In my work with teams, helping to improve teamworking and drive performance, my first challenge is to understand whether there is genuine ‘trust’ between the members of the team. Trust, in my view, is the greatest differentiator between a good and a high performing team.
A recent study by Google, amongst over 150 of their teams, found that high performance was less about the quality of team members, i.e. who was in the team, but was much more about how team members interact, structure their work and view the contributions of fellow team members. At the top of the list of factors leading to high performance was what they described as ‘Psychological Safety’ which Google defined as the ability of the team to take risks without feeling insecure or embarrassed.
The leader of the team has a crucial role to play in establishing trust within the group; encouraging risk taking, treating failure as a learning rather than a career limitation exercise. Creating trust is also essential to allow team members to question each other, challenge each other’s proposals and assumptions, without fear of retribution or the meeting dissolving into unconstructive conflict. Leaders need to encourage the kind of ‘Yes, And’ thinking that Leonard and Yorton describe in their book of the same name. Put simply, this type of thinking leads to better quality decisions.
A culture of trust also allows team members to say ‘I don’t understand’, without feeling insecure or embarrassed. This is important since without it, the team member who doesn’t understand the issue being debated disengages from the discussion and the brainpower devoted to the issue at hand is reduced by one. In my world, more brains equals better decisions.
The challenge I face is that team leaders, and the team memebrs themselves, are frequently less than realistic about the level of trust in the team. The answer to the question, “do you trust each other” is often “of course”, but 1-2-1 interviews then reveal a degree of tension or mistrust amongst team members. It is precisely this lack of trust that led to a less than honest appraisal. So, if you are a leader of a team and looking to drive performance, ask yourself first of all ‘do we really have high levels of trust in our team’, then do all you can to nurture it.
If you are interested to explore how you might build team performance, have a look at our 2-day High Performing Team workshop programme on our website, or give me a call.
There is an HBR article, High Performing Teams Need Psychological Safety. Here’s How to Create It, you might also find useful.
‘Yes And’ is written by Kelly Leonard and Tom Yorton and is published by Harper Business
