How to help your team build trust

Summary

Episode Summary: "How to Help Your Team Build Trust"

Podcast: Fixable
Hosts: Anne Morriss and Frances Frei
Guest: Kelly, Township Manager in the Midwest
Release Date: March 17, 2025

Introduction

In this episode of Fixable, hosts Anne Morriss and Frances Frei delve into the pivotal topic of building trust within a team. They welcome Kelly, a township manager from the Midwest, who seeks guidance on enhancing trust and engagement among her staff. Kelly's role involves overseeing public infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and parks, making her position both critical and challenging.

Understanding the Challenges

Kelly begins by highlighting the foundational principles she values: authenticity, logic, and empathy. These are essential for fostering public trust in government operations. However, she faces two primary challenges:

1. Instilling Trust-Building Values:
   “I believe it's essential to instill these values in my staff as they engage with the public just as much as I do” (02:29). Kelly finds it difficult to teach and develop these abstract principles compared to traditional technical skills.

2. Balancing Trust with Efficiency:
   “Trust building actions like engagement and responsiveness sometimes conflict with governmental priorities like efficiency and cost control” (02:29). She grapples with convincing others that investing time and resources in trust-building is worthwhile.

Diagnosing the Trust Wobble

Frances Frei and Anne Morriss introduce the concept of trust anchors and trust wobbles. In Kelly's case, her team exhibits an empathy wobble, indicating a struggle in consistently demonstrating empathy during public interactions.

Frances elaborates, “Empathy can be taught…and logic anchors can be leveraged to support it” (11:28). This framework helps in identifying individual and team strengths and areas needing improvement.

Practical Recommendations

1. Introduce the Trust Framework to the Team

Frances suggests that Kelly share the framework of trust anchors and wobbles with her team:

“This has really helped me to understand me and I want to share that gift with you to the extent that it's helpful for you individually and I'd like to see if it's helpful for us collectively.” (13:43)

By allowing team members to self-diagnose their trust anchors and wobbles, they can identify personal strengths and areas for growth without feeling singled out.

2. Create a Safe Forum for Open Discussions

Anne and Frances recommend establishing a weekly meeting where team members can bring up real-life interactions with the public:

“Let's workshop different ways to handle this situation in the future.” (23:21)

This encourages continuous learning and collective problem-solving, fostering a supportive environment where mistakes are seen as learning opportunities rather than failures.

3. Celebrate Successes and Failures

Incorporating elements like celebrating both wins and failures can normalize the learning process:

“There is something really powerful about just bringing them into the light and that shame often just evaporates.” (33:01)

Implementing practices such as a "fail wall," where team members publicly acknowledge their mistakes, can reduce the stigma around failure and promote transparency.

4. Leverage Storytelling and Empathy Training

While Kelly acknowledges her strong logical approach, Frances emphasizes the importance of storytelling in conveying empathy:

“Empathy can be taught. And I'm, you know, as somebody who really cares about government, I'm glad you have logic anchors, because that's what keeps all of those bridges that aren't falling down not falling down.” (11:28)

Training sessions focused on empathetic communication can help bridge the gap between logic and emotional connection, enhancing overall team trust.

Conclusion

By the episode's end, Kelly feels energized and optimistic about implementing these strategies. The hosts reinforce the importance of collective wisdom and regular practice in building a trustworthy and engaged team. They encourage listeners facing similar challenges to reach out and share their workplace problems for actionable insights.

Frances summarizes the key takeaway:

“The challenges of individuals can be solved by the collective wisdom of the team. You just need to create a forum for it.” (32:28)

Overall, this episode provides a comprehensive guide for leaders aiming to cultivate trust within their teams, emphasizing the balance between empathy and efficiency.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Kelly on valuing trust-building principles:
  “I deeply value the trust building principles of authenticity, logic and empathy and see them as vital to building the public's trust in government.” (02:29)

• Frances on empathy being teachable:
  “Empathy can be taught.” (11:28)

• Kelly on the impact of empathetic interactions:
  “The act of listening to them, empathizing with where they're coming from and explaining the no… I understand. I really appreciate you listening to me.” (19:10)

