What are some ways to build trust and rapport with mentees?

When a new team member enters my team, the first thing I do is have a conversation about career and personal growth with them. When done well, these are a powerful tool to see the whole person. I hold them outside of the office and plan lots of time for them. It can be combined with a walk in the park, a visit to their favorite museum, a lunch outside etc. We talk about work and life, where their energy comes from, where they want to grow, their strengths, weaknesses, fears and more. The setting, and the gift of time help establish high levels of trust. Combined with an expansive conversation framework this gives me deepest possible insight in my team members, which helps increase trust over time.

It is important to see and acknowledge the anxiety and uncertainty that is inherent in being a mentee. Offer support, reassurance and a belief that they can and sure enough they will.

Walk the talk. Honour integrity & transparency with them. Not only will you build a rapport with them, they will respect you an more importantly , they will turn out to be responsible and respectable members of a society.

As a manager at Google I went through several tough years when a peer manager was damaging people deliberately. People told me their stories and I had to escalate them at personal risk for two years before I was heard. It was a time of high stress and unsafety for me. At some point I shared with my team how heavy this was weighing on me. I asked them to take more responsibility escalating their stories to the right channels. In my manager feedback surveys after that, many team members commented positively on that moment. They deeply appreciated the high vulnerability I had role modeled, and felt safe to express their own vulnerabilities too. My openness increased trust and psychological safety despite the threatening situation.

One of 5 brilliant basics I advocate for in my book and trainings Managing Without Power, is 'collaborative setting of direction and expectations'. This includes: - writing team mission with input from the team - writing plans with team input - translating plans to quarterly OKRs for team and individual with a combination of bottom up and top down mechanisms It doesn't mean team members can do whatever they want. When personal ambitions are no longer aligned with what the team needs, you can have the right honest conversations early: is this still the right role for you? It is the ongoing open dialogue that matters, and that keeps you in tune with team members. Managingwithoutpower.com

A common mistake when it comes to feedback is the thought that feedback should be about things people can improve on. Managers are sent to feedback trainings and encouraged to give more feedback. At it's worst this becomes a hunt for people's flaws. Positive feedback is just as important as negative feedback. Not just 'thank you well done', because that's not feedback. It should be something along the lines of 'I saw you do x, y and z and the positive impact I saw was a, b, c'. When your team members know you notice the good things they do, and that you value those things, you build trust levels that help you land more difficult feedback on other moments. Both sides help them grow. Managingwithoutpower.com

David Maister points out the trust equation which is a combination of reliability + credibility + intimacy all divided by self transparency (ie. hidden personal agenda). By following through on what you siad you would do you create reliability which is an element of trust. This helps you build trust quicker.

Trust between teams and managers erodes through misalignment between words/ actions: e.g. saying DEI is important, while decisions about reward/progression are still biased. Trust requires a holistic approach reducing misalignment between words/ actions. It starts with 5 basics: 1. Meaningful conversations about career & personal growth: seeing the whole person, as unbiased as you can 2. Aligning direction and expectations in dialogue with team members 3. Meaningful meetings and consciously cultivating team norms (being role model for them) 4. Measuring progress & providing ongoing support/feedback for all 5. Fair predictable decisions about reward/ progression Trust cannot be built without these foundations. Managingwithoutpower.com