Proactive RTW Coordinators tend to be innovators—and innovators sometimes run into problems because the people they’re trying to help are suspicious of their intentions. This is not a new problem.
 
In 1800, Robert Owen, newly appointed manager of a large cotton-spinning mill in New Lanark, Scotland, observed that no matter what improvements he attempted to make in the workplace, workers suspected he was out to get them.

“The workpeople were systematically opposed to every change which I proposed,” he wrote in his autobiography, “And did whatever they could to frustrate my object.”

The problem, Owen felt, was that the workers suspected him of wanting “to squeeze as much gain out of them as possible,” with no regard for their health, wellbeing, or prosperity.

Despite his utilisation of child labour (then a staple of the industry), Owen thought of himself as a good guy. He wanted to increase productivity, sure, but he also wanted to improve the lot of his workers. Why was he the only one who recognised these good intentions?

Then, in 1806, fate presented Owen with what could have been a fatal blow. The United States abruptly ceased buying cotton from Britain, causing most cotton mill owners to close down their mills and fire their workers. Rather than doing the same, Owen made a calculated decision to earn the trust of his workers.

For four months, Owen paid his workers a full wage to simply perform maintenance on the equipment in the mill, at substantial cost to his business. He did not see this as throwing money away, but rather as a strategic investment, one that enabled him to “win the confidence and the hearts of the whole population”.

The Public Relations battle won, and the loyalty of his employees secured, Owen then had a free reign to implement other reforms, including:

• The elimination of summary firings;
• A reduction in working hours, from fourteen to ten and a half hours a day;
• Universal education for the children of his workers;
• Giving workers a right to appeal supervisor’s assessment of their work performance; and
• Cessation of the practice of hiring pauper children.

These reforms won Owen wide acclaim. In a ten year period, nearly 20 000 people visited the village of New Lanark, for the express purpose of seeing Owen’s revolutionary workplace for themselves.


However, as Owen’s fame grew, he became detached from the day to day running of the mill and devoted himself to campaigning for broader social reforms.

In the 1820s, Owen had another idea that he thought would be of benefit to both himself and his workers, but this time it didn’t go over so well.

Concerned about the potential for outbreaks of infectious disease, Owen proposed that workers increase their contribution to the communal sick fund, a kind of pooled workers’ compensation insurance scheme.

Now, however, the workers felt that the distant Mr Owen was attempting to impose his views on them, without consultation. A group of workers wrote to the board, asserting that:

We view it as a grievance of considerable magnitude to be compelled by Mr Owen to adopt what measures soever he may be pleased to suggest on matters that entirely belong to us. Such a course of procedure is most repugnant to our minds as men, and degrading to our characters as freeborn sons of a highly favoured Britain.

There were definite advantages for the workers in Mr Owen’s rudimentary insurance scheme, but they no longer trusted him. His approach was seen as heavy-handed. Instead of winning the hearts and minds of workers, he put their backs up.

In his zeal to make things better, Mr Owen lost sight of the need to earn, and maintain trust.

“Tact,” American advertising executive Howard W. Newton has said, “Is the art of making a point without making an enemy.”

It is an essential art for innovators.

For practical tips on how to build good faith in the workplace, check out our article Trust: Dos and Don’ts.

The story of Mr Owen is adapted from "A great place to work," by Robert Levering.