent the other person's reaction.
It also doesn't help all that much to defend yourself by explaining
your intentions. Talk is cheap when you don't know someone very
well. In fact, research shows that, in new relationships, explaining
your intent might make the other person feel better, but it doesn't
make it likely they're going to trust or cooperate with you again.
What works better is taking responsibility for the behavior and
ask the other person what you need to do to get back on the right
footing. In fact, by admitting a mistake, you are acknowledging
your fallibility and the person may even think more highly of
you than s/he did before you goofed.
Over
the Long Haul
One
of the most common fears we hear in our harassment/prevention
discrimination classes is the concern that a person will unintentionally
harass someone and be sued. I think this is an unfortunate side
effect of the media circus around sexual harassment in the past
ten years. Many managers and employees have the genuine fear that
they will say something completely innocuous and the next think
they know they will be met at the office with notification of
a lawsuit against them.
My
response is always the same. The best defense is a good offense.
If an employee or manager has built a work relationship build
on accountability, trust and respect, the odds that s/he will
cross the line with someone is minimal. And, more importantly,
if s/he does, the other person will believe the other person's
explanation because of the positive history they've shared. In
fact, in long-term relationships, denying a negative intent (I
didn't mean to offend you), or attributing a negative interaction
to some external force (I'm sorry I yelled at you; I've been under
too much work stress lately) is likely to work if the two people
have a history of positive interactions with each other.
Consider
Your Audience
You're
eating lunch and a coworker sits down and begins complaining about
her job, her manager, and the company in general. Then, she tells
you she's going to quit. How should you react? This person is
obviously unhappy, perhaps ready to do something drastic and impulsive.
What do you say?
When
a coworker says, "I'm quitting," it's easy to become the instant
counselor. After all, how many problems do your employees and
managers ask you to "fix" on a daily basis? It's easy to jump
in "quick-fix" advice, advice that is filtered by our personal
views and experiences.
Perhaps
we proceed to tell our coworker what she should or should not
do. Maybe we preface this unsolicited counseling with phrases
like "If I were you," or "When I felt the way you do now..." Our
initial interpretation and early advice are apt to be wrong and
discarded because it's distorted and one-sided. We're
talking about "autobiographical bias." You see, how we try to
evaluate and guide others is based on our own experiences. We
use "selective perception" to put what someone says into our personal
frame of reference. We respond to what's relevant to us, and base
advice on our past experiences and biases.
Or perhaps we probe for details.. We take a radical statement
like "I'm going to quit" at face value and follow it by asking,
"Why?" We're trying to quickly get to the bottom or root cause
of the person's problem because we think we'll be able to solve
their distress if we know more about it. So we interrogate the
individual, true detective style, with specific questions in order
to evaluate the situation and provide advice.
If we want people to listen to our advice and accept our guidance,
we have to slow down, resist the quick response. It takes time
to understand a problem or situation from another person's perspective
instead of our own. This requires active listening. We need to
grasp the other person's biased viewpoint before making interpretations
and suggestions. Premature probing, evaluating, and advising will
probably cut the person off from revealing private thoughts and
emotions.
It's possible, even likely, that initial statements from a troubled
coworker do not reflect the real problem. To say, "I'm quitting,"
is a broad reaction, and might even be an over-reaction to get
your attention. Much more information is needed to understand
what's going on and offer useful and acceptable advice.
So
if a coworker tells you he is quitting, you might repeat, "You're
quitting?" This shows you're attentive and interested, and waiting
for more information. Hearing how drastic the statement sounds,
the person might reply, "Well, at least I feel like quitting."
Then what would you say?
Rephrase:
Instead of mimicking what you hear, you might rephrase the words.
In our example, you might say, "You mean you don't like working
here anymore?" By putting the statement in your own words, you
show genuine interest while also asking for more information.
You're also checking for understanding. If
you can rephrase the statement correctly, you have accurately
received and interpreted what's been said.
It's
possible your coworker miscommunicated or you misperceived something.
Your rephrasing gives the other person a chance to explain. This
is what you want-more disclosure of the problem. Suppose she clarifies,
"Well, it's not that I don't like working here, it's just that
my supervisor gets me so frustrated at times, I feel like quitting."
Now
she has revealed a more specific aspect of the problem. What do
you say next? You could use the repeat strategy and return with,
"Your supervisor gets you frustrated?" Or you could attempt to
rephrase with something like, "You mean your supervisor gets you
so angry that you've lost your motivation at work?" Reflecting
a person's words not only shows you're listening, but it gives
that person a greater chance to hear and explore they're true
feelings. And the longer you keep them talking, the closer the
two of you will understand each other.
Listen
for the Feelings
After
we have a clear grasp of a complex work situation, we can then
move into feeling responses -- helping the parties identify emotions
that haven't been explicitly expressed. For example, an employee
says to you, "I'm so mad at my supervisor. I'm never going to
trust him again." After listening further and getting more information
about the problem, you might make a feeling response, such as,
"It sounds like you are really disappointed that you weren't chosen
to head up that project." An honest admission of vulnerability
can open the door to genuine solutions.
In
fact, communication is 10% information and 90% emotion. People
often say the same things over and over because they don't feel
their emotions have been heard. It's easy for a listener to jump
over feelings and give advice, share facts, or try to minimize
the problem rather than really hear what's being said. However,
nine times out of ten, when an employer or manager seems stuck
on the same issue, the odds are it's the feelings about the situation
that haven't been resolved.
Here
are four surefire responses likely to bust even the strongest
rapport.
Feeling Stoppers
* Cheering: "It could be worse." "Hey, this isn't so bad. You
should have seen what it was like at my last job." The latter
is the work version of the old, "when I was your age, I had to
walk five miles in the snow . . ."
* Reasoning: "You were talking about how much you liked this job
last week. How can you go from liking to quitting?"
*
Judgment: "We're all going through a lot of stress with the merger."
You shouldn't let yourself get this way."
* Denial: "You don't really want to quit."
Avoid
feeling stoppers like the plague. When an employee is upset, it
doesn't matter to him or her if it could be worse, if s/he loved
the job last week, or if you're all in the same boat. What does
matter is how s/he feels and whether or not she feels heard.
Advice - the Grand Finale?
Advice is easy to give, so here's a little bit of mine: Only give
advice if another person asks for it. And, if you can answer "yes"
to the following questions: Do I understand the nature of the
problem? Do I have some specific strategies to help overcome this
problem? Am I willing to assume some responsibility for helping
this person overcome the problem? If the answer is no, perhaps
no serious harm is done. And if it's yes? You have a great opportunity.
For, as Kahil Gibran said, "When we turn to one another for counselor,
we reduce the number of our enemies." ********************************************************************
NEED
A SPEAKER FOR YOUR HR AUDIENCE? CONTACT DR. JOHNSTON TO SPEAK
TO YOUR GROUP!
Dr.
Johnston, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Psychology and
monthly columnist for several HR publications, often speaks to
national human resource audiences on topics such as "The
Psychological Road From Employee to Plaintiff: How to Avoid Wrongful
Termination Lawsuits," "Turning Employment Liability
into Employee Retention," and "Dealing With Psychiatric
Disabilities at Work."
To
contact her for a speaking engagement, e-mail her at jonij@workrelationships.com.
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