Building trust with a new team

Organisational change is inevitable.

People come and go. Teams get formed and disbanded. People you manage and the people that manage you change over time.

As common as this is in the corporate world, it is interesting that each time a change like this happens, things tend to get slightly worse before they get better again. But why is that? If this happens so often, shouldn’t this be second nature to us? Why aren’t we able to cruise through organisational changes?

The reason is simple.

Every time people change, you need to re-establish trust.

To varying degrees, this holds true even when someone joins or leaves your team. But the need to establish trust becomes much more evident when you join an existing team as a new manager.

Funny thing is, no matter how many times you have joined a team as a manager in your career, it’s one of those situations where you almost always in hindsight think back to ways you could have done it better.

Let’s explore some common strategies that can help make this transition less frictionful.

Why is trust important?

The biggest mistake that most new managers make when starting with a team is to jump right into establishing vision or setting goals.

When you consider that most individuals who get promoted to management positions usually get there by being high performers, this impulse makes sense. Thrown into new and unknown territory, it makes sense that they quickly latch on to what’s comfortable, and start taking control of the situation.

But the unfortunate thing is, this approach almost always ends up backfiring because,

Vision without trust doesn’t work

It’s important to realise that even though you have joined the team as someone of a senior rank, you are still an outsider in their eyes. And till you break through that barrier, most of what you say will not carry the weight you expect it to carry.

Instead of focusing on setting goals, rules of engagement, or milestones, focus on establishing trust with your team as fast as possible. The sooner you do that, the sooner you will be able to start providing value.

Set up 1:1s with all your direct reports

Within your first few days of joining the team (or even prior to that if possible), make it your primary goal to meet with all your direct reports. Just doing this will help get you set up as a manager much faster than any amount of time you spend digging into the code, or reviewing project management boards.

During these 1:1s, don’t use a typical meeting format like “What’s been going well / what’s not going well”. Instead, keep it focused on truly getting to know the person you are talking to. Find out what they are into outside of work. Are they a morning person, or a night owl? What are they passionate about?

Above all else, be present and actually, genuinely, listen. People don’t bring just their professional self to work, they bring their whole self to work. Get to know that person. Soon you’ll be spending more time with these people than your own family and friends.

Include 2–3 probing questions like:

• What excites you about the team and the work you are doing?
• If you were to change one thing about the way the team is working right now, what would it be?
• Who’s a great manager you’ve had in the past? How was it working with them?

Share yourself authentically

Share who you are and what you are about, and push past the usual one liner that you use to describe yourself.

The key to building trust and a strong relationship with your team is to be humble, vulnerable, and authentic. Don’t just talk about your strengths and what you bring to the table, also talk about past failures and how you learnt from them. As this study from Harvard Business School shows, revealing failures doesn’t tarnish your image. It helps you connect better and build trust faster.

Show that you’re in learning mode

If you just replaced a manager who used to be the most knowledgeable person in the room, the team’s transition to you as their new manager is going to be a bit turbulent.

Instead of trying to quickly replace the person that their previous manager used to be, establish upfront that your primary goal for the next few weeks is going to be to learn from the team as much as possible, so that you can start supporting them better in the future.

As a leader, it’s natural to feel like you should be the one with all the answers. But it’s important to push past that feeling and admit to the team that you are here to learn from them, and that you need their support to ramp up before you can start supporting them. Your transition from outsider to insider begins when you show your eagerness to learn and understand.

While you are onboarding, if you find the internal documentation to be lacking, take this opportunity to update it with what you are learning and run it by your team. It helps improve future onboarding on to the team and is also a great way to discover current pain points and areas with tech debt.

Make an effort to learn about the team’s culture, rituals, and stories

Every team has stories. Every team has rituals. You didn’t just inherit a group of people, you also inherited those. Book a lunch with the team and chat about what makes them who they are. Soon this will become a part of your identity as well.

Join them in the trenches

For the first few weeks, make room on your schedule to join the team as an individual contributor. Pick up a ticket or two from the backlog and try to take it over the finish line. If you need help getting more context, schedule a pairing session. There’s no better way to build trust than to work alongside your team.

This, by no means, is meant to be a comprehensive guide. With each team being unique, building trust also becomes a unique exercise. My hope is that the suggestions above can make your next transition over to a new team a bit easier and a bit less bumpy.