Coordination
In their column in this month's Fast Company, Dan and Chip Heath talk about the American men's 4x100 team at the Bejing Olympics. Despite being a team of stars, they were disqualified because they dropped the baton during handoff. Despite hours of practice by themselves and with others, the limited amount of time they spent practicing together meant they found it impossible to perform when they were required to.
At conferences, we sometimes ask the audience to think about a team they were in which accomplished something extraordinary - a sports team, a charity team or a work team. We ask what their overriding feeling about that team is - how they felt about each other. The answer is always 'trust'. In working together for a common goal, we develop a relationship in which we are certain that if we fall, someone will catch us; if we fail, someone will help us; if we lack, someone will pick up the slack.
Those relationships are based on communication. They don't develop without us listening to one another. They don't develop without us talking about the problems we're trying to solve. They don't develop without us getting to know each other. No matter how much we might wish it, people don't just go together to build teams like so many lego bricks. We have to start communicating.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/147/made-to-stick-blowing-the-baton-...
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Trust
Friday of last week I attended a seminar on relationships in project management. During one of the sessions the facilitator sketched out a model for trust, pretty much common sense but the first time I'd seen trust described like this.
They drew a graph with 'Care' (how much we feel the other person cares about us) on the Y axis and 'Credibility' (our judgement of the level of knowledge/skill of the person and that they will deliver) on the X. Then they divided the graph into 4 quadrants. Low/Low was labelled 'Distrust', High/High was labelled 'Trust', Low-Care/High-Credibility was labelled 'Respect' and High-Care/Low-Credibility was labelled 'Friendly'.
Their argument, based on this is that no matter how knowledgeable/skilled you are and how good your track record, unless you can demonstrate that you care about the person/team/project/service, you can't hope to be more than respected. No matter how much you care about the person/team/project/service unless you can also back that up with knowledge/skill and/or a track record of delivery you can't hope to be seen as more than a friend (if it helps, the mental image I have here is of a family pet dog that couldn't defend you if attacked but you'd be heartbroken to get rid of, conversely the image I have for the 'Respected' quadrant is of a trained security dog that could take out any attacker with ease but you wouldn't want to pet).
To be trusted you need to demonstrate that not only do you have the knowledge/skills and the track record of delivering but you also that you care about the person/team/project/service.
Stephen
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Skype: stephenbooth_uk
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Experience is how you avoid failure, failure is what gives you experience.
Thanks Stephen
That's an interesting way of looking at trust. Thank you for sharing!
Wendii