By Patrick J. McKenna and David H. Maister

Since professionals lead demanding, busy lives often with great pressures and short deadlines from their clients, it is all too common to see them acting in trust-diminishing ways. Professionals are not less trustworthy, but they may be more neglectful of trust-building activities.

Some common symptoms include:

1. Lack of cohesiveness as discussions divide between differing coalitions
2. Members complaining and finding fault with one another
3. Combative behavior displayed in the name of "playing devil's advocate"
4. Subjecting of even minor decisions to protracted debate
5. Changing decisions after they've been made.

These everyday frustrations soon result in energy lost to suspicion, unresolved issues, forgotten commitments, unclear agreements, missed deadlines. In turn, these cause blame, gossip, resentment, and frustration.

Many of these symptoms derive from a common cause: a lack of trust between and among team members. When people lack trust, they reveal only what they feel is safe, and usually only a small part of their potential contribution. The group leader is left trying to conduct a symphony with one-stringed instruments.

As a group leader, you can help people establish a level of trust among themselves by helping them understand the behaviors that build trust. To begin, try this exercise:

STEP 1: IDENTIFY SPECIFIC ELEMENTS IN A TRUSTING RELATIONSHIP

Ask your people, as a group, to complete the following sentence: "I trust people when. . . . " Ask them to use words that describe specific behaviors and observable actions.

You will note that the question was not posed as "I can't trust people when" since that might cause some to engage in nonproductive finger pointing. The goal is to get trust-building behaviors out on the table without being negative about anyone's past performance.

STEP 2: DEVELOP SHARED GUIDELINES FOR PERSONAL CONDUCT

After you have identified some of the elements inherent in trust relationships, your next step is to brainstorm ideas with your group to establish specific guidelines that encourage the trust behaviors you have listed and that prohibit trust-eroding actions.

Jon Katzenbach, the recognized expert and author of The Discipline of Teams, elaborated this point when he told us:

Trust and mutual respect are not necessarily synonymous. Mutual respect is an added dimension that can be as important as trust, particularly in the early stages of group work before personal trust has time to develop. On the one hand, it highlights the importance of "competence" in professional service work. You can have respect for someone that you do not necessarily like - and you can work effectively with them. On the other hand, you can also trust someone whom you do not necessarily "respect" in terms of their competence. One of the best ways for two people to develop trust is to do "real work" together.

Elements of Trust

Consider some of the trust elements, and what you can do about them.

1. SHARING

Try this exercise: Give each group member a card to write upon. Ask each to list on the card:

o A particular attribute, talent, or skill they possess
o A unique experience or accomplishment that other members would not know about
o A personal quirk, idiosyncrasy, or shortcoming that they wish they could remedy or are currently working on rectifying

These need not be all professionally related.

Ask people to initial the back of their card. Collect the cards, reshuffle them, distribute one card to each member, and ask each in turn to read their card aloud. Ask the group to try to identify the individual who listed the articulated attributes.

The value of this exercise is in helping team members learn more about each other. Trust involves the personal risk of disclosing something intimate about ourselves, both positive and not so positive. By taking risks, we move to a deeper level of trust. Trust needs to be earned.

2. FOLLOWING THROUGH ON COMMITMENTS

When people agree to do something, it is not uncommon for them to ask themselves: "Can I really get this done, and done on time?" Doubt also exists in the minds of those being given the commitment. That's natural and even healthy. What is not healthy is saying "yes" to a commitment without the pure intention or strong desire to produce the final outcome, or produce it on time.

Failure to deliver on a commitment may be passed off in several ways:

o As a memory lapse ("I'm not sure that's what I said.")
o As an inconvenience ("I didn't realize that it was going to take so much time.")
o As an interruption ("You wouldn't believe the intensity of my client demands this past month")
o As a change of heart ("After thinking about this, I'm not sure that it really is the right thing for us to do.")

Many problems with commitment come more in the making than in the executing. In a group that winks at commitments, people stop believing what others tell them.

a. Preventing memory lapse

Set up a guideline where someone in the group (on a rotational basis) documents each commitment that was undertaken and circulates the list of commitments to all members.

b. Preventing the commitment becoming an inconvenience

Set a guideline for a modest investment of time that will be devoted to any project. In other words, better to approach any undertaking incrementally, with small steps, getting at least the first parts of it accomplished, than allowing too much to be put on someone's plate.

c. Coping with an interruption

In people's busy lives, there will be times when emergencies upset the best-laid plans. Make contingency arrangements so that someone who has committed to taking on a project has someone else serving as a back-up resource.

d. Avoiding a change of heart

A change of heart usually comes about when people feel that a project was forced upon them. To avoid this, ensure that you allow group members to only take those assignments that they have "voluntarily" agreed to implement. Many of us have attended a meeting where someone said: "There's a great project for Betty. Let's assign it to her. That'll teach her to miss one of our meetings."

3. LETTING PEOPLE KNOW IF YOU CAN'T DO SOMETHING

Daniel J. Fensin, managing partner of Blackman, Kallick, Bartelstein told us:

You have to be very, very open with people. You need to tell them what you're going to be doing and then do it. If you say you're going to do something and suddenly something else comes up, call the people that you told. Say, "You know what? I'm not going to be able to do that. Let me tell you what happened." Don't just let it go by the wayside. We can actively, actively engender trust, but to do it, you've got to be open with people. They've got to know that you always keep your word.

4. KEEP PEOPLE INFORMED AFTER ASKING FOR ADVICE

One of your people wanders into your office with a question about a topic for your group's newsletter. She values your opinion. You offer to prepare a brief synopsis on the new development. You draft a summary and forward it to her. A week later the next newsletter comes out but there is no sign of the summary you submitted. You are now left to contemplate why you were not informed in advance of the newsletter coming out?

It is virtually impossible to build trust if people lack integrity in their behavior, if they favor one person over others, or if they lack fairness in their handling of situations. Do your people believe that they are being treated fairly, without prejudice, or do some of them feel excluded from the decision making process?

5. CONSTRUCTIVE DISAGREEMENT

One of the most common reactions in any discussion or meeting, when another person comments, "Yes, that's a good approach, but . . . "

Professionals work among highly intelligent people. They quickly become annoyed by what they perceive as a patronizing agreement which concludes with a "but." The "but" really constitutes disagreement with the entire statement that precedes it. Yet we all still do it, all the time!

Many groups have developed some simple accepted procedures for dealing with these situations. But, what happens then when some member of the group continues to behave in a manner inconsistent with the group's guidelines and begins to create a toxic environment for others?

Obviously, people have more trust in others who conduct themselves with integrity. It is therefore difficult to understand why generally good group leaders are reluctant to remove weak team members. This reluctance could be the product of personal loyalty, a fear of conflict, or the belief that the individual can eventually be coached back to a level of acceptable performance.

The job of the group leader is to encourage people to earn the trust of others in their group, and then show them how it can translate into greater commitment, greater creativity, greater professional satisfaction, and better performance.

Excerpted with permission from Patrick J. McKenna and David H. Maister, First Among Equals, The Free Press, 2002. For more information, visit www.firstamongequals.com

© Copyright 2002