Talk to Me Nice: The Seven Trust Languages for a Better Workplace

The workplace of the 21st century is one of broken trust. Employees have been offered too many promises before being surprised by announcements of layoffs and reversals. Managers themselves have had to figure out how to motivate employees who can be work from offices throughout the world or from their own homes. Harts (Right Within), a consultant, develops seven workplace trust languages as a way for employers and employees to rebuild faith in each other. Based on concepts from Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages, Harts offers a new toolkit for communication, centered around trust languages that can be used to improve workplace dynamics. With a blend of humor, personal experience, and practical advice, Harts investigates how to use the concepts of sensitivity, transparency, security, demonstration, feedback, acknowledgement, and follow-through to develop a functioning workplace. Harts includes questionnaires, assessments, and end-of-chapter questions to help readers work through the process themselves. The book ends with a chart on how organizations on different paths of the seven languages can begin to institute them in a way that encourages trust.