Don't Confuse Trust With Getting Along

If you ask any team if they trust each other, they would probably say they do.

If you ask any team if they trust each other, they would probably say they do, especially if they worked together for a longer period of time.

There is an abundance of teams that seem to have a good time working together but that continuously deliver unsatisfactory results. Trust can often be confused with getting along or having a sociable work environment. Having fun together can be a sign that team members trust each other, but it can also be deceiving. 

Trust is a leap of faith, a decision to rely on another's actions and intentions. It’s also an emotionally laden process. 

I have worked with many teams that got along well but moved very slowly or lacked a sense of purpose, motivation, or even pride in execution. These teams smiled every day, but deep down, they knew that things could be better; however, avoiding conflict is the default mode. These environments may yield friendships but not career satisfaction. What united the team was not a sense of productivity but the feeling of being stuck together. This might work in the short-term times of crisis, but it is not sustainable and leads to burnout and attrition. 

Back in the mid-00’s, I worked for a small yet fast-growing tech company in the UK. The engineering team was small, maybe ten engineers at the time, and I fondly remember those times. We'd lunch together, organize mini-hackathons, and enjoy Friday drinks. We learned from one another and enjoyed the work challenges. Surprisingly, we rarely discussed the stagnation of our product.

We felt trapped without a clear direction or vision. Each week mirrored the last, offering a familiar routine but minimal progress. No one was eager to address the elephant in the room; we merely wanted a pleasant workspace. We were deluding ourselves. The lack of a clear vision, combined with our inability to discuss pivotal issues, was ultimately demoralizing. Gradually, I sensed my growth stagnating, and I believed others felt similarly.

While we liked one another, we lacked the trust to discuss the hurdles impeding our progress openly. On the rare occasions when we broached serious issues, tensions flared, it was common to see colleagues who were either upset, resistant to change, or close-minded. It became too challenging. I eventually left. I left with a sad feeling that everything could have been so much better if we just trusted each other and took a leap of faith. 

That wasn’t the first (or the last) time I was part of a team with similar issues.

It is in times of conflict and pressure that you discover if your team has cultivated trust among each other. You know there is trust within your team when everybody can speak their minds, challenge decisions, and express their feelings without fear of retaliation, being fired, or just being disliked by the rest of the team.

Trust is when you let people take ownership without you having to chase them or micromanage them. Trust is when you disagree with a particular approach, but you let people, the experts, try things anyway because you are humble enough to know you can be wrong. 

Trust is letting people fail gracefully and helping them do better next time.

Trust is built by following up with every request, every comment, every idea, even if it is to say no. By doing what you said you would do over and over again.

It always starts with you. Be the first to say what others are afraid of sharing. Be the one that shows up consistently and delivers work that inspires others. Be the first one to admit failure and share solutions.

It doesn’t take much to build trust; what's hard is doing it consistently.