Building
Trust
Dwight thinks that new managers
must know how to create and maintain trust with their employees. He views
communication as a major component of establishing trusting relationships.
Dwight has set up two real situations that he wants his new hires to evaluate
and comment upon in a short three-minute video presentation to the group.
Skill #2: Build trust in
INDIVIDUAL relationships both locally and at a distance.
In the recent meeting with the
new managers, Dwight at Easy
Chairs wanted
to emphasize the importance of communication in leading.
Dwight reported a recent
occurrence that happened in the production department just the other day. Sally
Hill was sitting alone at the lunch table when Dwight passed by. Saying hello
and getting an unusually quiet reply Dwight stopped to ask if things were
alright. Sally said things were fine, but she did not look fine. He wondered if
something was wrong. Sally, who runs the conveyor belts on the production line,
has been on the job since EC began, and she is very good at her job.
Dwight was right. Things were
not good for her on the production line. She was sitting at the lunch counter
rather than going back to the floor and her job. It seems that Sally’s new
floor supervisor, Jessie, has decided to implement a production efficiency
study so that he could measure her efficiency of motion. At first, Sally took Jessie
at his word that the study was to see if she could improve her time and
therefore get more work completed faster. It wasn’t until she overheard him
telling someone else that he was thinking of getting a robot to do her job that
she lost faith in him and the company. Shouldn’t they be telling her about this
possible change? Is it fair to just announce the change one day and her be out
of a job the next? Jessie just lied to her. Not sure of what she heard, Sally
consulted some of the other production workers who do different jobs. The said
there had been rumors but they knew Dwight and Ike would never do something
that drastic without consulting with them. Sally just wasn’t sure. Worse
yet, Jessie made her write down all the data for the study and questioned her
if she left numbers blank. She lost track often and her work began to suffer.
Jessie began to come down hard on her and finally put her on probation. When
this happened, she finally confided in others only to find that several felt
Jessie did not trust them. Jessie seemed to question what they were doing. Only
a week after Dwight began to investigate Sally’s unhappiness things came to a
head in the department. Jessie had a team meeting to get at the reasons why
production rates had dropped. He talked for 30 minutes. He asked for people’s
opinions and no one would reply. One person asked permission to speak but asked
only if the study would take much longer. Finally, Jessie dismissed the team.
Jessie did not understand; when he first arrived everyone was happy and
helpful. Hadn’t he always been straight with them? Why was everyone so
unhappy now? Jessie finally saw that he had a problem, but he wasn’t quite sure
what it was.
Dwight approached Jessie a few
days after the meeting and asked him if the rumors he heard about using robots
to replace some of the production workers were true; Jessie finally knew what
was wrong. Do you?
Skill #3: Build trust in TEAM
relationships both locally and at a distance.
In week one Dwight and Ike
explained that EC expanded into the Asian Market. They are concerned that
things could be going better for the distributors if they had better teamwork
with the groups in Japan and Korea. The current EC teams report that the Asian
teams seem quiet when they meet and are not as quick to respond to the new
plans. Personal “chit-chat” is at a minimum and seems to be
one-sided. The EC teams are getting stressed out because they are always taking
calls either late at night or early in the morning to catch the Japanese/South
Korean working hours. Overall, they just feel that they are being
tested and are coming up wanting. Creating trust in a virtual team,
especially those with members from abroad, is particularly hard. How can you
help the EC team be successful? Show Dwight how you would set up a new
international team and how you might help the existing teams now.
Create a three-minute video transcript, to present your
conclusions on resolving the issues of trust in the two scenarios.
Scenario one should seek to comment on the following points:
Identify and explain the trust issues that Jessie has with his direct report.
How did he create this problem? What can he do to correct the issue?
Scenario two should explain to Dwight how to set up a
successful team, establish trust in a culturally diverse environment. It should
also include ways now to bolster the trust in the existing teams. Explain the
influence of cultural IQ in virtual meetings and how and why it can cloud
success. In the discussion of the Asian teams, research the cultural
differences in creating trust relationships between Americans and the Japanese
and South Koreans. Explain specifically how this relates to the experience of
the EC team members. Identifying and describing the steps that should be taken
by team members to make the virtual experience work. This template should be
something that all teams can follow in the future. Be sure to include a step
for cultural diversity if these virtual meetings are cross-cultural. Explain
why and how these steps will create trust in the relationship.
Both scenarios should include a detailed discussion of the
communications issues present and how best to address them for better
relationships in the future.
You must use course material to support your responses and
APA in-text citations with a reference list. 3 sources are required minimum.