Team-Building (Part 1)

If you lead a team, or are trying to build an effective team, you should immediately order Patrick Lencioni’s book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable.

There are a number of issues to consider when building a high-performance team and Lencioni’s book will give you some powerful insights into creating a good team. Although he discusses five “dysfunctions,” I believe the first is easily the most important: the absence of trust.

In the absence of trust teams and organizations fail–or fail to reach their potential. Many times those teams or companies come completely apart as the lack of trust leads to unresolved conflict, which, in turn, can spiral completely out of control.

This is a very common problem, one that is often traced directly to the manager, team-leader, business owner, or CEO. Remember this: leadership defines an organization, and if you want your team to trust you, you must be trustworthy. With this in mind, there are certain mistakes you simply cannot make and engender trust in the people that work for you.

1. You cannot be secretive. “Transparency” is an absolute necessity to create organizational trust. Decisions made in secret, or without adequate communication, lead to speculation and and employee’s assuming the worst. If you favor certain individuals and attempt to keep it hidden, it will come back to bite you. If you manipulate things behind the scenes to get what you want, be warned that your trustworthiness will suffer.

2. You cannot be guilty of poor communication. You must communicate early, often, and consistently. Too many managers fail miserably when it comes to communicating effectively. Worse, they establish an environment that will not allow differing opinions or bad news. To create a high-performance team, open up the lines of communication and create dialogue with your team members.
3. You cannot fail to do the things you say you will do. I frequently see managers make promises on the way out the door, passing someone in the hall, or at a lunch meeting and then fail to follow through on the promise. When you tell someone you will do something, write it down, follow-up and deliver, and then confirm with them once you have done as promised.

Here is the bottom line when it comes to organizational dynamics: no trust, no influence. If your people do not trust you – which, by the way, doesn’t necessarily mean you are dishonest or unethical – you cannot influence them to perform at the highest level.

A team without trust is simply a dysfunctional team.