How to Build Teams that Trust Each Other
I asked top leaders to respond to three questions:
- What three words describe a great team?
- What three problems hinder great teamwork?
- What three things do great teams habitually do?
They wrote about trust, communication, ego, alignment, and more.
Successful teams are the result of leadership, not luck.
You’ve felt the pain of teams that struggle. If you’re fortunate, you’ve felt the joy of being part of a great team.
Great teams trust each other.
One leader wrote, “Great teams habitually do little things that build and reinforce trust.” Another leader wrote, “Make it safe for people to say what they actually think.”
Team members build trust when they:
#1. Make and keep commitments.
Trust is depending on someone to keep their commitments.
Confusion about commitments destroys teams.
When you don’t know the commitments of others, you give yourself permission to judge them by the expectations you impose on them.
Unclear commitments produce distrust, backstabbing, and gossip.
How to clarify commitments:
At the end of team meetings, ask, “What are your commitments?” If people have multiple commitments, ask them to rank them in order of importance.
Alternative question, “What’s your number one commitment as a result of today’s meeting?”
Anyone who consistently leaves team meetings without a commitment is irrelevant to the team.
#2. Know strengths, weaknesses, and passions.
It’s foolish and frustrating to expect performance out of weakness. You can trust people to perform well where they’re strong and passionate and poorly where they’re weak and don’t care.
You can’t trust someone who consistently drops the ball.
Consistent ball-droppers:
- Hope for performance from weakness.
- Don’t feel passionate about their responsibilities, goals, and tasks.
- Over-commit to pleasing people.
- Are on the wrong team.
Everyone on the team needs to know the top three strengths and weaknesses of everyone on the team.
How might you respond to the the three questions at the top of this post?
How might teams build trust?
Bonus material:
VIA Strength Assessment (VIA) – Free
The Best Ways to Build Trust within a Team (BKpub) – Article
What it Takes to Build Trust on a Team (TLNT) – Article
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Lencioni) – Book
The Fearless Organization (Edmondson) – Book
Your point that trust = clarity + commitment is powerful … and that the environment needs to be safe to seek clarity is profound.
It doesn’t allow much room for the passive-agressives … the backstabbers, the blamers, the gossipers, etc.
The final part of the equation is that clarity, commitment and trust build into courage, a passion that feeds all others.
Thanks Rurbane. Wow! Adding courage to the conversation is like adding a cherry on top of the sundae. 🙂
Dear Dan,
Loved your bringing in an interesting topic!
A great team is known for its Collective Commitment, Cohesive Efforts and Accountability, The Team Leader takes a responsibility of keeping the team’s spirit high with required coaching, practice and handling obstacles.
The trust can be built by defining the common goal, assigning individual tasks and its impact on the final outcome, the kind of planned efforts as would be needed and the benefits of timely achievement. A leader has to win the hearts of all team members by remaining fair, appreciable for the good work and using toughness for any deviation as may be required.
Thanks Dr. Asher. Your comment speaks to the importance of clarity when it comes to trust on teams. Confusion and lack of clarity test trust. Clarity seems like a foundation for trust.
Thanks Dan. Reminds me of playing team sports. Just like any sports team, everyone has strengths, which lead to roles/positions they play. Everyone does their job and the team succeeds. (New England bias showing)
Thanks Michael. Yes, once we know our strengths we can determine our roles. It’s always disappointing when people try to perform in weakness.
How might teams build trust?
It’s starts with the team leader being open and honest. It’s reinforced when team members consistently do what they say they will do.
What three factors describe a great teams?
1. Great team leader (solid balance between people and task skills)
2. Talented and motivated team members (they value excellence and continuous improvement)
3. Clearly defined roles and responsibilities
Where do people find all these passionate people for their teams? I look round, and I know the people on the team are passionate. They’re passionate about football, fishing, horses, motorcycles, Dungeons and Dragons… Are they passionate about quality systems, SOPs, computer validation, process improvement? Take a wild guess?
Can you try to tie the team objective into their passions? Ask the folks who like motorcycles how much fun it would be to ride one that always breaks down. Ask the folks who like football or Dungeons and Dragons how much fun it would to play if everyone had different rules they were following. Then remind them that the goal of the team is to ensure that the folks you work with (colleagues) or for (customers/clients) can do their jobs so much better/easier/faster. That helps give them context for their efforts. I have found that it works in most cases. And I am the Quality Assurance Manager for an audit shop, so I have a lot of experience in getting folks excited about teams that are working to ensure compliance with auditing standards and other terribly exciting topics.
Team trust can be a challenge even when people are able to physically see each other and work together. Given the current situation with physically distancing, the ramp of trust just got much steeper. Great teams are maintaining and growing trust as they meet virtually, focus not only on the work at hand, but on how the team members are doing as people.
As for passion, it’s important to hire the right team members, the ones who have a passion for the team’s work and mission. Trying to morph a passion for X into a drive for Y rarely, if ever, works.
