Twist on Trust Destroys Best Teamwork – A Team Building Story
by Kate Nasser | 20 Comments »
Much is said and written about developing trust to build great teams and teamwork. Yet a twist on trust (or perhaps a twisted view of trust) destroys the best teamwork. My team building article today is short in length yet big in impact. Here’s the story, the lesson, and the call to action for leaders.
The Story
A team leader and one of this team members were working on a project together. The team leader is both analytic and conceptual. He has a great ability to see how things will fit together even during the early stages. As he was communicating the various pieces of the project, his team member asked for the order of how the pieces would fit together. The team leader’s response was trust me.
The team member listened a while longer but got more and more lost. This time he said to the the team leader: “I am lost. But if we could go over the order of how this fits together, it will bring me back on track .” Once again, the team leader’s response was “Trust me. I am here for you. You are too nervous.”
Hiding his frustration from the team leader, the team member explained that it wasn’t a matter of trust. It was about how people learn and absorb information. Just because the team leader understood what he himself was saying didn’t mean that others understood him.
The Lesson Questions do not automatically mean a lack of trust. It could simply mean a lack of understanding. Questions are also a sign of interest and teamwork. Do you or your team members misjudge questions as a sign of mistrust or lack of teamwork?
Call to Action! In this story it was the team leader who twisted trust as a substitute for good communication. Another time it could be a team member. Is this occurring on your teams? Do you have anyone substituting a call for trust for clear communication?
This twist on trust can destroy the best teamwork because confused people disengage. When the communicator isn’t clear and won’t clarify, other members of a team lose trust, respect, and interest in the team goals. Look around your team. Observe and listen. If this is happening, coach the trust twisters to improve their communication. The individuals, the team, and the business will benefit in the end.
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, has been doing team building and improving teamwork in companies for over 20 years. Her intuition, insight, and practical solutions to teamwork issues deliver tangible bottom line improvements to your business.
There are many times a team leader is not able to share details of a plan with team members. Sometimes the details of a plan change as its being developed. In other instances the resources and team members necessary for the project may change as the plan develops. The point is, while communication to team members is essential so they understand their role, the need to understand the entire project and its implementation may not be practical and may actually distract team members from their assigned task.
Hi Jim,
It is true that sometimes a leader cannot share certain information. Yet if a leader is sharing information, s/he must make sure that the team members do understand what s/he is saying. In this case, the team member was making it clear that he didn’t understand what the picture the leader was outlining and couldn’t do his assigned task in a confused state.
“Trust me” is not a great response to confusion. Explaining with different words to clear up the confusion works much better.
Kate
A Team Leader should also see himself/herself as a Coach and provide guidance when called upon. One of his/her duties is to communicate in an effective manner in order to get the job done in a timely and efficient manner. If he/she does not have all or full details to share, then he/she has to handle the communication in a professional manner so as not to confuse the team member.
Hi Kate,
Great blog and more importantly a great subject; should we trust…..I am a person that has been a victim at senior management level as I believe to trust is to receive in the same, unfortunately life and business do not necessarily work in the same all the time!
In my professional opinion teamwork is essential for competing in today’s global arena, where individual perfection is not as desirable as a high level of collective performance. In knowledge based enterprises, teams are the normal rather than the exception.
A critical feature of these teams/groups is that they have a significant degree of empowerment decision-making authority. There are many different kinds of teams: top management teams, focused task forces, self-directed teams, concurrent engineering teams, product/service development and/or launch teams, quality improvement teams, and so on, but the critical factor is do they trust one-another, I suspect not!
Have a great day and thank you for sharing!
Geoff
I would be very annoyed if someone replied “Trust me” to a question that I asked. It’s a bit like saying, “Be quiet and stop asking.”
Communication can actually build trust over time.
Great post.
Lara
Dear Kate,
Excellent Story.. here is my take:
A team leader should gain/build trust not forced to his peers or team members. I always believe that for the person who knows the solution of an encounter problem it is seems the solution as trivial but for the ones who has never seen the problem it could be a mountain to climb. Therefore, you should train or/and teach others with simple explanation and should not convolute trust into the mist of the training. However, your reward as a trainer would be their trust in your future guidance.
Have a wonderful day.
Mussie
What a great resource!
Found your site on del.icio.us today and really liked it.. I bookmarked it and will be back to check it out some more later.
I think what’s important for leaders to remember is that most times, their employees don’t need to know the details but rather have a better sense of the context of how their work fits into the bigger picture. In the example above, it would be easy for the project leader to explain how the employee’s work contributes or fits in to the bigger scheme without necessarily revealing any information that’s ‘under review or consideration’.
Most employees are fine not knowing all the details of what goes on in their organization. But having a concrete understanding of how their work contributes to the project is vital to keeping them engaged and active in the process.
If a team is involved in a project, they need all the details of the project. I am an IT manager, and I’ve had a senior manager attempt to mentor me with the advice to only tell people what they need to know. The next topic at that meeting was how he was upset that the networking team didn’t disclose a potential problem in a new project. I didn’t say it, but since he had only told them what he thought they needed to know and not what they really needed to know, he jeopardized the project. The teams have no respect for a team leader who withholds information or tells the team that he can’t tell them the full scope of the project. Yes – details change. And those changes MUST be communicated to the project team(s), as they occur. I don’t know what kind of projects Jim has worked on where it’s not practical for the team members to understand the project and its implementation. If team members don’t understand, they may not perform an important task OR an important task may end up not being assigned. Secrets and omission are death to successful project completion and ongoing success afterward.
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great post as usual!
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Great site. A lot of useful information here. I’m sending it to some friends!
Keep up the good work, I like your writing.
Kate – a most thoughtful post that illustrates an all-together-too-common management problem: “I-have-all-the-answers-itis” coupled with substandard communication skills…a very bad combo!
Thanks for your comment Jane. It is oh so true as you say that people use “trust me” when they mean “Let’s not discuss this”. Problem for sure because trust is a fragile yet critical part of the leader/teamwork relationship. If a leader truly cannot divulge details of something, s/he should state that clearly and communicate when they can.
I always welcome your comments…
Best,
Kate
Thanks for your comment in my blog kate. This post of yours really extends what I said. It’s a must read.
Karthi