Why and how to build trust within the team?
Years ago, the businesses, especially large ones, used to have hierarchy and autocracy as a main drivers of the organisation function elements. There were a few top-managers who basically made most of the important company decisions and all the employees simply followed their vision.
Time has changed and new type of organisations convert themselves from concentrated power of top-managers to flexible structures and flat type of the organisations, where decision signals are passing through much faster. What is important in such way of work? There are many aspects, but it"will not fly" without the trust in the team.
The trust is in our minds, not in the meetings with employees explaining where are we heading to and what decisions we recently made and why. There is no doubt, we shouldn’t leave our people to be blind on what is going on in the business and they must feel their involvement into the organisation’s work, know company performance and get a true feeling that they are an important piece of the whole firm, so they become a true part of our tribe.
Such explanatory meetings, where top-managers play a top role, explaining rest of the team what and why, should be converter into a different approach and must be carried by the people sharing their experience with rest of the teams and leaders take a part of them as employees, providing their recent experiences on the field of strategy or global organisation changes — basically on their field of work, contributing into a global company success.
This is about everything, positive achievements, extreme market changes, black swans, cost cutting, organisational changes — empower your employees with ability to become leaders in their job, it is only possible when you trust them giving a freedom of speech — rising ideas and truly consider them, giving a feedback of what they think about recent business activity, or about changes you want to make.
Every person in the room wants to be proud of his or her achievements. It shouldn’t be prized, it should be acknowledge by the people around him/her. It isn’t important give a bonus that big, it is important for people have their aims, help them to make it happen as much as we can and celebrate the achievements.
Listen to your people, they might see the changes much faster than you do. Being a leader in a firm we are always busyand it is easy to loose the momentum when little shifts spark a mainstream switch. It could be something small what customers love now, or dramatic replacement of the business-models. People working on their field will notice it muchfaster than you will do and if they are not encouraged to share or have a fear of talking to "the big boss", you will never know it from them.
When I only joined a good company, I worked with an electronics design engineer who later became a part of my own team. He is a hard-working person and always was open to me and our colleagues, giving a feedback and making things happen. I can say we were friends.
Some day, our company leader made a decision to pass part of my work, including this engineer under another team which was responsible for software development for this device and I made a mistake — I didn’t give a heads up to this person before announcing it among many people.
He was pissed off, because he made a lot for this project be successful and didn’t get a proper support from software side. It destroyed the relationships and trust forever. I also seen other people making the same or similar mistakes which give very similar results.
Always prepare your employees for changes you planning to make and never give those changes on a meeting with other people involved — only before it and only with two.
I always do my best to give a feedback to my people and ask them to give feedback on my actions. I trust it is only option to have trust within the team and let people trust you as a leader.
Just looking into what is happening around me, want to express that I know something which kills team´s spirit and cause people’s frustration the most, even people who are very loyal, supported and team´s result driven. This thing we call in difference. Indifference to an effort, results, hours and hours of hard work and etc. I think you know what I mean. Something what happens with blind and egoistic leaders. Don´t be such a person, the leader cares, gives feedback and helps to achieve.
Why trust is important. Seems the answer is obvious, but it’s better to review it and understand better all the motivations to build the trust between team members and all the company members.
So, what is a real reason we want to build trust in the team?
If I trust, I feel comfortable.
If I trust, I know you help me.
If I trust, I don’t expect politic games.
If I trust, I don’t expect a fight.
If I trust, I will not hide information.
The trust also enables an ability to have a constructive conflict which is crucial in decision making process. You remember, a post about importance of complete dataset — so, think about how we make decisions and what opinions and complete picture of the situation make us think, review and listen. The same thing — if we trust each other, there is no reason to hide information, there is a reason to share your opinion, there is a need to be heard. Team members who experience a deep interpersonal trust capable to find the best possible solutions to any challenge.
Time has changed and new type of organisations convert themselves from concentrated power of top-managers to flexible structures and flat type of the organisations, where decision signals are passing through much faster. What is important in such way of work? There are many aspects, but it"will not fly" without the trust in the team.
The trust is in our minds, not in the meetings with employees explaining where are we heading to and what decisions we recently made and why. There is no doubt, we shouldn’t leave our people to be blind on what is going on in the business and they must feel their involvement into the organisation’s work, know company performance and get a true feeling that they are an important piece of the whole firm, so they become a true part of our tribe.
Such explanatory meetings, where top-managers play a top role, explaining rest of the team what and why, should be converter into a different approach and must be carried by the people sharing their experience with rest of the teams and leaders take a part of them as employees, providing their recent experiences on the field of strategy or global organisation changes — basically on their field of work, contributing into a global company success.
This is about everything, positive achievements, extreme market changes, black swans, cost cutting, organisational changes — empower your employees with ability to become leaders in their job, it is only possible when you trust them giving a freedom of speech — rising ideas and truly consider them, giving a feedback of what they think about recent business activity, or about changes you want to make.
Every person in the room wants to be proud of his or her achievements. It shouldn’t be prized, it should be acknowledge by the people around him/her. It isn’t important give a bonus that big, it is important for people have their aims, help them to make it happen as much as we can and celebrate the achievements.
Listen to your people, they might see the changes much faster than you do. Being a leader in a firm we are always busyand it is easy to loose the momentum when little shifts spark a mainstream switch. It could be something small what customers love now, or dramatic replacement of the business-models. People working on their field will notice it muchfaster than you will do and if they are not encouraged to share or have a fear of talking to "the big boss", you will never know it from them.
When I only joined a good company, I worked with an electronics design engineer who later became a part of my own team. He is a hard-working person and always was open to me and our colleagues, giving a feedback and making things happen. I can say we were friends.
Some day, our company leader made a decision to pass part of my work, including this engineer under another team which was responsible for software development for this device and I made a mistake — I didn’t give a heads up to this person before announcing it among many people.
He was pissed off, because he made a lot for this project be successful and didn’t get a proper support from software side. It destroyed the relationships and trust forever. I also seen other people making the same or similar mistakes which give very similar results.
Always prepare your employees for changes you planning to make and never give those changes on a meeting with other people involved — only before it and only with two.
I always do my best to give a feedback to my people and ask them to give feedback on my actions. I trust it is only option to have trust within the team and let people trust you as a leader.
Just looking into what is happening around me, want to express that I know something which kills team´s spirit and cause people’s frustration the most, even people who are very loyal, supported and team´s result driven. This thing we call in difference. Indifference to an effort, results, hours and hours of hard work and etc. I think you know what I mean. Something what happens with blind and egoistic leaders. Don´t be such a person, the leader cares, gives feedback and helps to achieve.
Why trust is important. Seems the answer is obvious, but it’s better to review it and understand better all the motivations to build the trust between team members and all the company members.
So, what is a real reason we want to build trust in the team?
If I trust, I feel comfortable.
If I trust, I know you help me.
If I trust, I don’t expect politic games.
If I trust, I don’t expect a fight.
If I trust, I will not hide information.
The trust also enables an ability to have a constructive conflict which is crucial in decision making process. You remember, a post about importance of complete dataset — so, think about how we make decisions and what opinions and complete picture of the situation make us think, review and listen. The same thing — if we trust each other, there is no reason to hide information, there is a reason to share your opinion, there is a need to be heard. Team members who experience a deep interpersonal trust capable to find the best possible solutions to any challenge.