Building trust
Trust is an essential ingredient in high functioning teams. Without trust, a work relationship is ‘broken’ or sterile at best. Trust enables relationships to be mutually beneficial. Speed and accuracy of interactions are enhanced, leading to far greater quality and quantity of output from teams.
Consider ways to strengthen the trust between members of your team. They don’t necessarily have to like each other, but it is worth the effort in striving for trust and integrity in their working relationships.
Encourage and recognise those who are (including yourself!):
- Being direct and truthful; neither hedging or being too direct.
- Presenting the unvarnished truth in an appropriate and helpful manner. Yet, not pushing openness and honesty to the point of being disruptive.
- Keeping confidences. Following-through.
- Admitting mistakes. Don’t jump to blaming others for own mistakes.
- Not misrepresenting him/herself for personal gain.
rust can take a long time to cement but can be lost in a breath. To keep trust ‘alive’, guard against:
- Avoiding conflict – skirting around issues, or simply physically avoiding contact
- Not ‘walking the talk’; inconsistency in action and behaviour
- Hedging or holding back. This is seen in making statements conditional or qualifying them.
- Being overly ambitious
- Spreading self too thinly; seem unable to no
- Being too anxious ‘to make the sale’. In other words, too enthusiastic to get their point across.
- Treating others differently; not acting fairly.
- Not taking a stand i.e. not acting with integrity.