Being in roles that require us to be multiple things to multiple people - like disciplinarian and coach for those in Human Resources - can be challenging. HR folks have to constantly balance the interests of both the company and the employees within it, which aren’t always aligned. In fact, they are often in opposition. Pile on top of that, impressions employees have of HR, built upon negative experiences and assumptions of their motives. Employees’ mistrust of HR poses a real challenge in providing them with support.
We want to thank the team that continues to support us in producing, editing and sharing our work. Jonah Smith for the heartfelt intro music you hear at the beginning of each podcast. We LOVE it. Hillary Rideout for writing descriptions, designing covers and helping us share our work on social media. Chad Penner for his superpower editing work to take our recordings from bumpy and glitchy to smooth and easy to listen to episodes for you to enjoy. From our hearts, we are so thankful for this team and the support they provide us.
Being in roles that require us to be multiple things to multiple people - like disciplinarian and coach for those in Human Resources - can be challenging. HR folks have to constantly balance the interests of both the company and the employees within it, which aren’t always aligned. In fact, they are often in opposition. Pile on top of that, impressions employees have of HR, built upon negative experiences and assumptions of their motives. Employees’ mistrust of HR poses a real challenge in providing them with support.
We want to thank the team that continues to support us in producing, editing and sharing our work. Jonah Smith for the heartfelt intro music you hear at the beginning of each podcast. We LOVE it. Hillary Rideout for writing descriptions, designing covers and helping us share our work on social media. Chad Penner for his superpower editing work to take our recordings from bumpy and glitchy to smooth and easy to listen to episodes for you to enjoy. From our hearts, we are so thankful for this team and the support they provide us.
Charles: Hi everyone.
Charles: I'm Charles Feltman
Ila: And my name, Ila, Edgar, and we are here for
Charles: Trust on purpose, where we look at various trust issues related to, primarily work, but not always. Some of these issues bleed over into other areas of. our listeners' lives, as we found out, since people have been occasionally emailing us for various reasons.
Charles: In this episode, we're going to take on what I think is a, continual challenge for people who are in human resources, learning and development, who are associated with Internal coaching programs within companies. And so I'm gonna turn it over to you, Ila, to give us the, rundown of it.
Ila: Sounds good. this situation has come from one of our, listeners and. when we heard from this individual and I saw what the topic was about and shared it with you, Charles, I mean, both of us went, oh my gosh, this is so, so relevant to so many people. So we're really happy. Thank you for this particular listener for bringing it forward.
Ila: this person works in HR and has been, supporting from an HR perspective. a senior leader who hasn't been behaving very well. So the behaviors that have been noticed is, jumping down, direct reports throats when he feels that they don't know something or that, he dismisses them. If they don't meet the expectation.
Ila: The HR person, our listener also said her assessment is that he doesn't have a lot of patience for people that aren't as smart as he is. And in brackets said he is very, very smart. She's had a couple of conversations that included his leader, which is a VP, and it was escalated also to the COO. The conversation was more of a performance management. Here's what we're noticing.
Ila: This is the impact and something has to change. She also then had what she said was a coaching conversation. So trying to take off her HR hat and having a conversation from a place of care for his success. And she brought this forward because she says, you know, I think HR gets caught in this, in between state.
Ila: where there's procedures and guidelines to follow, and we really care about the success of the person. So how can we also support them? So in her words feels like it's disciplinarian and coach, I's such a tough spot to be in, but again, I think so many HR practitioners can completely relate to. So, yeah, as I've just framed that up, what comes to mind for you immediately?
Charles: Well, yeah, it is a, difficult spot to be in, particularly because any kind of, coaching to help the individual in this case, the leader, requires a high trust relationship coaching doesn't happen unless there's strong trust. when someone is faced with a disciplinary, process, a, uh, performance improvement plan. Although it doesn't sound like it's come to that yet. it sounds like the conversation that, included individual's manager had. Overtones of that, if not, really direct reference to the potential for that.
