The Real Reason Building Team Trust is So Hard

There’s a little-discussed reason why building trust on a team is so hard, and it has nothing at all to do with communication, consistency, or support.   You can show up at every meeting;  follow through dependably on everything you’re asked to do; listen respectfully and speak optimistically, and your team still won’t trust you.   The reason why is so subtle, it’s hard to notice.  But once you do, you’ll be able to untie the Gordian knots that may have been compromising your business results until now.  So what’s the reason?

You can’t trust yourself.

A Simple Story

Before you start mentally arguing with me about how wrong I am, let me share a story that might make you reconsider.  My husband and I belong to a townhome association where neighbors share information and resources with one another on a virtual bulletin board.  The other day, there was a post that someone had vandalized all of the bird houses on the bluff that forms the border of our community.  The houses were all gone, and worse, so were the posts that held them.

I was immediately appalled that someone would do this.  Birdhouses?  Who would want to eliminate something that brings life to a cherished environmental resource?  I walk the bluff almost daily, and immediately started scanning my thoughts for mental pictures of unsavory characters or questionable behavior I had seen.   The first image that came to mind were groups of teenagers I had seen up there.  But as I started rummaging through every stereotype I had, a wave of realization came over me that these are my neighbors, and I had never seen any of them doing anything other than walking, chatting at the picnic tables or doing yoga in small groups.   I next thought of the random beer can I had once seen on the trail, which generated an instant judgment of how a drunk might do this.  But then I realized that in the ten years I’ve lived here, I have never seen a single drunk person anywhere in the neighborhood, nor even heard any loud parties.  Further, a single beer can can easily slip from a backpack.  And even if it was deliberately tossed aside, I realized that just because someone was messy or thoughtless didn’t necessarily make him or her a vandal.

In other words, I wanted to name a villain and help in his/her capture, but I realized that by doing so, all I was doing was judging and labeling people.   Then today, someone posted a question on the board:  “Is it possible that the birdhouses were deliberately removed in anticipation of the annual controlled burn on the bluff?”

Her question made an important point:  what if there was no vandal?  What if what we perceived as a threat to our way of life was really something that would ultimately support it?  I had never even considered such a possibility.

There’s still no answer, but the point is this: I realized that in order to build trust of others, I had to wake up to the realization that my own mind can’t be trusted not to react in a biased or judgmental way.   I have points of view.  So do you.  So does everyone else.   You can easily say that you’re right and I’m wrong, or that they’re right and you’re wrong, but it ultimately doesn’t matter.   We filter what happens in our lives through the lenses of our experience and beliefs, and the ultimate result is that doing so separates us from others, including those on our teams at work.

An Acronym That Can Make A Difference. 

Teams are supposed to be all about trust, but due to the accelerated pace of business these days, it’s easy to misinterpret what someone else is saying or doing–or, for that matter–not saying or not doing.    In our rush to get our work done, we often jump to judgment, causing tiny nicks in the foundation of the trust we’ve built or are trying to build.   This is never more true than in the early stages of teamwork, when people are just getting to know one another and differences of opinion and working style arise.

There is a simple acronym that can be helpful at the moments when you know you’ve been hooked by judgment:

S.I.T.

S.I.T. stands for: See.  Interpret. Think.   It works like this:

First, you ask yourself, “What do I actually see in this situation?”  Act like a journalist and stick to the facts.  In the story I told above, I saw only a virtual post.  I didn’t see the vandalism.  I didn’t see anyone who might have perpetuated it.  I just saw the post.   If I had stayed in that objective, non-judgmental space, I would not have engaged emotionally with my feelings and beliefs, and I would have hesitated to draw immediate and/or certain conclusions.    This would have reduced my stress, which in turn would have allowed me to remain more open-minded and curious.

The next step is to ask, “How might I possibly interpret what I’ve seen?”   Here are four possibilities that came to mind:

• I could have wondered if the post itself was an April Fool’s joke.
• I could go up on the bluff to see for myself.
• I could ask some of the other regular bluff-walkers if they had seen anything out of the ordinary.
• I could just sit back and consider that there might be a positive reason why the birdhouses were removed, as my neighbor did.

Doing this kind of mental exercise would have helped me stay relaxed, which would have allowed me to engage in reasonable conversation with others.  This would have led to more of a feeling of partnership, another foundation of trust.

Finally, I could think about the possible interpretations, and, given the facts, I could consider which one or ones might be true.   In the case of the birdhouses, I really don’t know at the moment, but I am willing to share what I know and what I learn until the problem is resolved.

Using the S.I.T. formula reverses what most of us do naturally when faced with something stressful.  Instead of jumping to judgment and then using or trying to find facts to support what we believe, S.I.T. makes the problem the doorway to exploration, learning and inclusion.   Using S.I.T. helps others feel safe and valued when they speak with us, because differences become the building blocks of a long-lasting solution created in an honest partnership.

How to Get Your Team to Trust You…and Themselves

Just as your own mind is influenced by your judgments, so is everyone else’s.   So if your team has experienced any discord lately, or even if they haven’t and you’d just like to accelerate the results you’re getting, have a S.I.T. session to uncover some of the biases that may be keeping you from sharing and including each other in the challenges you’re facing.   In the process, you just might build the trust you’ve all always wanted.

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