Trust-Building Workshop Agenda and Exercises

Overview

Purpose: Help a team get an evidence-based picture of how trust affects their work, practice vulnerability-based connection, align around shared values, and leave with concrete, ownerable commitments and manager actions that will be tracked over time.

Recommended duration: Half day (3–4 hours). Best used after a Team Health Diagnostic or when trust issues were flagged by a diagnostic audit.

Learning Outcomes

• Identify where trust helps or hinders team performance using observable behaviors and examples.
• Practice structured vulnerability-sharing to increase empathy and relational awareness.
• Create a short list of shared team values with practical behaviors attached.
• Agree on a commitment chart (who will do what differently) and manager actions to enable the commitments.
• Establish a follow-up plan for accountability and measurement.

Before the Session

• Pre-work (recommended): Share the recent Team Health Diagnostic or a brief anonymous trust inventory summary with participants so discussion uses evidence, not impressions.
• Materials: Sticky notes, markers, large paper or whiteboard, timer, printed commitment templates (table with Commitment / Behavior / Owner / Due / Success Indicator), projector or shared screen for remote teams.
• Room setup: U-shaped seating or small clusters to allow eye contact and pairs. For remote/hybrid: ensure reliable breakout rooms and a shared collaborative workspace (Miro, Jamboard, or the platform’s interactive form if available).
• Facilitator role: Hold a neutral stance, protect psychological safety, manage time, surface examples, and help translate feelings into observable behaviors and commitments.

Agenda (timed)

1. Welcome & Norm-setting — 10 minutes
2. Icebreaker: Trust Check-in — 15 minutes
3. Trust Inventory (structured evidence-based activity) — 30 minutes
4. Paired Vulnerability Exercise — 45 minutes
5. Break — 10 minutes
6. Align on Team Values & Behavioral Definitions — 40 minutes
7. Commitment Chart & Manager Actions — 35 minutes
8. Close, Follow-up Plan & Measurement — 15 minutes

Detailed Activities & Facilitator Notes

Welcome & Norm-setting (10 min)

Facilitator script: "Today is about making our day-to-day interactions clearer and more reliable. We’ll focus on observable behaviors and practical commitments. We’ll protect confidentiality of personal stories and agree to show curiosity rather than judgment."

Set four simple norms on a whiteboard: Be curious, Be concise, Notice behavior not motive, Own your requests. Ask the group to agree or add one quick norm.

Icebreaker: Trust Check-in (15 min)

Format: Quick round-robin. Each person offers a one-sentence answer: "On a scale of 1–5, how much do you feel able to ask for help from this team?" plus 1-sentence example to illustrate their number.

Facilitator tip: Encourage specific examples (a meeting, recent decision) to anchor feelings in events.

Trust Inventory — Evidence First (30 min)

Goal: Surface where trust exists and where it breaks down using behavior categories, not personality judgments.

1. Distribute (or display) these behavioral categories: Reliability (doing what you say), Competence (ability to deliver), Benevolence (looking out for one another), Openness (sharing information and rationale), and Accountability (owning mistakes and fixing them).
2. Individual (7 minutes): Ask each person to write 1–2 sticky notes for each category: one example of when the team does this well, and one concrete situation where it didn’t happen.
3. Group share (20 minutes): Cluster similar notes on the board. For each cluster, ask: "What happened? What was the impact on work? What could have been different?" Capture concise evidence statements (date, meeting, deliverable) where possible.

Facilitator note: Keep the conversation focused on observable events and impacts; redirect when the group drifts to blame.

Paired Vulnerability-sharing Prompts (45 min)

Purpose: Build empathy and awareness of constraints that affect trust. Vulnerability here means sharing a work-related difficulty, not personal therapy.

1. Form pairs (10 minutes prep): Instruct pairs to sit facing each other or enter a 1:1 breakout room.
2. Round structure (2 rounds x 15 minutes): One person speaks while the other listens without interruption for 6 minutes, then 3 minutes to reflect back. Swap roles. Suggested prompts:
   • "Tell a recent time you hesitated to ask for help on a work task. What held you back?"
   • "Share a moment you felt misunderstood on this team and what would have helped."
3. Debrief (10 minutes): Ask pairs to report one insight that surprised them and one small behavior they will try this week to make it easier for colleagues to ask for help.

Psychological safety note: Offer an opt-out: "If you’re not comfortable sharing, you may pass or speak in a smaller subgroup." If someone discloses a serious personal issue, pause and offer private follow-up, resources, and boundaries for group discussion.

Align on Team Values & Behavioral Definitions (40 min)

Goal: Turn abstract values into specific behaviors that signal trust.