In our work with teams, we emphasize a strong setup as the foundation, with the team engaging around common goals, why they matter and ways of working together. Even established teams can benefit from revisiting their setup, to align and recharge to achieve amazing results.
Yes, I have “felt the pain of teams that struggle” and I am extremely fortunate to currently (and for the first time ever) feel “the joy of being part of a great team.” I think what strengthened our team the most in the beginning was an open line of communication. When there was animosity among the team members, we decided to sit down and figure out the problem. We were each given the opportunity to speak openly, without being judged, while everyone else listened, and then we hashed it out. It made our team stronger and renewed everyone’s passion and commitment to the project. Unfortunately, we had to eliminate some weak links for the common good of the team, but that strengthened us as well. This is the best group of guys that I have ever worked with, by far!
Respect, communication, and leadership are essential to the success of any team. Members of any great team must have respect for their teammates not only as fellow professionals, but also as individuals. Interpersonal strife can be very disruptive to a team. This troublesome person is often referred to as the one bad apple that sours the bunch. Without respect, team members will not have the trust within the group dynamic that would enable them to share ideas and express concerns about what might be working and what is not. This leads into another essential quality for any successful team, which is communication. A respectful environment provides a space where people can openly communicate and share new ideas. It is easy to share frustrations and desires for change behind closed doors or at home, but often very difficult to do so to a boss or team. These frustrations can quickly turn to resentments which filter into daily work life and disruption to the team. However, it also takes appropriate leadership to foster an environment where the team feels they can throw out innovative and novel ideas and understand why these may or may not be integrated moving forward. This complex dynamic illustrates how all three of these qualities, among many others, must not only be present, but working together to promote a collaborative team.
Working in the healthcare setting is very much a team sport. When caring for patients, either human or animal, the team must be able to openly communicate and have respect for one another’s opinions and skills. If team members feel unable to communicate openly without fear of retribution or ridicule, mistakes may be made that could otherwise be averted. If a doctor makes a calculation error that a nurse catches, but that individual is too afraid to report it, this scenario could result in the life or death of a patient. Fear with lack of respect can severely hinder a team. Additionally, not having equal respect for the opinions and observations of team members of all levels on the team is troublesome. A janitor or assistant may see opportunities to make their job more efficient, but if their views are not respected by leadership because of their position, this may lead to resentments and a lost opportunity to improve health, safety, and happiness of the team members. Everyone, regardless of their position on the team, must be afforded the same respect.
I would say that most individuals have been members of a team that trust each other and members of a team that do not trust each other. Trust among team members is a key to the foundation with building a successful team. Having a crack in the foundation with trust, leads to an unsuccessful team. The team can look successful by still appearing to get the overall task completed, but once any adversity hits, the crack in the foundation is amplified. When adversity to the organization occurs, it is paramount that team members have trust among each other through the situation. As mentioned in the blog, team members must build trust which occurs over time. The keys to building trust mentioned in the blog are make and keep commitments, know strengths, weaknesses and passions. Making and keeping commitments sounds like a very easy task, but during adversity it can become a challenge. It is easy to make a commitment, but difficult to keep that commitment. For example, there are two team members A and B. Team member A has a time sensitive task and is overload, so team member A ask team member B for help with completing the task. At that current time, team member B does not have any pressing tasks so agrees to complete the task by the close of the business day. Then team member B’s manager brings a different task that must be completed or will have major repercussions to the business. So, team member B drops everything to complete the manager’s task including team member A’s task. Team member A is now betrayed that their task was not completed even though Team member B viewed the manager’s task as the most important. When difficult situations occur, it is key for team members to have excellent communication. If team members A and B have excellent communication, then the importance of manager’s task can be easily discussed.
Understanding strengths and weaknesses is an essential factor when building strong and effective teams. There are several self-assessments that you can take to understand your individual strengths. In my workplace, every team member takes the StrengthsQuest assessment, which includes a 40-minute questionnaire used to identify an individual’s 5 core strengths. This assessment is a key element of our onboarding process. I remember my teammates being excited to learn about my strengths when I first started. Personally, I found my results highly insightful and informative. My favorite strength is futuristic, which highlights my ability to easily remain focused on the big picture goals that inform my work approaches. I have always enjoyed envisioning the future possibilities of my work and life, which fuels my optimistic mentality. Equally, I think it is important to recognize your weaknesses. As leaders, it can be easy to overemphasize your strengths. However, embracing your weaknesses also helps reveal your humanity and practice humility.
I agree that trust is the key element that maintains relationships within teams. Within the field of public health, I especially think maintaining the community’s trust in our endeavors is particularly important. You noted that two main ways that a team can build trust are through sticking to their commitments and knowing their strengths, weaknesses, and passions. As a public health professional, it is important to consider how future initiatives can alter the level of trust that community members have with other public health professionals. For example, if we aimed to create job opportunities for low-income youth through implementing a new intervention, a major part of keeping our commitment is ensuring that our target population knows how to access the benefits of our program. In addition, I think understanding the gaps within our efforts is extremely important within public health. Centering community members’ lived experiences and knowledge help fill in the gaps within our weaknesses as both outsiders and professionals. All too often social efforts are made for communities instead of with communities. I believe that those blind-sighted efforts detrimentally impact the trust between the community and public health professionals.
