Building Trust In Teams
I am often called in to work with teams where trust is low.
A culture of low trust can build over time or be sparked by a one-off trust-crushing incident. Helping build a culture of trust in a team is a great way to buffer against adversity when it does happen. In my book Powered Up: Turning your strengths into superpowers, I look at how we can actively deal with trust crushers and put effort into trust builders. Here’s a sneak peak on this topic from my book:
Trust crushers
Like taking a hammer to a window, some behaviours are a surefire way to inflict damage to a relationship. When trust is damaged or broken, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to recover. When I work with teams, I often use the phrase, ‘What you ignore, you accept’. I’ve paraphrased Lieutenant-General David Morrison AO when he said ‘The standard you walk past is the standard you accept’.i
Accepted behaviour defines your team culture. If trust crushers are ignored, your team says, ‘It’s okay to behave that way around here’. Every team member is responsible for acting with care and calling out poor behaviour. Trust builders help create an environment where it is safe to call out poor behaviour and resolve the underlying reasons.
Trust builders
Every relationship and interaction with a person, company, product or service is based on three elements: expectations, needs and promises. One way to think about trust is to imagine a wall. Vanessa Hall has a handy trust model that uses this analogy.ii She says trust relies on our belief that our expectations will be met or managed, our needs will be met, and promises made to us will be kept.
Imagine that our expectations and needs, and the promises others make are all bricks in this wall. Some bricks will be more important than others. For example, our expectations include being paid on time and having regular meetings with our manager. We also expect reasonable people to work with and positive work relationships. Here are some other bricks in the wall of trust.
You can see that one of the foundation bricks uses strengths in Powered Up mode. Working skilfully with strengths means we are more in tune with ourselves and others. These are big trust builders. When we see people’s strengths and invite them to work in their most natural ways, we embrace diversity. We step away from the idea that there are right and wrong ways to do things. Instead, we explore how each team member can get the job done in a way that aligns with their strengths.
If you’re keen to learn more about building trust in teams and how to be a trust-building leader, check out my book. For a more tailored and intensive approach to supercharging your skills check out my coaching and development programs for leaders and teams.
