Leading Effectively e-Newsletter - September 2008 Issue

Building Better Teams Through Trust: Steps You Can Take

Sue leads a high-profile, cross-functional team. As a star performer, Sue likes to be in the spotlight and is concerned about being upstaged by her teammates. She often keeps information to herself, thinking it gives her power and control. What she is really doing is breaking trust.

"Trust is the foundation of a team's effectiveness," says Michelle Reina. "Without trust, a team will not do more than just go through the motions of teamwork. In Sue's case, the team members' distrust cost her a promotion."

Reina, along with her husband Dennis Reina, are founders of the Reina Trust Building Institute and the authors of Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace: Building Effective Relationships in Your Organization, 2nd Edition (2006). Their work is at the heart of the "building trust" unit in CCL's new program, Leading Teams for Impact.

"Trust is built - or destroyed - by our behaviors," says CCL's Davida Sharpe. "Using the Reinas' framework, our clients gain a better understanding of trust and the behaviors that support trust within teams."

People earn the trust of others when they demonstrate three forms of Transactional Trust^™, according to the Reinas. They use the term "Transactional Trust" because it is reciprocal in nature. "You have to give trust to get trust," Michelle explains.

Contractual trust sets the tone and direction of the team. If you have ever been disappointed by someone who did not do what he promised, then you've experienced a betrayal of contractual trust. Maybe you schedule team meetings, notify people well in advance and get to the meeting on time, yet find yourself waiting for the same people who are consistently late. Or perhaps someone made an unreasonable request of you, putting you in a bind.

To strengthen contractual trust among team members, you will want to:

• Manage expectations.
• Establish boundaries.
• Delegate appropriately.
• Encourage mutually-serving intentions.
• Keep agreements.
• Be consistent.

Communication trust establishes information flow and how team members talk with one another. How willing are you to share information with others on your team? How do you decide what to share and what to hold back? What happens when someone questions the truthfulness of others?

How team members communicate with each other and how they speak about each other are clues to the level of communication trust. Guidelines for fostering communication trust include:

• Share information.
• Tell the truth.
• Admit mistakes.
• Give and receive constructive feedback.
• Maintain confidentiality.
• Speak with good purpose.

Competence trust allows the team to leverage and further develop skills and knowledge. Micromanaging is a sign that competence trust is lacking on your team. Maybe you've felt micromanaged or underutilized, or perhaps you rarely allow others to make decisions, assuming that no one can make decisions as good as yours.

To build competence trust it is important to:

• Acknowledge people's skills and abilities.
• Allow people to make decisions.
• Involve others and seek their input.
• Help people learn skills.

A starting point for building trust within your team is to ask yourself, "Which of the three types of trust am I best at cultivating? Which of the three types of trust is my weakest area?" Think of specific examples that show your capacity for building trust and those that reveal ways you diminish trust.

"So often we don't look at trust as something to improve on as leaders or in our teams," says Reina. "But we do choose to behave in ways than either support or undermine trust in the workplace."

To better understand the trust dynamics on your team, take the Reina Team Trust Quiz^® online!