Effective and productive teamwork is essential in any position at any job. There are many subparts that work in cohesion to make a great team, but trusting your team members is arguably one of the most important. Just like in any relationship, communication is a big key for success, but so is trust. If you do not trust your partner, whether that is a romantic partner, business partner, or co-worker, the relationship is doomed to not work out. The three questions that were asked to top leaders really make a person think about what makes a team great versus what makes a team fail. There are so many great points mentioned in this blog, but one that really resonated with me was the importance of allowing people to feel safe enough to tell the truth and speak their minds. In my previous and current places of work, this is something that has not always been the case. Recently, I have dealt with feeling the need to not speak up about how I truly feel about issues and situations that transpire at work in order to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. I believe this does stem from a lack of trust within my team members and a lack of leadership from my supervisor. Another fantastic point mentioned in this blog was that it is important to know all of your team’s strengths, weaknesses, and passions. Knowing these details about your team members would enable a better understanding of each other and allow people to be placed in positions and given job duties/responsibilities that better suit him or her.
A great way to build trust in general and also within a team is to have open and honest conversations. There are certain types of trust-building activities that a team could take part in to help build trust between each other. For example, going to an escape room and working together as a team to find clues and escape the room together would be a great exercise for team building. This is a fun, yet challenging activity where relying on and trusting your teammates is crucial to be successful in escaping the room.
Hi Dan – let me take a shot at this…
What three words describe a great team? Commitment, empathy, and respect
What three things do great teams habitually do? Communicate, respect one another, and remain focused on the goals without suppressing innovation.
Time provides truth and trust –
Hi Dan,
I personally think the strongest way to build trust amongst team members is “making and keeping commitments”. I think it is crucial for team members to be able to count on their fellow team members to do what they said they would do. No body is perfect and one team member won’t be able to do everything but if someone commits to a specific responsibility it is critical for the team member to follow up in doing so (to maintain uphold the team’s expectations and mission).
You’re right, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and it is important for team members to recognize these in both themselves and others so they can work stonier together as a team. Someone’s strength may be another’s weakness- in my opinion, this is ideal because it can allow for balance across the team. If everyone was good at the same things each team member would not be valued as much as being an important part of the team.
I think many of us fall into the trap of over-committing to please people. We all want to help others as much as possible and make a positive difference- however, there are only so many hours in the day and so much time you can dedicate.
I really appreciate the three questions you asked at the beginning of this post. Three questions I would say describe a great team would be: communication, efficiency, and timeliness. Three things that great teams do habitually would be these three same things: communicate well, work hard, and get things done on time. A problem that hinders these is anything that would violate these three factors. When these factors are violated, there is a violation of trust. Without trust in a team, it can be difficult to get things done. Trust is something that is paramount to getting work done. Trust in the workplace can take on a variety of forms. You can trust someone to be timely, and get to meetings on time, and to get their share of work done at a particular time. Trust could be trusting someone to give a certain quality of work. Building trust in the workplace may be a difficult thing to do, but it is very important. I think one way to build trust is with team exercises outside of the workplace. The more the group gets to know each other and enjoy being around each other the better they will work together and trust one another.
It would really benefit absolutely everyone to implement collaborative work and problem solving in grade one. When I entered college as an undergraduate and really experienced my first group project, it was a little jarring, especially being thrown in without any buffer. As a graduate student, group projects are usually initiated with a group agreement, something that puts it out there that everyone is responsible and if someone is failing, this how we’re going to handle it. One professor went so far as to have everyone list their biggest strengths and weaknesses when it came to group work. We discussed these things in our group and knew from the start how we could complement each other’s work styles. It was a wildly successful tactic. Work went so smoothly. We knew who could handle what task the most efficiently and thoughtfully because we took 5 minutes to do what felt like a really cheesy exercise. She also had us take the True Colors personality quiz that outlined what our work styles are like, what communication tactic each person responds best to, and why types of projects are best suited for that person. Again, felt incredibly cheesy, but it was so useful!
So, to answer the questions:
1) complimentary; compassionate; curious
As I mentioned with the class assignment, understanding from the very beginning, who has what strengths and what challenges can help a team to leapfrog right over the trial and error phase. Curiosity is just a great quality to have regardless. In a team, however, curiosity helps to avoid the blaming trap that can happen in group work. Blaming comes with a lot of assumptions and curiosity can help to quell that pitfall from the first sign of trouble.
2) hubris; deflection; doubt
3) discuss problems honestly and compassionately; check-ins; utilize other’s strengths
When there are hiccups in a team, whether it’s a clashing of personalities or a snag in the progress, being open to having honest discussions (based in compassion and curiosity, of course) makes for a much faster rebound. When you utilize someone’s strength to reach a common goal, it will foster way more pride than if they were working against a weakness/challenge. That means they will perform better and with enthusiasm!