High-performance teams are built on trust. Here are 5 key techniques to increase yours

High-performance teams are built on trust. Here's how to earn more and increase production.

As a strategic coach, my job is to help senior teams develop a clear plan for creating a differentiated market position that will drive profitable growth and build leadership capacity for execution. And having worked with dozens of teams across multiple industries, I’ve discovered many common challenges that all companies face.

At the top of the list is a lack of trust in leadership. This can show up as apathy toward objectives, a lack of commitments or accountability, politics, and personal agenda, or even outright hostility and conflict. Left unaddressed, these will undermine team performance and create animosity.

Here are five things you can focus on to address the issues head-on and build trust. The sooner and more directly you tackle these issues, the sooner you’ll see better results and avoid bigger problems.

1. Get to know each other

The foundation of any high-performance team is the web of individual relationships. A team made up of individuals who know each other as people, appreciate their unique strengths and weaknesses, and know about each other's personal histories and lived experiences will have the connective tissue in place to weather any storm. Teams of people who see each other merely as co-workers, or worse: competitors, will never reach their full potential.

I start all of my strategy and planning meetings with team exercises. These are specifically designed to take members out of their normal day-to-day roles and force them to interact in new and different ways. The goal with all of these is to create common bonds and appreciation that can be taken into strategic exercises and day-to-day operating interactions.

2. Create psychological safety

Fear kills culture. If an individual on a team is worried that what they do or say will be dismissed, judged, or retaliated against, they will not only resist openly sharing their ideas and opinions, they will resort to engaging in these same destructive behaviors. This creates a vicious cycle that can be difficult to reverse.

A high-performance team will have a clear set of ground rules that set basic working agreements for creating a safe and open space for sharing ideas and opinions. Making sure that conversations are confidential, agreeing not to engage in personal attacks, and making sure everyone has a chance to be heard are core to any team’s list.

3. Clarify business and team priorities

One of the key things I do as a strategic coach is to help teams clarify their purpose and their biggest goals. Often I find that teams are struggling to align and work well together because they lack a common vision for the future and a clear set of shared priorities. If people are pulling in different directions, it doesn’t matter how hard they try–they won’t get far.

Alignment starts with a clear articulation of the company, team purpose, and BHAG (big hairy audacious goal), followed by a well-defined set of cascading objectives and key results for getting there. These may be vague at first, but through an iterative process of exploration and refinement, the team will build a common vision and plan for execution.

4. Practice working through conflict

Oftentimes when I start working with teams, I actually focus on increasing the amount of conflict on the team rather than decreasing it. Teams often play too nicely. They avoid difficult questions and tough conversations. But until they get these critical topics on the table and start engaging with them, these teams will stay stuck.

Sometimes the topics are too big and complicated for the team’s current skill levels. In these cases, we can use exercises and tackle smaller topics while learning and practicing how to approach the bigger issues, framing them effectively for discussion, creating a safe and effective space, engaging in constructive debate, developing creative solutions, reaching compromises, and committing to actions.

5. Actively appreciate each other

Taking the time to give each other feedback is a core habit on all successful teams I’ve been part of and that I’ve coached. It not only feels good to hear what others appreciate about what you do and the value you create, it reinforces the behaviors and actions that drive impact.

At the end of each planning session I facilitate, I run an exercise where each person gives everybody else two key pieces of specific feedback. The key to both of these is to be specific with the behavior and the impact and to avoid pleasantries and niceties that are not actionable.

Through this exercise, everyone gets their feedback and basks in the glory of the wonderful things they are doing. They understand what they need to keep doing, and what they need to do differently. The point is for them to choose and commit to personal improvement.

Building trust is a function of understanding, respect, and safety. Without these, a team will struggle and deliver subpar results. And while these take time, the right focus and exercises can accelerate the trust-building process while minimizing the drama.

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