Want to Build Something Great? Foster Trust

The best teams—the teams that win championships, build empires, and bring home awards—have one simple thing in common… Trust.

In a “Me Centric” culture that values superstar individual performers and instant gratification above all else, the basic function of team-building is becoming a lost art. More often than not, creating something great involves the work of several people, cooperating and collaborating across-discipline on a common end goal. If that team doesn’t gel—if they don’t trust each other—no mythical Ninja/Rockstar/Guru will be there to save the day.

Fostering Team Trust

When a team trusts each other, they can count on each individual contributor to do their job, and do it with the benefit of the greater team goal in mind. When people work with trusted team members, they’re less anxious, and more invested in everyone’s success. Some techniques for fostering team trust:

• Plan social activities during and outside of work hours — socializing outside of the office will help team members get to know each other, find common interests, and view one another as people
• Encourage public praise — when colleagues praise each other for a job well done in front of the entire team, it helps build the credibility of both the praiser and praisee
• Keep your word — the biggest part of building trust is learning that your team members are people that you can count on. If you say you’re going to do something, do it
• Let subject matter experts (SME) be experts — if your lead developer is the SME on iOS development, don’t publicly question their judgement on topics related to iOS development. Encourage open dialog, but ultimately, allow the SME to make decisions related to their area of expertise (if your supposed SME turns out not to be such an expert, it’s time to find a new SME)
• Take an improv workshop together — Professional improvisors are the ultimate team members. The success of any improvisational scene relies on performers being open to whatever direction the scene takes while trusting their scene-mates to support them every step of the way

Chemistry Lesson

Let’s face it, team chemistry is critical. All team members should be involved in recruiting and interviewing prospective teammates. There is a good chance that you will have to turn away a candidate who is eminently qualified because they don’t gel with the rest of the team. Take heart, the ones you turn away are often the loner “Rockstar” types who are likely to cause more harm to overall team morale.

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