Breaking Down, Then Building Trust
A few months ago, I facilitated a retreat of a nonprofit’s leadership team. Ahead of the retreat, my conversations with the executives were extremely worrisome. Almost everyone described the team as dysfunctional, with fissures along the lines of race and gender.
At one point during the retreat, the team decided that the issues were so severe that they couldn’t talk more about the future until they cleared the air about the past. As a way into the conversation, I showed the group this “trust bridge” diagram by coach and facilitator David Martin.
Using this framework, the team reflected on the question: What’s happening on our team that’s getting in the way of trust? Once the team delved into that question, many of the issues that were getting in the way of their success were cast in a different light.
Some examples:
Reliability: Most team members faulted others for not delivering on their promises. But the team’s challenge was that there was no mechanism to talk about reasonable capacity across everyone’s work. As a result, everyone committed to more than could fairly be done, and they were slowed down in the work by the same impediments. So what was seen as a lack of reliability from individuals was actually a system-wide challenge.
Mutual Concern: At one point, the head of the program team said, "I'm not sure everyone cares about excellence (in delivering the mission).” The statement was incendiary, but the conversation that followed helped the team realize that they’d never developed a common definition of “excellence.”
That is, without identifying a common goal, it was easy to see others’ actions as a lack of commitment, when they were instead simply working on a different aspect of “excellence.”
Personal Value: This aspect of the trust bridge says I can’t really trust you until I know you care about me as a human being. This team, like many in the nonprofit sector, was consumed by the scale of the challenges they faced—there was always a daunting list of to-dos to tackle. This meant that the team dove straight into their work and meetings without pausing to relate personally to each other. They left no room to build trust!
This was only the tip of the iceberg. As the team explored this question more, they found that many of the perceived trust issues they faced were a result of simple misunderstandings, unstated assumptions, and unclear agreements.
For this team, breaking down the trust challenge was hard. But the solution set was much easier. Instead of solving morally fraught issues of race, gender, and individuals’ trustworthiness, they could focus on better conversations, clear agreements, and checking for understanding—tactical solutions to build their way out of a mess.
Leadership Wisdom
“Trust is the coin of the realm for creating the harmony, speed, and teamwork to achieve success at the lowest cost. Trusted personal relationships are the foundation for effective fighting teams, whether on the playing field, the boardroom, or the battlefield. When the spirit of your team is on the line and the stakes are high, confidence in the integrity and commitment of those around you will enable boldness and resolution; a lack of trust will see brittle, often tentative execution of even the best-laid plans. Nothing compensates for a lack of trust.”
— General Jim Mattis, in Call Sign Chaos