“Trust is a foundation built one brick at a time” - Jeffrey Fry
I love working with teams and groups of people. The human being is already such a complex system, a beautiful combination of so many thoughts, previous experiences, backgrounds, values, beliefs and when teams come together all this complexity is multiplied as every team member has their own different thoughts, previous experiences, backgrounds, beliefs etc. I find all this variety very exciting and from my years of professional and life experience in different countries and environments, I am pleased to share that I have actually spotted more similarities than differences in people's behaviours. People have more things in common than they have initially thought regardless of race, gender, background, nationality, religion etc. As a facilitator and a team coach, it gives me absolute pleasure to be the connector between people and actually surprise them when they figure out the power of similarities and at the same time, the power of their differences.
One similarity and a key ingredient amongst all the brilliant teams I have worked with is the universal need of Trust and Safety. Two brilliant works out there support my statement:
5 dysfunctions of a team by Patrick Lencioni: https://www.mindtools.com/a6ooqev/lencionis-five-dysfunctions-of-a-team
Google Project Aristotle: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/what-google-learned-in-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html
According to Lencioni, the foundation of all cohesive teams is Trust. According to him an absence of trust is the most severe dysfunction that a team can have. Without trust, productive work and growth are almost impossible. Team members spend time and energy protecting themselves or undermining each other, instead of focusing on the work and goals of the team. On the other hand, when team members trust one another, they're willing to be open and "vulnerable" with the group. They trust that no one will attack them which in turn means that they can spend their time and energy on the work at hand.
The findings of Google Project Aristotle were very similar: Feeling safe in taking risks around your team members, aka Psychological Safety is the 1st characteristic for enhanced teams. And usually, you would feel safe, if you trust and are trusted.
I often ponder on the human's ability to trust ourselves and others and if psychological safety comes predominantely externally. So far my conclusions are that it is two folded and that everyone has a big part to play and influence their environment:
It's important to realize that trust has to begin with oneself. If I model to my teammates that I am trustworthy, that I trust myself and I trust them, they will trust me back and we will thrive in an environment of trust.
The more I dare to speak up and model “vulnerability”, the more people in my environment will be inspired to do the same.
That being said, it is not always obvious to model trust and psychological safety, especially if your team is fairly new or if there is a history of mistrust resulting in either conflict instead of team collaboration or maybe even worse: fear of conflict leading in the end to inattention to results.
Good news if your team struggles with those areas is that I will be delighted to help you.
“With gentle but firm guidance from Vanya we became a much more close-knit, effective and balanced team. Vanya facilitated numerous insightful sessions, fostering a collaborative environment, promoting continuous feedback, and establishing a culture of psychological safety, enabling everyone to be candid and authentic.” - Olga Evstafyeva, Team Manager Data Science
I wish you a day full of trust and safety!