• Frances on the power of collective wisdom:
  “The challenges of individuals can be solved by the collective wisdom of the team. You just need to create a forum for it.” (32:28)

Timestamp Reference

• [02:29] - Kelly introduces her challenges in building trust.
• [11:28] - Frances discusses empathy as a teachable skill.
• [13:43] - Frances recommends sharing the trust framework with the team.
• [19:10] - Kelly shares experiences of empathetic interactions.
• [23:21] - Frances suggests creating a weekly meeting for open discussions.
• [32:28] - Frances highlights the importance of collective wisdom in solving challenges.
• [33:01] - Anne and Frances talk about celebrating failures to reduce shame.

---

For more insights and actionable workplace solutions, tune into Fixable by the TED Audio Collective and Pushkin Industries.

Transcript

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[Anne Morris]

Hello everyone. Welcome to Fixable from the TED Audio Collective. I'm your host, Anne Morris. I'm a company builder and leadership coach.

[Frances Fry]

And I'm your co host Frances Fry. I'm a Harvard Business School professor and I'm Ann's wife.

[Anne Morris]

On this show, we believe meaningful change happens fast and we like to walk the talk by solving workplace problems quickly together with our callers.

[Frances Fry]

Which problem are we tackling today? Love?

[Anne Morris]

Well Frances, it's Infrastructure Week here at Fixable. Our caller, who we're going to call Kelly, is a township manager in the Midwest. She makes sure that things like roads, bridges and parks are in good shape and fixes them when they're broken.

[Frances Fry]

Oh, that is. That's like a fixer of things you can drop on your foot. I love that.

[Anne Morris]

A total fixer. She is asking for help with how to increase trust and engagement among her staff, so I'll let her explain.

[Kelly]

Hi Ann and Francis. I deeply value the trust building principles of authenticity, logic and empathy and see them as vital to building the public's trust in government. However, I face two challenges. First, I believe it's essential to instill these values in my staff as they engage with the public just as much as I do and play a critical role in building public trust. Unlike traditional skills, I find that these principles are challenging to teach and develop in others. Second, I feel as though trust building actions like engagement and responsiveness sometimes conflict with governmental priorities like efficiency and cost control. While I see trust building as a worthwhile investment, others might think otherwise. So I'm wondering if you have advice on how to instill trust building values in a team and how to balance these efforts with the need for efficiency.

[Anne Morris]

Wow, I hear that fixer in her voice. This is gonna be fun.

[Frances Fry]

It's totally gonna be fun. The two things. One is how do you develop these ideas in others? Like how do you develop the skills on authenticity, logic and empathy? It's gonna be so fun. And the other one, it's a classic trade off between I wanna invest more to have the experience be better and. And I need to do it in a cost effective way. And so we're going to explore whether or not there are any win wins there.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, I love that. I also think it's interesting that she's really thinking about trust at this higher level, not just interpersonally with her team members or between team members, but at the level of the team itself and the relationship of team with their constituents. How do you scale this trust solution to more complicated systems?

[Frances Fry]

Love it.

[Anne Morris]

Frances, let's bring her in. Kelly, welcome to Fixable.

[Kelly]

Thank you.

[Anne Morris]

So give us a sense of a day in the life of Kelly.

[Kelly]

Oh, gosh. So the work that we do ranges from overseeing development, overseeing building and construction and parks and trails and preservation, maintaining roads and bridges and all those things that go into just running a community to the same stuff that you guys talk about on a regular basis, just organizationally, HR and IT and finance and budget and all that stuff. Problems that I wake up to can be everything from a bridge that got hit and is going to be out for a year while we rebuild it, to a snowstorm that's coming through, to somebody that knocks on my door with a concern or a complaint, just like any other organization.

[Frances Fry]

So you're the person we call. That's what I'm hearing. You're the person we call right about.

[Kelly]

So many strange things. Yes.

[Anne Morris]

What drew you to this work?

