GovernmentExecutive.com

One strength of many federal workplaces is the camaraderie -- and even sense of family -- among co-workers. When feds retire, they invariably say that what they'll miss most is the people.

What makes personal ties so strong among federal workers? One factor has to be the public service mission they share. Another is probably their staying power. During those long careers, many feds spend almost as much time with each other as they do with their families.

Those two factors create a deep sense of trust in many federal offices. And trust, as organizational psychologists and relationship advisers would agree, is the backbone of any relationship, personal or professional. Strong organizations and managers "know it's the people that really count," says Michelle Reina, who -- with her husband and partner, Dennis, of Chagnon & Reina Associates in Stowe, Vt. -- advises federal agencies and other organizations on building trust. "It's the people and the relationships that get the work done. Business is conducted through relationships."

That's a fairly obvious point to most managers, but it's one worth remembering. A common complaint among employees in many organizations, including government agencies, is they don't know what's going on. They lack information.

In the absence of information, they do what anyone would do: They guess. In offices where trust is weak, it's natural for people deprived of information to assume the worst, so they develop distrust of their managers and spread false rumors. They become less productive, or less interested in their jobs. They check out.

Keeping employees in the know is just one daily relationship responsibility for managers. The Reinas advise managers to be mindful of how each of their actions affects their relationships with employees. Do managers do what they say they're going to do? Do they deal with poor performers? Do they reward and recognize good performance? It is the small, day-to-day things that build trust - or lead to a sense of betrayal among employees.

In offices with trust problems, it's usually the mundane issues that weaken employee-manager relationships. "What's eroding trust are not the big, big things; it's the little things that happen every day," Michelle Reina says. "They accumulate."

For example, a manager who doesn't deal with one poor performer might discover employees developing a skewed image of reality. "A trust issue can distort our perceptions," Reina says. "There can be one nonperforming employee in our unit and the dynamic surrounding that can be so dysfunctional that we no longer see one nonperforming employee. We see all kinds of people not performing, and they're all getting away with quote-unquote murder. It becomes distorted."

Good managers are mindful of a simple fact: They are in relationships with their employees. And relationships require tending. Managers who fulfill their relationship responsibilities will have more informed, and more productive, employees.

Those who aren't mindful could find themselves stuck in a negative feedback loop, in which a manager's action or inaction leaves employees feeling betrayed, so they don't perform well. Or they might even undermine their bosses, making the manager feel betrayed, so he withholds information from the employees, who then begin to assume the manager is working against them.

"There are two very important truths around trust," Michelle Reina says. "Trust begets trust and betrayals beget betrayals."

COMMENTS

• I think this is an excellent article and it speaks volumes to what is needed to bridge the ever expanding gap between management and its workforce. Strong and good working relationships with your staffs will produce great results. To keep your staff informed is such an easy task but is so often overlooked. The old adage hold still holds true with today's workforce "A happy worker is a productive worker." It's a shame that most managers so often overlook practicing this simple technique on a daily basis with their staffs. Again great article -- I e-mailed and printed for distribution to my staff. Mendel D. Gayle Posted March 14, 2006 9:15 AM
• In my 30-plus years of civilian service I can count on two hands the number of civil managers the I have encountered. Some of the more oblivious or memorable would come from outside the organization and be gung-ho, ready to do right, with no idea not only of what was right but of what the office mission was -- with no interest in learning -- only changing and making a name for them selves before moving on to bigger and better fields. Managers would have many long and closed-door or off-site meetings with no feedback to the grunts doing the work. Rumors ran proliferate in the absence of facts and, since facts didn't matter to management, why should the grunts worry about them? One time when the employees did elicit a series of meetings with management it began with: "Well you all wanted this so what is it you want?" When it was pointed out the meeting was a follow up to a management commitment to research and resolve a conflict the response was "we forgot and will have to get back to you." In other words, what we say or do to you is not important enough for us to remember. The interesting thing is work gets done despite or in spite of what management thinks or does. GovExec.com reader Posted February 24, 2006 12:19 PM
• Finally someone writes about trust in the federal workplace. I'm a mid-career senior HR person who has seen trust evaporate over the past five years. Major HR reforms are being proposed and the trust tanks in this administration are empty. I've seen senior career federal employees so fed up that they have shorted their federal career with buyouts and early outs and immediately taken jobs in the private sector. I've seen whole units just give up when political leadership stops communicating with career employees. And it’s getting worse, not better. It takes months, sometimes years to build trust and a gung-ho, highly motivated workforce. It can be wrecked in a matter of days. But this results driven administration is totally blind to the soft approach of trust building and relationships -- all that matters to our current "human capital" management agenda is short term results. So in the long term you get what you pay for -- except in this case, you get what you failed to pay for. HR Specialist GovExec.com reader Posted February 22, 2006 8:07 AM