Charles: and that, of course immediately triggers most people, brings up defenses, what did I do wrong? who told you that? all of the defenses that we, throw up to deal with this. What we're being confronted with is that our behavior is not acceptable to the organization, to the company, to, our manager, to whoever it is.
Charles: if I'm in that position and I'm, being told that I need to change something. And then the same person even if they're not telling me that directly, maybe it's my manager. Maybe it's someone else in HR. They're still associated with that because they're in the room or they're even in the same organization, HR. is immediately suspect they're immediately in a, I see them as a potential, enemy or at least someone who's going to potentially, cause problems for me. building a trust relationship with that person. No matter how caring they may seem is going to be difficult for me as that, leader. now it's not undoable and known and heard it from, HR, people who have bridged that gap, but it's not. I think is, is really the challenge that we're, talking about here. how do you do that? How do you address that as an HR person who wants to be helpful, who wants to coach people who are in that situation? And of course, different companies have different policies around that.
Charles: They may have a separate internal coaching organization, which they can call on to provide coaching for those folks, which. good. They also may have a process where they can bring in an external coach to coach that individual, which is even better in my opinion. but still the HR person, if they're only stuck with the disciplinary hat glued to their head in the leader's mind makes it difficult for.
Charles: That person to accept any, care except that that person does in fact have their interests in mind, primarily over the interests of , the disciplinary process I guess that's my, first take on it. So a lot around that I've found as an external coach coming into situations like that, there's a lot around that, about contracting whose role is what, which my role as the coach, what's the role of, the sponsor.
Charles: Which would be the, supervisor maybe what's the role of HR might also be, sponsor in this part. what's the individual leader's role. but even before you get there, the individual leader, I think I've found that if there can be some degree of trust built in the HR process and or HR.
Charles: People that really goes a long way. So how do we do that? Is the real question. How did they do that? and I've never been in that situation. I've never been an HR person, so, I can't relate directly and I think we can apply a lot of what we know about trust building,
Ila: mm-hmm
Charles: to help people who are in that position.
Ila: I was gonna say, I wanna throw a bit of a curve ball here, but I don't know. if it's really a curve ball. but as you were sharing your perspective, I think that the history of HR also shows up in this relationship. I have been in HR for many years, not currently, but spent 20 years in HR.
Ila: So not the performance side, the recruitment side, but it's still HR. And so we would get painted with a, we a cost center. B were a pain in the ass. C all we do is, write policies and procedures, and correct people and make them follow a bunch of rules. And I think that there was also, if you're talking to HR, you're in trouble. and this person, I'm making a bit of an assumption here, but I think this leader, this isn't, his first rodeo probably has some years under his belt. And so we don't actually even know what his relationship with HR is. Period. Whether it's this individual or let's take back and look at the bigger relationship with HR have I seen them in the past and have they been a support to me? Or is this where I get my hand slapped and I'm in trouble, maybe something in between. Right? yeah.
Charles: Or a little of both.
Ila: a little of both. Yeah. So as I think about this particular situation, this HR person could be absolutely sincere, competent, and really come from a place of care. But if. She represents HR in a way that he's not had a great experience, that trust is gonna be even harder to build.
Ila: And I think the other piece I wanna add in here is what's HRS motive. So for the sake of why do you want to have a coaching conversation with me?
Ila: So very interestingly enough, I have another client. Who was sent to me recently by HR to have a 360 done. And I'm still a little bit gobsmacked about how this came to be, because there was one comment on an exit interview from six months ago. That's now being pulled out to say you have behavior that needs to change. . And so in this situation, this leader doesn't trust. What's the motive behind. this isn't transparent.
Ila: I don't understand. So how can we also be transparent about roles, contracting? This is why we're having this conversation. This is my role here. This is your role here. How do we develop this dialogue in a way? That we can be as trust building as possible, knowing that this is a tricky situation.