[Kelly]

I needed a job just like a lot of other people do when they graduate initially. And I had an opportunity to work in local government and here I am 25 years later. I think what's kept me, you know, you're really connected to the people you work for, you know, the community. There's something really rewarding about that.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, it sounds like you have a sense of on the good Days, what you love about it on the bad days.

[Kelly]

What's frustrating my challenging days are the ones where I'm dealing with more of the internal organizational stuff. Just the challenge of getting people to row together in one direction.

[Anne Morris]

What inspired you to come on the show today?

[Kelly]

Well, really, it was one of the recent conversations where you stepped foot into the public sector, I think, in talking about the Democratic Party. And I've spent just a decent amount of my own time on the topic of public trust and government. So working with people to impart the, quote, skills of building trust, I find challenging. Those are soft, they're touchy feely. It's not show up on time or get this report in on time.

[Anne Morris]

Can you give us an example of when you think that the team as a whole didn't build as much trust as might have been possible?

[Kelly]

Sure. So there are numerous opportunities where an individual on the team has an opportunity to interface with somebody on the public. It can be just a phone conversation. It can be going out and inspecting something. It can be dealing with a complaint, and probably too often than any of us might want. That interaction has some issue, some problem, some complaint associated with it. How that person receives that information and listens and processes whatever that person is saying and responds to that person. Just that interaction is so valuable and it's something you don't necessarily get back. And just being able to be humble, be open, listen and just empathize with whoever you're dealing with and then try to work together to solve the problem. That skill, if we want to call it that, is sometimes chafes against the natural human ego of wanting to be right, of wanting to have authority, of wanting to know what you're doing. And that's what I find challenging as somebody to teach and impart.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, beautiful. That's really clear. So in our model, which it sounds like you have played with before this call, would you say it's safe to say that the trust wobble that you would diagnose for your team is an empathy wobble?

[Kelly]

Yeah. No, I think that's a true statement. It is difficult to disconnect your own issue that you're dealing with. So people take personal offense when it's really not about them personally.

[Anne Morris]

And then in our model, we also like to highlight what we call a trust anchor, which is on this dropdown menu of logic, empathy and authenticity. There's often usually a strength for an individual or a team or even an organization. There's also a strength to counteract that wobble. What do you think is the team's.

[Kelly]

Strength right now, probably logic. The nature of the work is generally one where you're pointing back to some standard regulation policy.

[Anne Morris]

I'm curious, as you've tried to coach your team through this challenge, what kinds of things have you tried and what's worked and what hasn't worked?

[Kelly]

I don't know that anything. I feel like anything has really worked miraculously. I think it depends on the. The person I'm working with and just their own natural abilities. And I try to talk through how somebody's reacting to something, the effect that it has, the reasons to try to manage our reactions differently, what we have to gain from that. I will tell you because I know this is something you talk about frequently, the art of storytelling, that is not my art. So I think that's something that I wish I did better and maybe something that could help in this regard. But I approach this with logic, probably, which isn't necessarily always helpful.

[Anne Morris]

If we are wildly successful in being helpful to you today, what is different for you on the other side of this conversation?

[Kelly]

If I could have a dialogue, a conversation with either individuals or the group that I work with and have them go, ah, aha. I get it. I understand why this method of service delivery makes a difference. And for me personally, I see the benefit of. Of this type of service delivery both immediately to obviously the organization that I work for and the government I serve. I want to be able to instill that aha moment of why this matters.

[Anne Morris]

Beautiful. That's a beautiful bar for us to shoot for. Francis, let's get you in here with any questions, and then let me invite you to just summarize where we are as well.

[Frances Fry]

Great. First, I feel like you are employing my extended family. Let me just go ahead and say that there is a Cheryl Wheeler song that is called Frequently Wrong but Never in Doubt. But the way that you. You're invested in your own authority, it's particularly problematic when you know you're right and then our ego gets activated. So I just want to say I felt this situation for decades, so I think I'm going to be helpful. So our authenticity is a logic anchor and empathy wobble authentically. And so what we're going to do is give you some tool in order to create the aha moment to appeal to the logic brain that cultivating empathy is worth it. Now, here's the really good news. Empathy can be taught. And I'm, you know, as somebody who really cares about government, I'm glad you have logic anchors, because that's what keeps all of those bridges that aren't falling down not falling down. And that's what keeps everything working well. So that we're going to layer on top of this empathy if a really high quality problem to have.

