It is not the intention of this series of five articles to say what a team is or is not, but simply to identify what it takes to make a team excel. It is our hope that by dissecting the anatomy of a team we will be able to observe more clearly what makes them thrive. We will be using the acrostic of TEAMS as a way to categorize the critical elements. It is the competent deployment of these elements as a whole that determines the health of a team. As we all learned in seventh grade science class, dissected things don’t work. There is an interdependence or interplay as each element builds. For instance, we begin with “T” for trust. It is impossible, if not then, irresponsible to empower without trust.

Trustworthiness

A team is most productive when it is aligned around vision, mission, objectives, processes, and the like. But alignment will never be a realistic goal without trust. No amount of plaques, logos, or “team” building sessions will produce the alignment necessary for a team to excel. Stephen Covey observes that organizational alignment is a result of trustworthiness at the individual level and trust at the interpersonal level[1]. There is no chance for alignment if you do not have trustworthy individuals because people simply won’t trust each other. This duality of trust must be present at both the vertical and horizontal levels of the organization. Leaders must trust their followers but followers must also be trustworthy. And vice versa, followers must trust their leaders, but in turn, leaders must also be trustworthy. Greater and greater emphasis is being placed on the “trustworthiness” factor in employee selection and advancement. Simply put, high-performing teams are made up of people who are trustworthy.  Perhaps it is human nature to overly focus on “weeding out” the untrustworthy, but it is better and far more productive to start looking for characteristics of trustworthiness and promote them. Damage control is necessary, but it is easier to reach a goal knowing what we want rather than simply knowing what we don’t want. Besides, untrustworthy traits can be the result of the collective conscious of an organization. In other words, some practices deemed untrustworthy in one company can be seen as healthy competition in another. Another danger in the hunt for the untrustworthy is that we risk deeming people different from us as targets for mistrust (i.e. race, religion, gender, vocation, etc.). So what should we look for when it comes to promoting trustworthy behavior? Experts suggest we promote …

Trust

If the aforementioned qualities or characteristics are promoted, they become the seeds of trust. What is trust? A layperson’s exegesis, “I will keep my commitments and do you no harm and you will keep your commitments and do me no harm.”

Once only in the domain of Philosophy, the subject of trust is now garnering the attention of various academic disciplines as they attempt to better understand a dynamic that is credited for employee retention, building morale, inspiring loyalty, increasing personal significance, and stimulating high-performance. Though ambiguous in nature, trust can easily be observed in the following five ways.

Trust promotes the “abundance mentality” and discourages the “scarcity mentality” – this is easier said than done.  Partly because it is a perspective, a point of view, that colors a person’s outlook on life in general. In a trust-filled environment you will see team members celebrating each other’s achievement as their own. There will be less emphasis on me and more focus on we. Credit does matter and each team member will be sure to give it and receive it. If we run out of pie, we will just make another one. There is plenty to go around and you getting yours is essential to me getting mine.

Trust reduces the “fundamental attribution error” – we tend to explain behavior in terms of internal disposition (character), such as personality traits, abilities, motives, etc. as opposed to external situational factors (environment). As an example, John was late to work this morning because he is lazy and overslept. John’s being late was attributable to character (internal factors). I was also late to work this morning but it was due to the bridge being closed down to one lane. My being late was attributable to environment (external factors). The fundamental attribution error is wrongly attributing a cause to a behavior. It is normative for one to attribute environment for one’s own behavior and character for someone else’s behavior. Trust creates an environment in which snap judgments are suspended and explanations get an unbiased hearing. Trust allows you to give them the benefit of the doubt until otherwise proven.

Trust curtails qualifying – People qualify their remarks as a means of protecting themselves or their ideas from criticism. In effect, it works as a defense mechanism. “I know that some of you will not like this and I am not sure that I like it either but given the situation that is beyond our control and without any more information to go on, it is not my first choice and with reservation I suggest that we…”  Perhaps you have been in one of those meetings that should only last about forty-five minutes but gets stretched into hours because of all of the posturing and qualifying. Self-protecting qualifying is the enemy of quality. People fail to give their best–which leads to…

Trust affords you to take risks - A risk would not be a risk if there were not the possibility of failure. In many situations, risk-taking is necessary for new discovery and examining old problems through a new lens. In a trust-filled environment, the focus is not on blaming but rather on learning and progress. Thomas Edison’s team had multiple failures that were camouflaged from their famous successes. Edison said, “don’t call them failures, call them an education.”  Many organizations and people get stuck because they fear the consequences of being adventurous.

Trust fosters group cohesion – Group cohesion consists of the dynamics that make up the generalized state of a group. It is the individual sense of belonging or morale that one associates with the group to which they belong and the degree to which members are attracted to one another. Group cohesion is measured from high (resonance) to low (dissonance). The degree of resonance a group has directly effects group discourse which in turn shapes the mental models (strategy) and impacts performance–teams with high resonance are often characterized by greater levels of affinity, trust, satisfaction, and attraction. Studies have demonstrated that high group cohesion causes teams to function at a higher level than those that have low group cohesion. Trust is the number one hormone that allows group cohesion to grow.

Alignment

In an article entitled “Enemies of Trust”, Robert Galford and Ann Seibold Drapeau argue that it takes more than personal integrity to build a trusting, trustworthy organization. They suggest there has to be organizational trust – the trust people have not in any individual but in the organization itself.[2]  Are there double standards? Are the messages consistent? Are there “skeletons in the closet” that no one has the courage or freedom to talk about? Is it an organization where “no good deed goes unpunished?” Attention must be paid to the soul of the organization. Policies, practices, and the interaction of its people directly shapes the trustworthiness of an organization. Although we may refer to this realm of trust as the invisible culture, you don’t have to look very hard to see the difference between alignment and disarray.

Becoming a highly functioning team with trust isn’t easy … becoming one without it is impossible.

When you are talking teams, the best place to start is – Trust.

Click to download a PDF version