LEADERSHIP

The Recession Has Battered Most Accounting Firms. Here’s a Seven-Step Plan to Start Rebuilding Trust

A framework for action.

If trust has been broken in your accounting firm—and given the Great Recession, odds are, it has been—you must start now to rebuild it.

Michelle and Dennis Reina, authors of “Rebuilding Trust in the Workplace: Seven Steps to Renew Confidence, Commitment, and Energy” (Berrett-Koehler, 2010),  recommend a seven-step process, drawn from two decades of research, for healing and rebuilding trust.

To be sure, the seven-step process isn’t a silver bullet. But it may provide a framework for leaders to demonstrate courage and to take concrete, constructive, and compassionate action.