Building Trust at Decade Software

At the beginning of the week, I mentioned that our leadership team had spent over a year studying and practicing the fundamental teamwork lessons defined in Patrick Lencioni's book, "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team". I also said that I would review those dysfunctions with you and begin to tell you of our progress in tackling them. Today, I'll describe the king of dysfunctions. If your team can overcome this, the rest are easy.

The first of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team is: Lack of Trust.

The type of trust Lencioni is talking about here references the team members ability to expose their weaknesses to their teammates—to be vulnerable and open with one another. Trust never exists in teams where the team members are not prepared to be vulnerable. Instead they feel the need to be right, to be strong and competent—to such an extent that they are unable to be completely honest with each other. Trust requires that team members have confidence in each other's intentions—truly knowing that those intentions are good. This eliminates any reason to be protective or careful with each other.

Today, when I‘m vulnerable on the Decade leadership team, I'm confident it will not be exploited and used against me by any member of the team.

It wasn't always this way.

A lack of trust among team members fuels a huge waste of time and energy as team members routinely reinvest in defensive behaviors, reluctant to ask for help or to assist others.

The key to overcoming a lack of trust is shared experiences, multiple follow-throughs and above-all-else integrity.

As did the fictional team in Patrick Lencioni's fable, our leadership team completed a Myers-Briggs assessment to seed honest discussions about our individual strengths and weaknesses until we became comfortable with one another. These open and vulnerable conversations eventually tore down the barriers that had held this company back for so long.

To quote Lencioni:

“…teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.”

The primary role of any real leader is to lead by example, be the first one to be vulnerable, and to create an environment where it’s safe to be vulnerable. Building trust in this way makes tackling the other dysfunctions possible. This worked for us, because our leader started the ball rolling. By standing before the team and saying, "I've made mistakes, and I need your help to fix them," Kevin helped the rest of the leadership team follow suit—not just within the leadership team, but within our individual teams as well. In time, the snowball effect that followed changed the atmosphere and the attitude of the whole company.

However...

Just as processes and software that are not constantly improved quickly become obsolete—a team that stops learning and refining itself will quickly stop being successful. Decade Software's move to blogging is our next step in being vulnerable—open and honest at all levels—not only with ourselves, but with our customers as well.

We'll be stepping through the other four dysfunctions in the weeks ahead, but in the meantime, I have prepared a cheat sheet for anyone who needs a quick fix for their dysfunctional team.

Members of teams with an absence of trust …

• Conceal their weaknesses and mistakes from one another.
• Hesitate to ask for help or provide constructive feedback.
• Hesitate to offer help outside their areas of responsibility.
• Jump to conclusions about the intentions and aptitude of others without attempting to clarify them.
• Fail to recognize and tap into one another’s skills and experiences.
• Waste time and energy managing their behaviors for effect.
• Hold grudges.
• Dread meetings and find ways to avoid spending time together.

Members of trusting teams …

• Admit weaknesses and mistakes.
• Ask for help.
• Accept questions and input about their area of responsibility.
• Give one another the benefit of the doubt before arriving at a negative conclusion.
• Take risks in offering feedback and assistance.
• Appreciate and tap into one another’s skills and experiences.
• Focus time and energy on important issues, not office politics.
• Offer and accept apologies without hesitation.
• Look forward to meetings and other opportunities to work together as a group.

By the way, there are no "quick fixes". It's hard work, but well worth it!