Charles: Yeah. And I think part of it, is to identify if possible shared care, not just I care about you, but what is our shared care? Why are we both in this company and everybody else for that matter, the people who report to you in this case, it sounds like the people that report to this particular leader have felt, some repercussions from his style. but. is there shared care and what is it that we all care about? What are we trying to do together? So when HR shows up at my door or rather invites me to their office, is it because they're trying to get rid of me? Is it because they, care about the same things I care about with relation to this company and its success.
Charles: And as an HR person, of course, I'm gonna look at it and say, yeah, I do. And some of your behavior is, problematic in that it's blocking our shared care from. completely realized, your people are not happy. Well, it's not just that. They're not happy, but they're not able to do their work as well as they can, perhaps, because they're concerned about or triggering certain behaviors in you. which means that they're cramped in their. they're not contributing fully. So identifying that shared care, what are we all here trying to do? And then yes. let's be transparent about what our roles are.
Charles: I'm, an HR, person and yes, part of my job is to support you in making some change. So what do you need from me? And. might we find to support you? That is not, something that I can provide, but that you need maybe it's coaching, maybe it's a, course of sun kind, maybe it's, something else, but what is it that we can find for you that you could benefit from that might change this situation?
Ila: there's all sorts of thoughts running through my head, but one of the ones is I would love. If we had that data point about what's this person's care.
Ila: I would love that.
Charles: So let's make an assumption here. for the sake of argument, let's assume that this person does care about the organization and its success. does care about the shared enterprise. And is operating out of, an unconscious place. they're not very, self-aware not really aware of the impacts that they're having on people around them.
Charles: And so that's really what's. Behind this, it's not that the person is completely self oriented and self interested and just trying to get somewhere, but it's simply that they are, not really self aware their emotional IQ is, Perhaps pretty low. if that's our assumption, then building trust with that person is still critical but it's, actually more possible because we do have shared care. So now we can begin to build on that. or at least that's what I would offer to the HR person who wants to, Help this person see that.
Charles: Yeah, we do care about you. We want you to be here. what you bring to this organization is important. And it's also important that some of these behaviors, that we're focusing on here are a problem we need to help you change that.
Ila: I'm hoping and I think secretly, but it's not so secret cuz now I'm saying it out loud, is that, could we start to change the way performance management conversations happen? so a, can we get rid of the word performance management? Because immediately when I hear that word, I hear, if you don't fix your stuff, you're gonna get fired.
Ila: So what if, yes, we're talking about this particular situation. What if that.
Ila: very first conversation with the VP who is this person's leader in HR was. We care about your success and we value the contribution you bring to this organization because we care and we have a shared care.
Ila: We wanna have a conversation with you
Ila: about this. We're here to support you and help you.
Charles: And I think that would go a long ways to making these kinds of situations easier to navigate more successful in terms of the outcomes. and I think there are organizations that do that. I've seen a number of organizations or worked as an external coach and number of organizations where that actually is the initial approach.
Charles: And I think it's really helps. I've also been in organizations where that's not at all the initial conversation, they start from that place of, you need to fix this. You need to fix it now. or there gonna be unpleasant consequences. Which, by the way in at least some of the situations that I've observed or been associated with has come from the supervisor, in this case, it would be the VP most likely.
Charles: but person's supervisor not. Holding them accountable for some period of time, basically letting it all slide looking the other way, not really confronting anything. And then all of a sudden it's gotten to be this big mess. so now he is in a position or now everybody's in a position of, this has gotta stop right now because it's a big problem. yes .
Charles: I think often that is the source. So part of it is helping every supervisor, every manager, every leader in the organization to recognize that they have to talk with their, people, their direct reports, their employees. and as soon as something seems amiss, they need to address it.
Charles: Part of it too, may be that the people who are the recipients of the, troubling behavior, don't speak up. Because they don't necessarily trust that HR is gonna support them or help them in the situation, which is also often I've seen that be, the case is, Hey, you know, I went to HR, I told them about this. And either they said, well, we're working on it or thank you for bringing it to our, attention and nothing.
