The view from the top

The view from below

Using the Trust  Model

Why choose me?

How to contact me

Some stories

Ideas and resources

Some stories

The dental practice

You could cut the atmosphere with a knife as the partners trooped into the surgery waiting room on a Saturday morning... no eye contact, no pleasantries.

The challenge was that one of the founding partners had decided that she wanted to leave. Her colleagues were clearly feeling that undertakings and trust had been broken. For the departing partner, this was a crucial life decision. Solicitors had already been engaged.

The Trust Model helped the partners reconnect with what had for several years been a fulfilling and successful partnership, to celebrate that success and look at the current situation from a different, more understanding perspective.

The outcome was a commitment to a shared purpose that would allow both the departing partner and the dental practice to flourish. Further meetings were arranged to progress matters and the partners eventually agreed a way forward without resort to legal action. The breakthrough was the connection with the initially hidden emotions behind the break-up.

The trade union management team

The late evening phone call was, I must confess, troubling. 'That session was disastrous,' said the team leader.

What had happened was that the team had taken up the 'storming' stage with relish! Some pent-up, underlying emotions had shown through and, for the team leader, it was difficult to see how it would be possible to move on to reach agreement on key strategic issues.

So it was with some trepidation that I walked into the meeting room the following day where we were due to move from the Understanding stage of the model to Sharing - looking at how best to make it work.

Each member of the team had been charged with making a brief presentation focused on the future not the past. What emerged as crucial was my role in holding them to that commitment, rather than letting the past creep in yet again.

The day, therefore, became the Testing of the new approach and, by the end of it, we had arrived at a place where, to use the team leader's words - 'we got what we wanted - a management team that is united and has a clear sense of its role and priorities in the coming year'.

So putting in the invoice wasn't as challenging as it looked at the end of the first day.

Clearly, this was not a happy person. We were stuck in a cycle of negativity, with everyone else to blame for the situation. I began to wonder if, finally, this was the moment when the Trust Model  would fail.

Then it clicked. What we needed to do at the Target stage was ask the relevant questions from two perspectives, rather like the view from the top and below on this website.

What's missing, do you think, from management's perspective? What's missing from yours? What do you think management wants to change? What do you want to change? ... and this approach worked with Reward and Understanding, too.

Gradually, what was emerging was the gap to be bridged, which gave us something tangible to work on, rather than a mountain of complaints. By connecting the individual with the personal Reward he could gain from finding a resolution, it became possible to do work on what his responsibility was in making it happen.

Frankly, this employee still dislikes his management, but trust and respect have replaced overt hostility.