[Anne Morris]

I'll just also offer that I live with this profile and so I may have some insight to share as well.

[Kelly]

Excellent.

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[Anne Morris]

All right, Frances, kick us off.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah, I'd love to. First, let me just ask you this. You clearly are very fluent with authenticity, logic and empathy. As a trust triangle, have you ever shared this framework with your team?

[Kelly]

I haven't, actually. You know, I think I've thought about it. I'm somewhat self conscious that again, back to the logic anchor. My instinct is to say, here, read this, this'll fix you. And I don't want people to react negatively to that. But no, I haven't. And that may be a good place to start.

[Frances Fry]

Okay, so I'll tell you why that's My first recommendation is because you're very comfortable with your diagnosis of you and Anne is comfortable with her diagnosis of her and I'm comfortable with my diagnosis of me because they were self diagnoses. And the power of this model is the self diagnosis. It does not work very well as an other diagnosis. And I think that's why you're hesitant. So telling someone else they're an empathy wobbler, it's not gonna go well. But allowing someone else to identify their strength and where they struggle, that's already sanded you so that you can come in and paint for solutions. So I encourage you to teach them about it and let them do a self diagnosis. And your preamble in the beginning can be, this has really helped me to understand me and I want to share that gift with you to the extent that it's helpful for you individually and I'd like to see if it's helpful for us collectively. So, okay, so that is, I think that's the first one is to introduce the language of anchors and wobbles. And the meta reason for that is that wobbles are not fatal flaws. They are just the tendencies that tend to get in the way. And we all have a wobble. And so you get to celebrate people's strengths and then say, now where do we want to bring in some learned behaviors? Now doing this at the team level, like when everyone is doing it with one another, what will certainly happen is on your team you're gonna have some empathy wobblers, but on your team you're gonna have some empathy anchors. You get to ask them questions. So it's not you. You're not actually. You're just facilitating. They are going to be celebrated for the deep insight that they have. And people are gonna look around and be like, oh my gosh, wow. So you probably need no extra skills from what's already in the team. We just haven't given them the microphone and the spotlight to do it. Also, the people that are empathy wobbles that are being a little defensive, you're going to get them in touch with their strengths on the logic side. And it's beautiful strength. And so you get to celebrate that. The other thing about it is trust is in the eye of the beholder. And this is a really lovely technique that. It's not that I think I'm logical, for example, it's, do you experience me as logical? It's not that I think I'm empathetic, it's do you experience me as empathetic? And Then it becomes a curious puzzle. So let's say, well, actually I do care about the public, but they are not experiencing it. We're gonna go find the few pebbles that are in the way and it's gonna be so awesome because you are gonna get credit for all of that loving empathy that you have that just is like just a teeny little shift away.

[Anne Morris]

Kelly, what's your reaction to this direction?

[Kelly]

I love it. I love the idea of sharing the framework and I've seen it where people have the best of intentions and they truly want the best outcome and they're just not perceived that way. So that idea of just cleaning up whatever the little obstacles are, I like that.

[Anne Morris]

I'm going to push on another lever in this conversation, which is there is a story embedded in the experience you shared with us that the defensiveness on your team in these interactions is rooted in ego. The human ego is rampant. It plays a starring role in every story. So with that caveat, thank goodness, I'll say that sometimes this defensiveness, when I see it in logic anchors, is their deep understanding that whatever they're being asked for is a threat to the beautiful design of the system that they're defending. And for example, and Frances, I will tee you up for a part of this. There is this idea in service business that the customer is always right. So when they call, like the empathetic thing to do is to give them what they want. But if we push on this, we know that if we give the customer everything they want, they will put us out of business. So sometimes as you're bringing the logic anchors along on this like market facing interaction, not only can you say no, but to some of these constituent requests you must say no. And it is the empathetic move. If we're trying to solve for the best interest of this organization continuing to function over time. The key is to communicate the no with empathy and communicate the no in a way that says I see you, I see what you want. It's a totally legitimate request, but here's why we're going to have to say no to you, or here's why the answer is not now. And the beautiful high analytics, fast processing speed folks on the team like making that discussable in the system that we're not changing the what, we're changing the how. And let's get really clear on the what because your instinct here to say.

