Often, when we are called into a workplace to facilitate a difficult discussion, support conflict resolution or mediate, what has been lost in the room is trust.
What we often hear are valid reasons for the perspectives held by both parties around the moment, the intention, the email, the decision or the conversation that created the first crack, and then how that crack has spread over time. Or sometimes there is one moment that feels like a sledgehammer hitting the house of trust that has taken so many micro moments, interactions and actions to build in the first place.
This is why rebuilding trust rarely looks like a clear black and white solution. There is usually plenty of grey.
Sometimes we need to place it back together, brick by brick. Other times, perhaps it only needs a little abrasive sandpaper to smooth out what has become rough, followed by a solid patch and some work to reinforce what is already there.
The key is being honest in assessing the damage in the first place.
That can be harder than it sounds.
It requires people to be open to hearing what someone else thinks the biggest issue is, rather than deciding what the issue is before the conversation has really started. Sometimes we think we are patching the hole in the wall, but the real issue is the frame that sits behind it.
And we need to remember that for some people, the root cause of the damage is much harder to articulate. They may know that something has changed, that the relationship no longer feels the same, or that they no longer feel heard or understood, but being able to identify exactly what has caused that shift — let alone what needs to happen to repair it — can be difficult.
That is where the quality of the conversation really matters.
It is not necessarily about finding the person who is right, or the person who is wrong. It is about creating enough space for people to explain what they experienced, what they believed was happening, what they intended, and what they need now to be able to move forward.
Sometimes, when we genuinely listen to that, we find that the thing we thought needed fixing is not actually the thing that needs the most attention.
So, what is the message for leaders, business owners and employees?
Understand what you are building, and make sure you keep it in focus. You don’t ‘build’ a business- you build people and then the people build the business. This mean that you need collective trust for effective high performing teams and a strong business culture.
There is not much point in having a beautiful building from the outside if the foundations underneath it are not solid.
Trust is something we build every day, whether we are consciously thinking about it or not. The way we speak to people, the way we respond when someone raises an issue, whether we follow through on what we say we will do, whether we explain decisions, whether we make assumptions about someone’s intent and whether we are prepared to acknowledge when we have missed something — all of those moments contribute to the building.
And sometimes we will miss.
We will say something that lands differently than we intended. We will make a decision that someone else does not understand. We will have a conversation that we wish we had handled differently.
That is not necessarily the problem.
The problem can be what happens when we do not address the miss, or we don’t even realise that a miss occurred.
When we allow it to sit there, when we are not attuned to each other, when we avoid the conversation, when we make assumptions, or when we become more concerned with being right than understanding what has happened, that small crack can become something much bigger.
And in these moments, we need to acknowledge that these instances take more out of us that just productivity. They take energy. They can leave us feeling like nothing changes, or nothing we do is right. Like the same things keep occurring, over and over, and we can’t seem to break that pattern. That is where the impact of a broken or weakened relationship can become much bigger than the original moments.
Being honest when there is a miss, addressing it early and creating the kind of environment that supports honest and real reflection is part of building trust.
It is also part of building the foundation of a team that can navigate the difficult moments.
And that reflection cannot just come from the leadership team.
It cannot just be something we expect from employees.
It needs to be something that is part of how everyone in the business operates.
Because a high-functioning team is not one where nothing goes wrong. It is a team where people have enough trust in each other to talk about what has gone wrong, to state the struggle, own the struggle and share the struggle, and then work together to resolve it.
That is the real value of proactive HR.
It is not waiting until the relationship has broken down and then asking how we fix it.
It is building the foundations, creating the conversations and developing the capability within a team so that when the difficult moments inevitably come, there is something strong enough underneath the relationship to work from.
Because trust takes time to build, but it can be damaged in a moment.
The opportunity for leaders, business owners and employees is to understand that — and to keep building anyway.