Ila: So then we lose trust in HR. So why are we gonna say anything if nothing's gonna change? The tricky is often something has happened, but it's confidential. but unless actions and behaviors start to change, the stories that get made up in organizations is, oh, I went to HR and I said something and nothing ever changed, nothing happened. So I now am not gonna do that anymore.
Charles: And, that's because HR has rules, they have to follow.
Ila: absolutely.
Charles: you can't just talk about someone else's, issues to a third party. let's talk just a little bit about that. How does HR talk to. employee, that direct report of, someone who they feel is, behaving badly towards them. How does the HR person build some trust there? Uh,
Ila: is this the second conversation where the leader's no, longer there?
Charles: this is while the leader's still there. so the employee comes to them. Maybe the first time brings up some concerns goes away expecting, or at least hoping that something's gonna change. What can HR do given that their hands are tied by certain rules and regulations? What can I do to let this person know that yeah, they're working on it.
Ila: The first word that comes to mind is reliability. So follow through, keep your promises. So if you say something's going to happen. Circle back to say, I just wanna let you know, I did do that thing. I said it was gonna do whether it was have a conversation, whatever it was, but that accountability I think is really important.
Ila: How do we show care here? I have a shared care that we create a culture and organization that people are supported to do good work period.
Charles: yeah. it's part of the conversation with the employee. Who's feeling, bruised and battered by, an aggressive, boss it's with that particular boss it's with that boss's boss all the way up and down the line. and that's something that I think a lot of HR people actually are missing. and some of them are good at it too. I'm not painting a broad brush over all of HR, but there are some HR departments, some HR people who are not doing a good job. that is part of the problem that HR faces. And if somebody does a poor job of it in company, a and somebody leaves company a and goes to company B, they're gonna take that idea with them.
Ila: This brings to mind the importance of accountability and behaviors throughout the organization. So I'm thinking of a team that I just had, a session with this morning and they're holding the manager level, very accountable with particular behaviors, but the VP level isn't held to the same standard. And so what's good for the goose is not good for the Gander. . And so that causes, I think some real rub or friction and well, you're holding me accountable to my behaviors. So this is what your words are saying, but your actions are completely different. And I think that can also be a tricky spot for HR. and how do I navigate this when they often don't have the authority or the responsibility.
Charles: Yeah. that is part of HRS dilemma often is that they don't, really, they don't have a seat at the table, at the highest level in the organization. or if they, have a scene at the table, but they don't actually get to say. they just get to listen.
Charles: so we're highlighting a number of structural problems. How does an individual HR person, build trust? With a leader with an individual who, whatever it is in the organization that they're interacting with when a disciplinary process is somewhere in the picture.
Charles: whether it's already been initiated or whether it's, Hey, you know, you need to clean up your act or this will happen. how does the HR person build sufficient trust to actually have that person accept their help, except that they can trust this person. we've talked about finding that place of shared care and articulating it.
Charles: Part of it also is in the domain of sincerity, do I walk my. as an individual employee of human resources or people development or, anything. When I tell someone something? Do I do that or do I always hide behind rules and regulations
Charles: I had a conversation once with an HR leader, who said, our hands are tied in many places, but I am a real proponent. And I tell all my people, if you can say something, say it, and if you can't help them understand why that it's not just some stupid regulat.
Charles: or rule there is a reason behind it, and this is the reason, and we're all kind of there. turn it around. if you were in my position or you were in the position of an employee who came to me to say something, and it was said under the, condition of confidentiality, you came to me and, said something.
Charles: Would you want me to turn around and say that to someone else? No, you probably wouldn't. So these rules are here for a reason, so helping understand that as well,
Ila: as you share that, the word transparency comes through over and over and over again.
Charles: Yeah.
Ila: Transparency, authenticity, sincerity are just so important.
Charles: And so calling out and the rules and why they're there and really helping the individual you're talking with, understand why they're there and why you're committed to upholding them. if you can help them see that it's, probably gonna be helpful.
