Building Trust
This is part 6 of a 14 part series describing my professional philosophy. Part 5 can be found here.
I’m willing to bet that somewhere along your career path you have been included in a team which had one or more of those individuals that you just couldn’t trust. It was because of things that they’ve said to you or colleagues, through their actions, or for just no reason you could pinpoint. Either way — you just didn’t want to be around them or have anything to do with them, let alone rely on them for completing something on the project. But there you were — spending way too many hours a day with that individual or group and thinking to yourself the whole time, “we’re never going to succeed”.
That sucks, doesn’t it?
That’s point 5 of my philosophical tenets: Trust is the most important factor in relationships.
Without trust, it’s a zero-sum game. Lack of trust is the number one cause for team dysfunctions. (Lencioni, Patrick. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. 2002.)
Why is trust such a key component to team dynamics? Because without trust, people are vulnerable, and they will not speak up or reach out to other team members for fear of retaliation or ridicule. I’m sure you KNOW what that feeling is like.
Trust is a two-way street; you must walk your path of trustworthiness and the other party has to walk theirs. You can’t make people more trustworthy — but you can make yourself more trustworthy.
First, be open and honest. This is not an easy feat, especially when you are trying to create more trust with someone that you don’t trust. Regardless, be open and be honest.
Remember that honesty has its own level to monitor — there is such a thing as being TOO HONEST. A favorite saying that I use a lot:
“There is a fine line between being BRUTALLY HONEST and being HONESTLY BRUTAL.”
Next, ask questions. Maybe the trust isn’t there because you don’t know enough about one another. Trying to trust a blank slate is just faith and not a lot of people give that away.
When I bring new teams together, I start with a question & answer session that I learned from one of my master’s professors. I pose the below questions to generate some camaraderie and conversation which helps people learn more about others’ backgrounds, struggles, and strengths.
- Where are you from? [Basic geography to give an idea of how you may have grown up.]
- What’s the most interesting place you’ve lived/visited? [Good clean ice breaker. Can be a ‘wow’ moment for many.]
- How many siblings do you have and what is the order? [Revealing if someone is the eldest, middle, or youngest. Can indicate traits of their established behaviors.]
- What was your first job and what lessons did it teach you? [Did someone learn quality life skills from a job at a young age or not until after college?]
- What was the biggest challenge you overcame in your life? [Very sensitive and optional. I always include this to see who answers. It usually reveals who has wrestled with their demons already.]
- What is the one word you would use to describe yourself? [Looking for the blend of cockiness and humility.]
- What person (past/living/fictional) would you have dinner with? [Just an interesting discussion point at this stage. Can reveal who the individual’s heroes are.]
- What else do you want your teammates to know about yourself? [Catch all in case the first seven responses weren’t revealing enough!]
I don’t require answers to all the questions, but at least five of them. Each is designed to reveal a little something about the responder that can help build the trust required for team success. I answer them all myself and send them out in an email or message stating that I would like them to be prepared to answer at least five at the next team gathering.
I have yet to encounter someone that wouldn’t answer them, and I have yet to see a group of individuals be pushed further apart following this profound session.
Recommendation — this is an ‘end of the week’ kind of session. I send this out on Tuesday for a Thursday afternoon/Friday morning call. I also highlight that if the individual has any problems with the questions, come talk to me or bow out of the session. I’ll make an excuse for the person. I don’t impose this on anyone, and I do not want to create greater tension or trauma for anyone not fully prepared for this line of discussion. But I haven’t encountered that yet either.
If you have done something like those probing questions, then you’re working to build trust as well. There’s no magical formula — it takes time to build trust, but it only takes an instant to destroy that trust. Have conversations with the team about what breaks trust for them. That will be a revealing session too.
Finally, remember this: Trust is like a sheet of paper — breaking that trust is like crumpling up the paper. You can smooth it out and go on, but it will never be the same.