Introduction:

Welcome. You're reading a transcript on Links at Bain and Gray, a catalogue of podcasts centred on all things business support in the workplace. Our aim is to bring you interesting and relevant content that will keep you up to date and thriving in your role.

Tray: Welcome to Links Bitesize. I'm your host Tray Durrant. I'm here with my co-host..

Emily: Emily Bain.

Tray: Today, we're going to be talking about personalities and difficulties and challenges in the workplace, personalities and behaviours, principally.

We're going to handle trust. We're going to talk about that for a couple of minutes. First, Emily, there's some good thoughts on this.

Emily: Yeah, I think we're going to kick off with a very popular question I get actually with candidates and with clients:

How to Rebuild Trust with Your Boss:

Emily: Now this is a nightmare.

Tray: Mm, we've had that come up, haven’t we?

Emily: Yeah, this is really tricky. And actually, you know, everyone knows once trust has gone in any relationship, it's a mountain climb to get it back again.

However, I think for the sort of Executive PA, Executive Assistant for their boss, this is a crucial tool to have in your working relationship. If you boil it down, trust may have been lost for two reasons, it could be integrity, or it could be competency. And I think let's focus on the competency cause I think this is, this is more about the skills, isn't it? That you've made a mistake.

Tray: Hmm, yep.

What To Do If You Make a Mistake Which Leads to a Loss of Trust

Emily: I would say the most important thing to do at this point from the off is to be completely honest and transparent. Put your hand up, and say I've made an error and approach the whole situation head on. You've got to be big and brave.

And I know candidates who this has happened to before and have really successfully managed to move on from it. It's human error. You know, everyone makes mistakes, just look around at our current world. People make mistakes! That happens.

I think what’s important is how you deal with it, so I would say, initially, listen and acknowledge. It's going to be a long slog to prove that you're not gonna make this error again, so don’t expect a quick fix.

Let's take an example. If it was a diary management or travel planning error or something, I think you sit down with your executive and you say; “OK. How are we going to avoid this happening again?” You need to show them that you're putting the time in with them collaboratively, and really trying to avoid this again. That’s a big first step.

From there, unfortunately it's just a slog and you've got to make sure there are no errors pending. Honesty, transparency, accountability, reassurance, and communication are the key things.

Tray: Yeah, I think I’d talk more about trust generally. I mean I think there’s definitely trust involved, and building it back up, when something has gone wrong, isn’t there? But then I think just generally we see a lack of trust not because anything's gone wrong, necessarily, but just lack of trust in general. And that works two ways, you know, manager down and sort of employee up as it were.

Also, I think the communication that you mentioned there is crucial to building trust and understanding. And I think if you're in your role and you find that your executive isn't perhaps trusting your work, and they're checking or micromanaging and sort of giving instructions, but then following up quite immediately, there's a problem. That presents itself as a problem, you know, and so communication is a key part of doing that.

And I think if you find yourself in that sort of lack of trust environment where, you know, there is that micromanagement element, or that workload being given to you, but then followed up quickly or at every stage of it, kill it with communication. Actually I think over-communicating, dropping emails to say you've done XY and Z, continually updating, should just push a drip, drip feed back to your executive to say:

“I'm doing this, I'm doing that” and they don't then have the cause to come and say “where are you at with that project”, or whatever it might be.

And so I think that helps in terms of building up trust, because there will come a point - just due to basic psychology - where the executive will step away and think “they're on it”. Every time they ask, you’re telling them where you’re at so that that builds up trust. You’re delivering your work and you're getting somewhere.

Emily: I don't think you can rush this process either. I really don't. It's not a sort of, it's not something that can happen overnight. I think it's just like you said, repetitive, almost convincing with examples and it will take a while, but I think once you've then got back up there and people want to forgive that sort of basic human nature, we want to forgive. And I think once you've built up that trust, then you can sort of pull back a bit. But you can pull back from this.

Tray: Yeah, and I think you know, whether it's an error or if it is just building up trust in a new relationship at work. It comes through everything, trust. You know, we said we were talking here as well about working with difficult colleagues or when you've made a mistake or how you continue working for a difficult boss. All of that comes down to trust and building up that trustful relationship.

Emily: Well, actually let's talk about that then, Tray. So we talked about how to resurrect lost trust with your boss, but what about managing and working better with colleagues?

How to Work With a Difficult Colleague

Tray: It's an interesting one, this, isn't it? Because this could come in so many different forms, you know, working with a difficult colleague can be anything from, you know, the coworker that's always late or that never gets their work done, that delays a team meeting or whatever it might be. And of course, if it's very tangible like that, it can be addressable with hope and addressed and dealt with and put to bed relatively quickly and easily.

But let's assume it's a bit more…

Emily: Personal?

Tray: Well, personal is one way of putting it. I was going to say a bit more, sort of, removed. When it’s not so easy to identify specific tasks cause that's when it becomes difficult, you know, with the sort of dare I say, but passive aggressive coworker. That is, if you actually read a script of everything said, they’ve done nothing wrong, it’s more the way things are delivered, and the how, and that's a bit trickier to address.

But I think if you do feel you're in a situation with a coworker that is difficult to manage, I I think the first course of action ought to be to try and deal with it yourself. You know, see if you can. If you feel it's appropriate, to just sort of ask someone to step aside for five minutes and say, “I'm feeling a disconnect. Am I interpreting you in the right way? I think that this is the situation”. And I think that's kind of a good way to start, don’t you agree?

Emily: I agree, I think sometimes, - gosh, it's almost like being a mother, isn't it? Just thinking of my children - but I think sometimes actually getting somebody involved right at the off is wrong. I think, like you said, try and sort it out on your own first. Just leave the office and go for coffee, or go for a walk. Something that simple. Get out of that work environment.

Try not to get alcohol involved, of course! I don't think that always works, but I think if things don’t improve then I think you need to talk to your line manager.

Tray: Mm-hmm.

Emily: But you know, it happens. We don't get on with everybody, not everyone's chemistry is the same, but I think most professional individuals, if there is a disconnect or there is a sort of clash of sorts, they tend to be able to move on and find their way around one another.

Tray: Mm. And I think, at the end of the day, in a professional environment one would hope that everyone's got a level of respect. If people are doing their jobs well, there's a level of respect, one would hope for your colleagues, and therefore, if that's all that relationship is with one coworker, that's fine. You don't need to make friends at work with everyone.

Emily: Mm. Yeah, yeah.

Tray: It's just getting to that level of respect and understanding of one another and where each person's coming from.

Emily: Yeah. I I also think management and just the general culture of the business will feed this. You know if you've got good management sort of trickling down and a good culture and good vibe, everyone's on the same sort of journey and everyone's going for the same goal, so that sort of then supersedes anything that goes on internally. Does that make sense? So, you think; ‘well, we just gotta work side by side. We're just gonna have to get on with this.’

It is a difficult one though and it does come up.

Tray: Because there's a myriad of situations that it could be…

Emily: Totally.

Tray: …that's that's the challenge, you know, trying to bucket all of this into one way. There’s no one-size fits all when it comes to how to deal with a difficult colleague. Actually, in so many walks of life, just talking to someone else and getting another opinion on it, is quite a good place to start. You know, asking a friend or, or someone else. You know how to perhaps present whatever the challenge might be and the specific context behind it. This is a good starting point and then working through some of those things we've been discussing.

Emily: Great. Thanks Tray.

Tray: Thanks, Emily.

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