Repairing Workplace Trust: A Process-Based Classroom Exercise for Management Education Abstract
Luke A. Langlinais, Ph.D. Department of Management
Activity Phases Students read scenarios and role-play 1. Diagnosing the Trust Violation 2. Understanding Emotional Responses 3. Selecting Reparative Actions 4. The Trust Repair Conversation 5. Reflection and Debrief Outcomes: better judgment, empathy, and communication skills for conflicts
Acknowledgments The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the Belmont Formation Collaborative, the Formation Scholars Cohort, the Kern Family Foundation, and peer reviewers David Park and Gideon Park.
Trust is essential in every workplace, but conflicts, mistakes, and broken promises are inevitable. This project develops an experiential classroom exercise where students work through workplace scenarios, take the perspectives of both individuals involved in a trustviolation, diagnose and identify the underlying issues, and practice selecting and articulating appropriate responses (i.e. substantive and non-substantive repair strategies).
Trust Repair Matrix