Building Trust
Part 1 of our new series: The 5 Functions of a Team
Yesterday I finished reading (well, listening to, but same thing, right?) Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. If you are currently or ever plan to be a leader I highly recommend it. It’s a short fable of a defunct executive team that, with the help of their new conscious leader Katherine, turned a failing company around. Credit to Jim Franklin for turning me on to the book. Thanks! In homage to Mr. Lencioni and his book I’ve created this series detailing our experience with the 5 dysfunctions and becoming each other’s ‘first’ team.
If there’s anything I’ve learned in Techstars, it’s team, team, team. When we were interviewing I knew the team was important to Techstars, but in hindsight I didn’t grasp just how important and I certainly didn’t understand why. Looking in from the outside at all the teams going through Techstars, then seeing those that emerge on the other side in tact, it's easy to envision the program as some sort of mythologically difficult obstacle course.
What I wasn’t prepared for, was that the only obstacles would come from the people sitting on either side of you during your team’s founders interview trying to get in. What I realize now, is that more than anything else, trust is what creates a great team, and in turn a great company.
Vulnerability is the key to trust
The key to building trust, is in being vulnerable. I used to disagree with this concept. My story with vulnerability is eerily similar to Brené Brown’s story of understanding vulnerability. Now, I don’t see how I didn’t grasp this concept before. Being vulnerable requires the trust that whomever you’re being vulnerable with won’t turn around and use that against you.
It takes courage and confidence to be the first to offer up the gift of vulnerability.
While many people view being vulnerable as being weak, it is actually the exact opposite. It takes courage and confidence to be the first to offer the gift of vulnerability. For a moment, the balance is uneven. This is why on a team, to build trust, it is the leader that has to offer their vulnerability up to the others. For the team, this makes their leader seem more human, and they realize they’re not so different. Its a sign from a place of authority that it’s ok to be vulnerable. This is the environment where ideas, problems, thoughts, concerns, questions, and all sorts of important information can freely be shared amongst the team. This is the kind of team that solves problems at their first appearance, and where no one is afraid to contribute to the teams success.
Imagine a team where the leader is invulnerable. What happens when, invariably, something goes wrong? Someone messed up? We all know how it feels to have to tell a superior about a mistake. If that superior has never shown you their mistakes, telling them about your own mistake will feel shameful. You’d be better off just not telling them as long as you can, burying the problem for as long as possible. That kind of team will always fail in the long term.
Where this lead our team
Only in the last few weeks have we greally grabbed ahold of this concept. After some amazing talks led by Jerry Colonna and Sue Heilbronner on listening, being vulnerable, and conscious leadership our team really turned our attention inward to see what we’d been missing. I’m not going to say we snapped our fingers, waved our ‘Woo Woo’ wand, and everything was better. Just like in a committed marriage, it is hard work and requires time and energy to get to the root of some of our biggest and long standing problems.
This brings me to Seth’s recent decision to part ways with the company. For the longest time we all understood “trust” the way it is commonly understood. To mean something akin to dependable. The turning point in our team’s relationship was when our understanding of trust shifted to mean more so that we could trust each other to not use our vulnerabilities against us. As a team we decided Seth could use a week away from the Techstars environment. He trusted that taking a week off wouldn’t later be used against him. He trusted that we weren’t thinking any less of him for taking the space he needed.
After a week to himself Seth returned and let us know his decision. This time, again, trusting that our friendship wouldn’t be damaged by doing what was best for him. While its never easy parting ways with such a close friend (I assume I’ll still be seeing Seth quite frequently, but certainly not every day of every week anymore), I’m glad our team has been so mature and learned so much from the situation. A founder leaving a start-up can go wrong about 1,000,000 ways. For Seth and I this is the 2nd time we’ve had this experience and remained friends. I’d like to believe its because of the trust we have and how well we understand each other. Though, just in case, I’ll knock on wood 😉.
