Trust is the strength that enables you to encourage other team members to use their skills and abilities to help move the entire team toward reaching its goal. When you display trust in others, showing them that you believe in them and that you have confidence in their skills and abilities to contribute to the team’s success, they will trust and encourage you to use your skills and abilities to help reach the goal. Trust is an indispensable force in any relationship, and it is a powerful bond that team members can form to help them reach their team goal. Trust is the combination or convergence of three separate beliefs:
- The belief that your team members are competent and that they have expertise in the areas you trust them in.
- The belief that others are concerned, that they care for you and have your best interest at heart.
- The belief in others’ commitment – that they will do what they say and follow through on their commitments.
Mutual trust among all the team players creates congruency in thought, ambition, desire, and action. Teamwork bolstered by trust minimizes stress, eliminates misunderstandings, and saves time as you get more done. When you have team members who trust each other, you do not need to have lengthy conversations. Rather, you can almost speak in shorthand. These qualities in turn create synergy – the phenomenon that enables team members working together to accomplish much more than if they worked solo.
Trust develops respect among team members. Respect is required for any healthy relationship whether it is personal or professional. Teams are frequently made up of people who bring very different skills and abilities to the work group; their differences contribute to the strengths and capabilities for reaching the assigned goal. When all the team members assume their appropriate responsibilities, mutual trust and respect develop.
The team leader is responsible to recognize the skills and abilities of each team player well enough to know who would be best in each position. The team members must have confidence in the team leader to make team assignments and to ensure that the right players are in the right positions. In a band, the leader assigns responsibility for playing the drum to the person who can best play the drum. The leader assigns a trumpet player the responsibility of playing the trumpet. The band members in turn trust that the leader knows best and goes along with his or her direction. This kind of trust creates harmony, respect, synergy, and, ultimately, success.
Working in a climate of trust reduces stress and enables energy to be used more constructively. If two people in a rowboat paddle randomly, they expend twice the energy to get half the results. But if they paddle in sync, they double their speed with half the effort. The exact same principle applies in any organization when team members work together with a high level of trust. They work together more efficiently and effectively because they know they can trust the other team members to do their part. Their loyalty grows, and their level of job satisfaction increases. When workers are doing their best to contribute to the success of the team and they are enjoying their jobs, the result is always a higher level of success.
Trust is essential to reach the goal, to get the job done. Like any worthwhile accomplishment, there are no shortcuts to establish trust:
- Developing trust takes time, effort, and commitment.
- Building trust means doing what is right even when it is difficult to do.
- Trust means encouraging other team members even when you do not feel like it.
- Trust means always doing your best and not letting the team down.
These increased levels of synergy and success are not limited to the work team; they expand into every other area of the organization. Customers come to believe that your organization keeps its promises and genuinely cares about their needs. Expanding business is the ultimate result. Your organization makes a profit, you have job security, and you enjoy the personal satisfaction of having contributed to it all.
LMI Journal 12.2011
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