Charles: And then of course, following through, as an HR person, know, you sit out in a conversation with HR, the person's supervisor and the leader, and there's a conversation. There should be certain, commitments made at the end of that conversation. I'm gonna do this, your manager's gonna do this.
Ila: There was a point in the HR, person sharing this story. And it's actually a theme that I've heard quite a bit is, well, you just need to do better. or I need to do better at this. I don't know what that means. what does do better mean
Charles: that is, Brilliantly vague.
Ila: completely? Right. I think also in this trust building conversation, we're here to support you to change behaviors that align with our shared care so that we can all do good work together. that those accountabilities or commitments that each of us take away in whatever way, shape or form are clear and kind in a way that the person knows exactly what they need to do differently.
Charles: Yeah,
Ila: And then let's reward their progress. I can see that you're spending more time listening and asking open-ended questions. I see that you're making that effort. That's fantastic. Keep doing that.
Charles: Which, is really important because that's positive reinforcement and positive reinforcement often takes a little longer and there can be some forward movement. And a little couple steps back and then more forward movement and a couple steps back. Negative reinforcement. Is something that we think anyway, we imagine is gonna be much quicker.
Charles: You know, I'll threaten this person with whatever and, they'll straighten up and that's been shown over and over again to actually not have that effect. or if it does, the effect is I'll do that, but I'm doing it. as compliance and I'm gonna do the bare minimum here.
Ila: Yeah. And the minute you're not looking, I'm gonna do whatever I want.
Charles: yeah,
Ila: So can we also spend a few minutes on the second half of her question, taking her HR hat off? And having a coaching conversation Or a supportive conversation And as I read the scenario, the first time, the first question I had was to even ask if that would be possible. Hmm.
Charles: I'd actually back up one for the sake of what do you want to do that as an HR person in a situation like this? Um, for the sake of what do you want to have. a supportive kind of conversation, a coaching kind of conversation. and I think again, many HR people, get into HR because they're supportive people.
Charles: They want to help. And so to make a stab at it, to make a try at it, is part of their nature. but Are they the right person to even attempt to do this?
Ila: what I just heard was just because we can doesn't mean we should.
Charles: at least it's a question to ask oneself. I can, is this the right? Time and place am I the right person to do this? Is there a way to support this person? that would be better than me trying to have a supportive conversation with them. and you know, maybe it's perfectly appropriate to have this and it will work.
Charles: the first question I would ask is why, why do I want to what's motivating me to do this. do I feel bad because I don't like being the disciplinarian. So, I'm gonna try something else now for a little while. So I feel better. Is it? because I really think that I can be supportive for this person. If I can just build some trust here. what is it?
Ila: Yeah, that's a really good question.
Charles: and then, what am I really trying to accomplish? how can I tell if I've actually made a difference here in this situation? I think of situations where I've worked with people, individual leaders the HR people have built really good relationships over time.
Charles: And then when the leader, stumbles, they actually feel comfortable with the HR person and feel like, okay, I can trust this person to help me out that assumes, however I trusting relationship to begin with. So one of the things that HR people I think can do is, go out there and build trust with people proactively. back to your question, how do you do that? Right?
Ila: Mm-hmm okay. Let's assume that I, believe my motives are
Charles: good, that, I'm really capable.
Charles: believe I'm gonna give it a try for the sake of helping individual leader get better. At being a positive leader How do I literally take off the, HR, punitive hat is what word comes to mind. and put on a different hat. I think the first, place I would start, I guess, is asking permiss.
Ila: mm-hmm
Charles: I think I can be a support for you in this. I recognize that I'm part of this, process, this disciplinary or performance review, or just, Hey, you gotta change this process. And I think I can help you and be some support to you. Are you willing to even. Try working with me on that.
Charles: if you aren't, I completely understand. So now it's in the other person's court, they have the control once they have the control that creates a degree of safety for them. And even beyond that, are you willing to, grant me permission? And by the way, you can revoke that permission anytime.