[Kelly]

No was exactly right, 100% and I've experienced that numerous times. And we're step one step beyond the service industry where chances are we're going to have to say no on so many things. And there has to be that explanation as to why. I've spoken with so many people where my answer is no, but just the act of listening to them, empathizing with where they're coming from and explaining the no. So often the result of that conversation is, I understand. I really appreciate you listening to me. I'm frustrated, but I understand. And it's a positive ending. So it's in my mind. I keep thinking, this is really simple.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah.

[Frances Fry]

And to operationalize it. What's instinctual to you, Kelly, might not be instinctual to the team, and it might thus have to be taught so that it becomes a learned behavior. But even that small thing you said, listening so that the other people feel heard.

[Anne Morris]

Right.

[Frances Fry]

I think that has to be taught because as an anthropologist, if you observe people who are listening so that the other person can be heard, you can watch that with the volume off and you can see it now. So I would say to people, even when you're on the phone, I can tell if you're listening. So the other person wants to be heard versus you are listening so that you can get in and say no. And that is a reframe the explaining a no. Here's how I would frame that. Instead of my saying no, I'm going to give you the story so that you conclude no. But if you give me all of the context for it, and then you too, also rationally understand, ah, this isn't gonna work. Did I lead them to conclude that no was a reasonable response and it's an investment in the other person to do that? It's an investment in the psyche.

[Anne Morris]

Just to underscore, Francis, where you're going, these things that we assume are kind of inherited and intrinsic, you either got. You got it or you don't. This empathy thing, in our experience.

[Frances Fry]

All.

[Anne Morris]

Of these things can be taught, but you have to create the space to teach them and make them discussable. And there are probably people in the system who are already modeling this and are probably pretty good at talking about it. Can you imagine, within the. The constraints of this organization, creating space for more formal discussion, training, education around this stuff?

[Kelly]

We've been making an effort to do that in a number of different ways, and just the frameworks that we've discussed are helpful in advancing that.

[Anne Morris]

So if you can conjure in your mind's eye, like, a couple of people on the team who you think could really benefit from this kind of work, like if we invited them into this conversation, and let's just call this person Annie. And she's describing what happened to her. Like what language would she use in the moment?

[Kelly]

Particularly if it's a person who's overseeing another department. They feel that their group, their department is under attack and it is theirs to defend. They're defending the integrity. They're defending an honor. So that's one way to go about it. I have heard entitled where somebody's receiving a complaint that they think is absolutely ridiculous. And there's no reason that somebody should be complaining about something so trite. And they have a hard time empathizing or putting themselves in that person's shoes. In fact, they don't want to because it's so unreasonable.

[Frances Fry]

Those are great.

[Anne Morris]

And then do you have people on the team who are particularly good at fielding those kinds of calls?

[Kelly]

Yes.

[Anne Morris]

If the kind of meta question is can we create more space for what we would call training? But I think can show up in very different ways. So like, let's say for the next 90 days, we're going to pilot a weekly meeting where people come into the room and they bring examples of experience they had with constituents. Like conversations that didn't go well, didn't.

[Frances Fry]

Go as well as they wanted.

[Anne Morris]

And the whole team is there as a resource to workshop different ways to handle this situation in the future. So sometimes we'll see in the public there's a constituent training moment that happens when people come on the team. But it's not an ongoing conversation where that kind of development can continue over time and people really get into it. And you're signaling that our job, like the very powerful cultural signal that our job is to continuously improve. It's not to get this right every single time.

