Here’s what we’re doing about building team trust

Resologics Team Exercise:

We deploy a coached exercise into teams that uses a simple interactive model as a road map to a deep conversation. We use an in-room assessment and an online assessment to highlight similarities and differences, and we guide a safe conversation to wherever the team needs/wants to go.

Exercise Deliverables:

• In-depth conversation about normalizing trust and striving for higher levels of trust.

• Deeper understanding about how trust works at an individual contributor level and a team system level.

• Common language around trust and behaviors.

• Fun, memorable, impactful team experience.

• Behavior changes that increase trust levels quickly and demonstrably.

• Greater understanding of how trust influences the dynamics of the team and organization as a whole.

• Customized conversations relevant to other relationships - for example; trust with clients; brand trust; trust with other teams; trust with vendors; etc.

Resologics Trust Formula Model Basics

Based on an in-depth review of the research, the literature on trust in humans (and primates), and data from more than 400 Resologics respondents, this formula has come into focus.

A key we found after building this formula and testing out the assessment on folks is that there are differences, and in some cases vast differences, in the way we each formulate our trust for others. In other words… We don’t all trust or distrust for the same reasons. That was the ton-of-bricks-hitting-us moment! And…. it’s why the model and exercise work so well in shifting behavior.

Here are some definitions that support the formula and model:

Trust:
Trust is the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party (Mayer 1995).

Both trust and distrust involve movements toward certainty: trust concerning expectations of things hoped for and distrust concerning expectations of things feared (Lewicki, McAllister, and Bies 1998).

Propensity to Trust:
The propensity to trust is a general willingness to trust, or not trust, others or things. One's propensity to trust will influence trusting behaviors before data has become available about someone or something. Propensity to trust is an individual trait built over time through experiences, culture, personality types, genetics, etc.

Trust Factors:
A trust factor is a piece of data used to determine the level of trust to apply to a situation. Through a review of research in this field, and our experience with teams, we have narrowed the factors that influence trust to ten. These factors are the core of the exercise.

Benevolence:
The quality of being well meaning with the intent to help.

Competence:
Having the skills, aptitude, and abilities to accomplish a task or reach an objective.

Integrity / Character:
Aligns with the principals of honesty, sincerity, good intent, strong moral principles and respect. The “character” of the someone or something.

Listening / Curiosity:
The quality of hearing and paying attention to in order to understand.

Meets Expectations:
What is stated happens. There is clarity in what is promised and what is delivered.

Openness / Accuracy:
Communication is open and accurate. Straight talk and transparency exist while secrecy or concealment does not exist.

Rules / Laws & Consequences:
Rules, laws, and consequences are in force such that the risk of a situation is predictable.

Relative Power / Authority:
The influence we have over someone or something, or influence that he/she/it has over us, can affect our decision to trust or not trust.

Safety:
The condition of, or threat of, physical and/or psychological harm does not exist.

Similarity / Affinity:
Our experiences of similarity or affinity with others or things.

Trust Factor History:
In all cases our history of interactions sits on a continuum that stretches from unreliable to reliable. While the trust factor is the raw data in our trust calculation, the number of times we experience, or lack the experience, of the factor behavior helps solidify our trust position and level. We calculate that if something has happened enough times, it is likely to happen again.

Level of Risk:
Every time we are considering the trustworthiness of a person or situation, we are also engaging in risk-assessment. In high-risk situations (i.e. a decision about a new caretaker for a child), this multiplier will be a large factor in the calculation compared to low risk situations (i.e. a decision about where we will have dinner tonight).

Here’s why we got to know trust

Our niche is in helping teams use conflict and creative tension to increase their performance so they reach objectives faster. Over the years it became clear that without high levels of trust in place as a foundation, heightened conflict competency was an elusive goal.

Once this clarity took hold it became obvious that a prioritization of fundamentals to focus on put Trust 1st followed in close 2nd place by Conflict Competency. The higher the trust was the higher the team could push its conflict competency and creative tension. There is a direct correlation. As we looked for techniques that specifically took on trust building in teams, the realization hit that nobody had come up with a simple model to help teams take a deep dive into trust conversations and behavior change. Patrick Lencioni and his team of consultants came closest, yet there was still a piece missing to this vast puzzle.

Here are some other reasons why we got to know trust:

"As hypothesized, a survey among 113 employees in 14 manufacturing work groups showed that creativity-related conflict with coworkers escalates into dysfunctional relationship conflict when focal employees have low rather than high trust in those coworkers." - Onne Janssena, Ellen Giebelsb. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology.

"Today, the relevance of trust is no longer questioned. It is commonly understood that trust is the foundation of effective relationships leading to business results. The bottom line: teams do not perform well without trust." -Reina, Reina and Hudnut: Center for Creative Leadership Research Report.

"A 2002 study by Watson Wyatt surveying 12,750 workers across all industries showed that high-trust organizations had a total return to shareholders (stock price plus dividends) that was 286 percent higher than low-trust organizations." - compiled by Chief Executive.net

"A 2005 study by Russell Investment Group showed that Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” (in which trust comprises 60 percent of the criteria and is the “primary defining characteristic”) earned over four times the returns of the broader market over the prior seven years." - compiled by Chief Executive.net

"FranklinCovey’s Execution Quotient (xQ) tool consistently shows a strong correlation between organizational execution and trust. In a 2006 FranklinCovey study done with the Coca-Cola Retailing Research Council, top executing grocery stores had significantly higher trust levels than lower executing stores." - compiled by Chief Executive.net

"A 10-year study of hundreds of outsourcing contracts done by Warwick Business School in the U.K. demonstrated that outsourcing contracts that are managed on trust, rather than on stringent service level agreements, lead to benefits for both parties- as much as an additional 40 percent of the total value of a contract." - compiled by Chief Executive.net