Ila: I think that's a step that is probably missing. is asking for permission and making it so transparent that at any time that you want to revoke that that's absolutely no problem. I think that segues also into some pretty important contracting in that whatever happens in this coaching or supportive conversation.
Ila: Stays here. I don't take this information and now use it when I have my HR hat on
Charles: which puts the HR person in a really delicate position. I, for one would not wanna put myself in that position. That's a promise that I would be very uncomfortable with making. .
Ila: we see how much. Damage is done when something that is not an HR discussion flows into or gets repeated or said, and I've seen this with leaders in a triad conversation. So as a coach, you know, I'm often in a leader and their leader and talking about whatever, and then. the leader's leader uses something in that triad conversation, in an HR document.
Ila: And it's like, Nope, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Charles: Yeah. Or even repeats it to a third
Ila: absolutely. or just repeats. Sorry, not just cuz that's a big deal. So I think that that, contracting piece is, really, really important. and it puts the HR person in a really
Charles: So as an HR person, what do you do? HR person becoming a coach. Coaching is As you, and I know, is a very intimate relationship when it works. I'm asking my clients to become quite deeply vulnerable to me, not really in service to me, but rather in service to them becoming vulnerable to themselves.
Charles: But it's through our conversations. That they arrive at that deep vulnerability to themselves. And of course the process requires that they be vulnerable to me along the way. that's not a relationship that lends itself to also having a, typical HR relationship with someone. If I were an HR person, I mean, if it's simple stuff, if it's, simple stuff to deal with then yeah.
Charles: Maybe so, but if it really is like the person that you're describing or that our email writer described, that's gonna take some deeper work. That's gonna take someone being willing to dive into their deeper stuff. If I were an HR person, I would simply want to say, I think you need to have a coach. and we have internal coaches and we have external coaches. my role in this can be to help you find the support that you need, not to be the support that you need. So I think that's really the important distinction for an HR person.
Ila: The story that I'm making up a little bit right now. And, based on being an external coach, I have also been an internal coach. and that there's something so incredibly
Ila: powerful about having someone bear witness to the human that you are without all of the context and stories, and that they're just holding you as capable as where you are, and I'm here to support you to do something different. There's something so powerful. about being heard, seen, and listened to in that.
Charles: that certainly is something, an HR representative. If, the individual, sitting across from you is willing to open up that way, that's the support you can give them is that deep undivided detention listening, a generous listening. not for anything other than I'm gonna be your witness. and even then my own opinion, I think there need to be some safeguards around that. Some guard rails around that. if I found myself listening to someone who was, Brought in pre-disciplinary or pre performance improvement. and they're just unloading.
Charles: I would still want to say stop. I wanna listen to you and I want to be clear with you that I have certain responsibilities as a human resources, employee. that would require me to tell other people, certain things. So I want to be really clear with you, and here are the things that I would be required to tell other people, in my role,
Charles: And I really wanna listen. I'm happy to listen and just understand that you either avoid talking about those things, or you recognize that I will be carrying that information to someone else. And there may be other consequences from.
Charles: and the reason I, guess I say that is, I would want to make it very clear what our roles are
Ila: Mm-hmm
Charles: and what our responsibilities are.
Ila: And again, I think that that's a piece of conversation that's often missing. So even if we move on from this particular situation and go to leader, direct report conversations, there's often so many things that are missing and just assumed, or that we bump into them halfway in the conversation and go, oh shoot. I'm gonna have to do something with that, but it's already on the table versus how can we be more intentional about setting up these conversations that really matter?
Charles: yes, it's a crucial conversation. all of these different conversations are what you would call crucial conversations. and if they're going to be done well, need to have some set up, need to have some clarity. what this conversation's about for the sake of what are we having it? and what are any rules impacting it?
Ila: Yep. I think there's a lot of favorite parts about this conversation we've had, but the most important one that really just touched my heart and made so much sense is for the sake of why am I having this conversation? So thank you for adding that. I think that's a really good checkpoint for many of us in all sorts of different conversations.
