Building Team Trust

I was asked to connect this particular client with one of my partners that delivers team building programs.  We explored the events that were happening and not happening that caused this manager to think there was a need for training.  The companies service levels had started to drop and they were getting more and more customer complaints.  After he investigated he found out that the root cause of the problem was lack of trust and no one was accepting responsibility for the errors and they were finger pointing. During our assessment we discussed the fact that the inside sales people (who also serviced the customer accounts) and the outside sales people didn’t trust each other and when a mistake was made they would point fingers at each other.

The manager was clear this had to stop and wanted me to connect him with one of my partners experienced in this area.  I spoke with the alliance partner that I knew had worked in very similar environments and had achieved great results.  We recommended an outward bound type of training where they would interact with each other in ways were they would build trust.  They would also create some new guidelines on how they would work together going forward.

When the client first read the proposal he was a little reluctant and wasn’t sure that climbing walls and jumping off pamper poles was going to be the solution.  He said he trusted that we knew what was best and they booked a weekend offsite.  The weekend was challenging and very rewarding for all who participated.

I received a voice mail on the Monday following the training from the manager expressing how pleased he was at how the weekend unfolded.  He said he was thrilled and was going to make this an annual event.