1. Brainstorm (10 minutes): Ask each person to write 2 values they believe the team should stand for (e.g., "clear communication," "mutual support").
2. Cluster & Vote (10 minutes): Group similar values and vote to select the top 3 that matter most to the team’s immediate work.
3. Define behaviors (20 minutes): For each chosen value, capture 2–3 observable behaviors that demonstrate the value in action (e.g., for "clear communication": "Share draft decisions 24 hours before meetings," "Summarize action items at the end of each meeting").

Facilitator tip: Push to specificity. Encourage verbs and frequency. Aim for behaviors that can be observed and measured.

Commitment Chart & Manager Actions (35 min)

Goal: Turn insights into ownerable commitments and explicit leader actions that enable change.

1. Using the commitment template, invite the team to propose small, specific changes (one-sentence commitments). Example commitments: "I will post a 1-paragraph update on blockers twice weekly."
2. For each commitment capture: Commitment, Specific Behavior, Owner, Due Date (or cadence), How we will know it’s working (Success Indicator).
3. Manager actions: Ask managers to list 1–2 concrete things they will do to support the commitments (e.g., "I will remove unnecessary review steps for small tasks," "I’ll schedule 15-minute skip-level check-ins for the next month"). Record these as part of the chart with owners and due dates.
4. Prioritize: If there are more commitments than the team can handle, vote to pick the top 3 to implement in the next 6 weeks.

Facilitator tip: Make commitments small, testable, and reversible. Avoid broad aspirational statements without owner or indicator.

Close, Follow-up Plan & Measurement (15 min)

Agree on how to track progress: suggest short weekly check-ins (5 minutes) in stand-ups and a 6-week review tied to a simple indicator (e.g., "% of commitments followed through," or repeated quick trust-check surveys). Schedule the 6-week review now and identify who will collect data and report.

Optional: Use the platform’s interactive form (suggested) to capture commitments during the session so they are saved and can be tracked. See Capability Enhancement notes below for specifics.

Suggested Debrief Questions

• What behavioral evidence surprised you during the inventory?
• Which commitment would have the largest immediate impact on our daily work?
• What might get in the way of following through, and how will we surface those obstacles?
• What leader actions would make it safer to practice the commitments?

Remote / Hybrid Adaptations

• Use breakout rooms for pairs and a shared digital board for clustering notes.
• Ask remote participants to use their camera if comfortable; use explicit facilitation signals (raise-hand, chat) to manage turn-taking.
• Record commitments directly into a shared document or an interactive form so remote owners can edit and follow up.

Accessibility & Safety Considerations

• Offer multiple ways to participate (voice, chat, written notes). Allow opt-outs for personal vulnerability sharing.
• Be explicit about confidentiality boundaries (what will be summarized publicly vs. kept in private notes).
• If trauma or deeply personal issues appear, stop and offer private support or referral to HR or employee assistance, rather than treating that content as a group learning moment.

Measurement Ideas & Follow-through

• Track whether commitments were implemented on time (simple yes/no + short evidence note) at weekly stand-ups.
• Repeat the Trust Check-in (1–5 scale + example) at 3 and 6 weeks to gauge movement.
• Include a short post-workshop survey: perceived psychological safety, clarity of commitments, manager support (3 items each, rated). Use those metrics to guide the 6-week review.

Templates (copy into your workspace)

Commitment row

Commitment | Observable Behavior | Owner | Cadence / Due | Success Indicator | Notes

Trust Inventory categories

Reliability | Competence | Benevolence | Openness | Accountability

How this connects to the Trust Audit

This facilitation turns diagnostic signals into practice. The Trust Inventory makes the audit findings concrete by attaching examples and impacts. Commitments and manager actions create the prioritization the audit recommends.

Recommended Follow-up Actions (immediately after session)

1. Collect the completed commitment chart and publish a one-page summary to the team within 48 hours.
2. Manager schedules weekly 5-minute accountability checks and a 6-week review meeting now.
3. Facilitator or an assigned steward enters commitments into the team’s tracking tool (or the platform’s interactive form) so progress is recorded and reportable.

Sample Facilitator Script Excerpts

When redirecting blame: "Thanks — that’s useful context. Let’s try to describe what happened in observable steps so we can see what to change."

When a participant is hesitant to share: "You can pass if that feels unsafe. If you’re open, sharing one small example can help the rest of the team understand what support would help."

Use with THE Capabilities

Practical enhancement: capture commitments and weekly check-in responses using the platform’s Interactive Form and Content Data Submission capabilities so the team’s steward can save responses, produce a simple progress report, and surface outstanding actions at the 6-week review.

Appendix: Example Outputs

Example commitment: "I will post a 3-line update on blockers every Tuesday and Thursday in the team channel." Success indicator: "Updates posted twice/week for 4 consecutive weeks; at least two people acknowledge or offer help."

Best used after a Team Health Diagnostic or when a trust audit flags issues. This script is designed to be adaptable to team size and context — keep the focus on observable behaviors, small testable changes, and clear ownership for follow-up.