Charles: yeah, I was doing some coach training recently. It's been a long time since I've done that, but I've doing some coach training in a, coach training program. and, my. coach trainee, the person who was in the program learning to be a coach. we were having a conversation about that particular question and it dawned on me that, a a while back in my life, that was my favorite question to ask myself and to ask other people.
Charles: And I'd kind of let it fall off the edge of the table and I I'd let go of it in favor of other questions. And so at that point, a few months ago now, I thought, I need to bring that question back front and center because it's so powerful and opens up such a, important, field to work in and understanding Coordinate with other people in.
Ila: I love it.
Charles: So let's see, we've talked about a lot of different things here, but we've talked about some of the structural issues that can make it difficult to be an HR person and also care for, the people you're caring for.
Charles: we've talked about, in spite of that, how do you build a relationship of trust with someone, that includes trust in the domain of care that they understand that they can trust you in that domain. They understand that they can trust you in the domain of sincerity and reliability and even competence. We didn't address that, but that's another piece of that. Am I a competent in my job as HR, we also have talked about having a conversations with, the person who might be in some kind of a disciplinary or, performance improvement track and how we build trust with that person, but also other people who are part of that, the person who might be the recipient of that particular leaders'.
Charles: Behavior that's problematic. how do we build and maintain trust with that person who is bringing that to us? so that they'll bring it to us again, if it's an issue. so they won't go back out into the ecosystem and, say HR don't even bother. and how does the, supervisor of the leader.
Charles: what's that person's role in this and how are they often responsible for it's suddenly becoming a problem of performance improvement as opposed to something that they've been correcting in small ways, all along and holding accountability. All of these I think are really important in this, situation or could be.
Charles: And so I would offer all of this as food for thought for people in. what do you think? What are your
Ila: I think just going back to roles, responsibilities, transparency, contracting.
Ila: And modeling the behaviors that we wanna see. So whether this goes to the VP level, the COO level, however, this spreads throughout the organization, that there's a shared accountability about the way we wanna behave in this organization and that everyone is held accountable to that behavior. I'm not saying that this is the case, but I feel like this individual may feel, singled out.
Ila: and maybe he is, can we be inclusive? Can we wrap our arms around each other? And remember that we're doing the best we can. Some days we're rock stars, other days less than sparkly. Coming from a place of care and support. And here's what I observe. And here's the impact on me.
Ila: really the importance of having those conversations, the moment that things happen so that someone's not blindsided. And again, I'm not saying that this person was, but maybe this could have been dealt with six months ago with a really simple conversation. So how do we design the culture and how do we want to behave together and how can we hold ourselves accountable to that?
Charles: Yeah. And. I think sometimes in some companies that sort of shoved over to HR, HR is supposed to do that.
Ila: Mm. Yeah.
Charles: and they're supposed to do that without really having a seat at the table without having access to the top leadership. so it has to be a, a commitment from top to bottom. HR can point to it. But it has to be a commitment all the way up to the top and all the way down to the bottom. so there's the, what is our shared care question? what do we all care about? And, that's important in this whole process, recognizing that, acknowledging it, being even if it's not spoken every time, part of the conversation, the background of the conversation.
Ila: Yeah. hundred.
Charles: Well, I wish our listener, who brought this question to us? Well, I hope this has, provided some value and also those others of you in HR who are listening if you have. Further questions for us. That would be great. We'd love to, address them or anything else related to trust, particularly trust at work, also trust in other domains of your life. You can contact meCharles@charlesatinsightcoaching.com.
Ila: Or you can contact me at ILA. I L a at big change Inc. Com. We'd be delighted to hear from you.
Charles: So for now, ELA, until next time. I need a better way to sign off . but we can keep this in anyway, because, uh, you know, I guess every once in a while, we're less than sparkly.
Ila: Less than sparkly.
Charles: uh,
Ila: We also muddle our words. Yeah.
Charles: yes, but I, do wanna thank you. for being part of this with me, it's wonderful. And, I hope we're of value in these conversations. Thank you.