Values and Trust Viewgraphs (circa 1990), These viewgraphs are from presentations I started giving in 1990 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory about how to build trust in the workplace. I was concerned with the amount of distrust and fear employees had of Laboratory management. Over the next few years I gave this presentation dozens and dozens of times both to groups within the Laboratory and to organizations within the town of Los Alamos. In this presentation I identified: (1) the sources of the distrust/fear and (2) the actions management must take to begin to rebuild trust.

Shared Values, These notes (Feb. 20, 1990) formed the basis of the Values and Trust Viewgraphs (above). I wrote them to organize my thoughts as to why there was so much distrust and fear in our Lab. I was particularly concerned with the amount of fear the recent reductions in force (RIF) were causing. Of particular importance is the “Onion Layer Model”, found in Appendix 2 of these notes. This model of “RIF management” will give employees considerable protection during Laboratory budget uncertainties by developing protective barriers so we would not immediately jump to the RIF as a solution to budget problems. A RIF should be the last action we take, not the first action. The implementation of such a model would demonstrate to our employees that we care about them and they are important to us.

Values and Trust Manual (circa 1999), This is the manual I developed for workshops in Trust Building at companies, universities, and government agencies. This manual evolved over nearly 10 years, beginning with the Values and Trust viewgraphs of the early 1990s, listed above.