Build Your Trust
A team is a group of people who trust each other.
Trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback.Chapter 12, The Big Bold Mindset
65 knots in the Southern Ocean.
The wind had blown at 50 to 55 knots for three hours. The nearest land was Antarctica. It was pitch black, and we were scanning the radar for icebergs. Then it climbed: 60, 62, 65. Hurricane force.
The sail had to come down. Four men clipped on with thin lifelines made their way to the front of the boat. One slip would mean certain death in water just above freezing.
We had our lives in each other's hands. That trust was built over thousands of miles and countless sail changes. One broken promise would have undermined it all.
How much trust is in your team?
Do you trust your team? Does your team trust you?
If you don't trust them, what are the chances they trust you?
When did you last talk about trust, at work or at home?
Trust is a chemical reaction.
Neuroscientist Paul Zak studied the brain chemistry of trust and found a link with oxytocin. Compared with people at low-trust companies, people at high-trust companies reported:
Behaviours that build trust
Recognise excellence
Straight after a goal is met, from peers, tangible, personal and public.
Give discretion
Let people work it out. A team of Stanford students won the US Defense Department's $2m self-driving car challenge in 2005.
Ask for help
Leaders who ask for help, rather than just telling, build trust and cooperation.
Jensen Huang, Nvidia: trust at scale
Huang is known for a flat structure, open communication and giving teams real ownership of their work.
Trust lets people collaborate, take risks and innovate. It's the bedrock of high performance.
Do I trust you with my life?The question every foredeck crew answers
The trust conversation
Start with one conversation. With one person or your whole team, at work or at home. Ask three questions, then listen.
What erodes trust?
One or two things that, simply by stopping, would make a big difference.
What would build more?
New behaviours to try. Keep the language simple.
What already works?
Name it so it keeps happening.
Ask, listen, read it back
Ask one person, or your team, three questions: what builds trust here, what erodes it, and what would build more? Write it down, read it back, then act on one thing.
Run Start, Stop, Continue
You can't guess what builds trust for other people. You have to ask.
Want Caspar to take your team through this? casparcraven.com