Management and Leadership

Building Trust and Connection

• Traditional Classroom: 1/2-day
• Virtual Instructor-led: One 3-hour session or Two 90-minute sessions

Being a valued team member involves more than just growing your skills and knowledge. Building strong relationships is also a key part of team success. In this session we’ll explore how to earn — and extend — “smart” trust to contribute to a team culture of psychological safety. You’ll also learn how increasing your emotional intelligence will enhance your credibility as well as your team’s performance. The goal of this session is to enhance your ability to build empathy and leverage it to grow and sustain strong relationships at work.

Target Audience

Individuals who will benefit from this course include new and experienced managers, supervisors, team leaders, and individuals who want to strengthen their relationships and build trust and connection with others.

Learning Objectives

• Describe an environment of psychological safety at work.
• Make a personal connection between psychological safety, morale, and performance.
• Identify the components of “the trust equation” and the interaction between them.
• Articulate a business case for building trust.
• Explain concrete ways in which leaders can demonstrate empathy.

Course Outline

Opening Activities

• Welcome and Introductions
• Activity: The Key to Building Strong Relationships that Last
• What Are You Leaving in Your Wake?

The Importance of Psychological Safety

• Google’s Project Aristotle

Building Trust with Stakeholders

• Video: “The Speed of Trust”
• Building Trust with Stakeholders

Balancing the Trust Equation

• The Trust Equation
• Activity: Applying the Trust Equation to Stakeholder Groups
• Trust and Organizational Performance

Empathy as a Foundation Skill

• Workplace Empathy
• Video: Dr. Brené Brown: “Empathy”

The Three A’s Framework: Acknowledge, Align, Assure

• Acknowledge
• Align
• Assure
• Activity: How Can You Use the Three A’s?

Course Summary and Next Steps

• Activity: Force-Field Analysis – Building Trust and Connection

MDV2011e Course Code