[Kelly]

No, I love that. Yeah. And I like just bringing it in as a discussion point as opposed to just me being the one that's having the dialogue. Cause I don't have all the answers. And there are certainly things that other people do far better than I do. So getting them all together is great.

[Frances Fry]

And a weekly rhythm tends to be a nice rhythm. Is that you can imagine using it to let's celebrate the wins in that what we achieved. And then let's also talk about where I gosh, I'd like to revisit that pitch. And so let's workshop it now, what we have learned. It helps if you come up with some questions that you want to visit or other high status people come up with questions they want to revisit first because otherwise it will be silent. So you want to show that it's a high status activity and then really beautiful things happen. So let me give you an example. You do this for a couple of weeks and. And then I struggle with entitled callers. Let's say I have an entitled personal loan. I'm like, oh, my gosh, can you hold on for one moment? And then I just got my friend to get on the call with me. I have Jane here who's just. Your question is super interesting. And I've brought in Jane to be helpful to us. I stay on the call and I get to watch and learn with how Jane succeeds and diffuses. And so if you just have that as a norm now, first of all, Jane feels like a freaking hero. A freaking hero because she did it. We're talking about an investment of four minutes, maybe five minutes. It's not a lot of extra work, but you're getting the, like, community feel of it. And we're working together. So to Ann's point, you will get better every week.

[Anne Morris]

I also think this is an invitation to bring some levity, particularly in government can feel very serious. Our job is to make sure the bridges don't fall. That is a real burden. And if you can show up and even have some fun with it, this is a session where we get to get better and we get to normalize, like making mistakes and we get to learn together. And I don't have all the answers. Like, this is really hard stuff. And it is really hard for our egos to not get activated when someone's screaming at us. And oh, by the way, when life is hard, one of the first phone calls we get to make is to call our elected representatives and let them have it. Let them have it. So you guys are also receiving a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with you. The degree of difficulty of that is high.

[Kelly]

Oh, right.

[Anne Morris]

And it is a learning by doing sport.

[Kelly]

100%. Yes. That environment of being able to do it in that setting will disconnect it from the ego first. It takes. Adds a little bit of time to it, whatever it is. And it. They are entertaining. So it can absolutely be entertaining. It becomes, as I said in the beginning, a bit of a personal challenge. And instead of really avoiding or pushing these calls away, they become somewhat fun.

[Anne Morris]

Lower the stakes.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah, Like a puzzle.

[Anne Morris]

Then it's four weeks in, you're like, oh, I saw this TED Talk on trust. I don't know. Might be helpful, but there's some vocabulary here we might be able to use. I don't know.

[Frances Fry]

Learning collectively is a beautiful Way to do it. What you're gonna do is let the heroes, let the prose reveal what's going on and let everyone learn it experientially. And it will be really beautiful.

[Anne Morris]

And you get to show up on a totally different emotional frequency. So it's not, oh, mom is disappointed in us. Yeah. You're the now you're the cool aunt who, like, wants to figure this out, who's got really good snacks and is like, I don't know, like, how do we do this? We're getting a bunch of these calls and people are stressed in 2025, like.

[Frances Fry]

How do we want to respond and.

[Anne Morris]

How do we get this right? And how do we support each other? Because this is not a solo sport to be on the front lines.

[Kelly]

No.

[Frances Fry]

And then you also prime high status people who people think are like the getting the A's, have them come come up with problems. So now we think, oh, high status is coming up with problems. That's really important to do early.

[Kelly]

Well, and it shows the level of vulnerability and not making other people feel like they're on the hot seat.

[Anne Morris]

Where are you now in this conversation, Kelly, compared to where you started?

[Kelly]

I'm energized. I feel like there's some ideas certainly that I haven't thought of before that are not only doable, but fun. So looking forward to it.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah. Play with that emotional frequency challenge. As the leader of this team, what are you noticing that people are feeling around you? And then what is it that you want them to feel? And where do you see the gaps?

[Kelly]

Right. Certainly the temperature of the overall political environment impacts not only the staff and the way they do their job, but also the public and how they interact with the government. And so while we're not in the trenches really on the issues that are really on people's minds at the moment, the temperature still plays a role. And we've been through this several times in the last decades. So just recognizing that, I think that we're in a better place now than we were 10 years, 15 years ago. Just as a team. I think the team has coalesced. So I think we're more able to have the levity that you're referring to and the open discussions than we were a decade ago. So that's positive. And it becomes more and more important as the environment around us becomes a little bit more tenuous.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah. All the more reason to get together on a regular basis. So tension is being absorbed at the team level and not by individual team members, where it's going to come at the highest cost. Did we achieve the objective? Did you get what you came for?

[Kelly]

You did. It was a lot of fun.

[Anne Morris]

Well, we are so rooting for you. I'm still thinking about your opening comment about your best days in this job that is among the hardest jobs in the world and particularly right now, that what's deeply meaningful to you is when people reach out and say thank you. And so I just want to offer a public service announcement to Reese. Reach out and thank the people toiling for you and your families. And we want to thank you for your now decades of service making these systems work. And we're totally humbled by it.

[Kelly]

Well, thank you. You've energized at least another decade or so. So we'll keep going.

[Anne Morris]

Yes, that's our performance metric. Perfect.

[Frances Fry]

Perfect.

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[Anne Morris]

Perfect.

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[Frances Fry]

Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required.

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[Anne Morris]

Francis what do you want listeners to take away from that conversation?

[Frances Fry]

The challenges of individuals can be solved by the collective wisdom of the team. You just need to create a forum for it. And that forum needs a cadence weekly sounds good. That forum needs snacks. And that forum needs a facilitator. Not the distributor of knowledge, but just the person that's hosting the session that makes sure that people talk and that things are safe. And then it should also have lots of celebration and letting people come in being the hero with their knowledge.

[Anne Morris]

So many beautiful things can happen in these forms and I think we touched on a lot of them. One we didn't touch on was just the power of also celebrating failure. Sometimes not just workshopping it, but celebrating it. We wrote about this in our last book, but NerdWallet, beautiful personal finance company, they famously have a fail wall where people come in and put sticky notes of their failures up there publicly because it also we have these little pieces of shame that get stuck when we get it wrong. And there's something really powerful about just bringing them into the light and that shame often just evaporates. The CEO is an active participant in fail wall, always coming in and putting stuff up there. And so that's one thought I'm having. The second thought I'm having is last night at a wonderful dinner with a bunch of chief people, officers in the neighborhood and even in not just in the public sector right now, but in the private sector, people are feeling a really strong sense of their obligation to take care of the people around them. And we were having a conversation about what was working for people and really reinforcing for everyone, that no one is in this alone, that for every aspect of the job they are connected to a team. And so forums that reinforce that for people I think are particularly valuable right now. There's just a ton of uncertainty in the world and the human animal is really feeling it.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah, what I appreciated about this conversation is that we often think that, oh, if I'm going to invest in my team, it's going to have a large ticket price and it's going to come at the expense of all of these other things. And we're talking about a 30 minute weekly meeting that's going to make everyone better and it's going to pay for itself and save time and higher engagement in weeks. And so I love the lightness of this structure. This is an investment that's going to be you can measure in single digits. If you want to be on Fixable, Please call us at 234- FIXABLE, that's 234-349-2253 or email [e-mail] we're going to.

[Anne Morris]

Do a future episode focused on HR quick fixes and we'd love to hear from you about what's on your mind when it comes to people issues and the art and science of human resources.

[Frances Fry]

We look forward to hearing from you.

[Anne Morris]

Fixable is brought to you by the TED Audio Collective and Pushkin Industries. It's hosted by me, Anne Morris and me, Frances Fry. This episode was produced by Rahima Nassa from Pushkin Industries. Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Banban Chang, Daniela Balaraiso and Roxanne Hylash and our.

[Frances Fry]

Show was mixed by Louis at Storyyard.

[Anne Morris]

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[Frances Fry]

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[Anne Morris]

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[Kelly]

Forever.

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[Anne Morris]

Race the sails.

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[Frances Fry]

Over.

[Anne Morris]

Roger, wait.

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