Collaboration: Building and Managing Trust - Allcollaboration.com

The issue of trust is at the core of effective collaboration. The most basic definition of collaboration (co-labor) is working jointly with others for shared goals and outcomes. The need for trust thus arises due to the interdependence between parties. A trust relationship inherently has risk for the parties involved. Individual personal behaviors are different that manage this trust and associated risk.

Since trust it at the core of collaboration, how does one build trust? What is trust anyway? What are individual behaviors and expectations in a trust relationship? What can be done to rebuild trust when trust is violated? These are some of the question we address in this post.

We can recall what President Reagan often said: Trust but verify. That is, I am willing to trust you only to the extent I can verify what you say. Trust is based on evidence, not words. Evidence is the key to minimizing risk in this instance. This is not a trust relationship in fact; it is a relationship of distrust. But, the circumstances of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) created the interdependence for shared goals and outcomes.

There is another old saying: Don’t tell me what you believe, show me what you do. This suggests that trust is based on actual, observed actions and behavior. The talk, however impressive, must be consistent with actions. Talk consistent with actions in an interdependent relationship builds trust, while talk inconsistent with actions erodes trust and creates greater risk.

An extreme of trust is faith, as expressed by: Are you going to trust your eyes, or what I tell you? This demands unconditional trust, regardless of the evidence, and observed actions and behavior.

We are all unique, needless to say, as to how we approach trust relationships. We also approach trust relationships differently with different people. As time goes by, actual observed actions and behavior, experiences and evidence accumulate that shape our level of trust in an individual or group.

A continuum of level of trust exists between the extremes of trust and distrust. The name escapes me at this point but I hope that some of you who recognize this model would comment on this post, so we can assign appropriate credit to the author of this model. This model of propensity to trust is as follows:

• Trust Always: This person always trusts others, no matter the circumstances. Colloquially we may refer to this person as gullible. This trusting soul gets screwed often, sadly.
• Trust Until: This person trusts and continues to trust until the evidence and experiences show otherwise. This person calibrates the level of trust as new information comes in.
• Distrust Until: This person distrusts and continues to distrust until the evidence and experiences show otherwise. This person calibrates the level of distrust as new information comes in. This person needs to experience the “show me” trust-building activities.
• Distrust Always: This person always distrusts others, no matter the circumstances. Colloquially we may refer to this person as paranoid. This person could be an eccentric genius, yet beyond collaborating with others.

As we know, all relationships are unique. How and where we start with one person and where we end-up at the trust level depends on our experiences in individual relationships.

We may begin with a person at the Trust Until level and reach Distrust Until, as additional evidence and experiences accumulate. This implies the person is on a “short leash,” when it comes to your trust, and you believe that the violation of trust can be repaired if the other party demonstrated in actions and behavior that such a violation was an anomaly and will not occur again. Depending on additional information as we move forward, the Distrust Until level may further deteriorate to Distrust Always.

Violation of trust can be so severe or extreme that we may go from Trust Until directly to Distrust Always. If we were at the Distrust Until level to begin with, much less serve violations of trust may push us to the Distrust Always level more quickly.

We can easily see how one may go from the Distrust Until level to the Trust Until or Distrust Always level. We continuously calibrate our trust relationships on the continuum of trust levels of this model. This calibration towards the distrust side occurs along: type of violation, magnitude of the violation, and prior violations. Violation of trust in a person’s integrity is likely to be quite severe.

So what does all this mean for collaboration? As mentioned earlier, collaboration requires trust among collaborators due to interdependence for success, in terms of achieving shared goals and outcomes. Each collaborator comes to the collaborative project with a certain “reputation” developed over time through: prior personal interactions and experiences, resume of accomplishments and expertise, and views of others in the enterprise. This credibility engenders a certain level of trust among collaborators. This would typically be at the Trust Until or Distrust Until level at the start. And then, it is game on!

The most critical expectation is: highest quality results, on time, every time and within budget. In a collaborative environment, this is achieved through open communication and active listening, supporting and respecting team members, recognizing contributions, understanding individual abilities, desires, constraints and ambitions, identifying and resolving issues and conflicts, and so on.

The bottom-line in building and maintaining trust is keeping commitments, while demonstrating work ethics, personal integrity and compassion. Trust is a work in process that takes years to build and a moment to destroy, as we know. And yes, little things do matter. Thus, “what you have done lately” tends to have a disproportionate impact on the trust relationship.

Here are some things one can do to build and maintain trust.

• Keep commitments: It does not matter if the commitment is small or big. This includes delivering a deliverable on time, or managing resources and budget, or conducting or participating in a meeting at a particular time, or bringing donuts for the team, or setting up a conference call. Avoid making others feel: “We don’t know if he will come through this time.”
• Minimize surprises: I suppose this goes along with the precious item. Often times in the life of a project, some project plans, deliverables or even personnel must be changed. Identify issues before they become problems. Seek and obtain agreed-upon solutions. Last minute surprises hurt the collaborative effort and erode trust.
• Be fair: Give credit where the credit is due. Recognizing contributions by others is critical to any collaborative effort, and we don’t mean money. Recognize and acknowledge even the smallest contributions. We have seen many times, collaboration efforts turn into unmitigated disasters when team members feel that their work is being “stolen”; that is, someone is taking unfair credit for their work.
• Support others: When your expertise is needed, find ways to accommodate even when your own commitments and constraints are demanding. This could be as little as offering an hour or two here and there for guidance, or reviewing and commenting on their work. Given your expertise, you may also know of other recourses that could help.
• Admit mistakes: Don’t blame others. We all make mistakes, some small and some not so small. Regardless, mistakes are an opportunity to build or regain trust, but the first step is to admit and then seek a corrective solution through which you can demonstrate sincerity and earn trust.
• Address conflicts constructively: This means no bad-mouthing about a team member to others. When there is a conflict, deal constructively with the person involved, using the basics of feedback and conflict management. Escalate if necessary, but no gossiping.
• Keep promises of confidentiality: A person may wish to share something in confidence for which they need your counsel. This may include using you as a reference in their job search, or sharing an issue in their personal life, or seeking counsel on a work-related issue. Violation of confidence is surely a quick way to lose trust.
• Maintain integrity: This is kind of a catch-all: congruence of words and deeds. It relates to the credibility of communication, actions, fairness, and moral and ethical behavior.

Come to think of it, a good bit of this list overlaps with the fundamentals of team building and management, as it should.

We recommend the following articles for further reading:

• Trust and Trust Building by Roy Lewicki and Edward Tomlinson
• Trust Models
• Trust Rules: The Most Important Secret About Trust
• Trust (social sciences), from Wikipedia

What do you recommend for building and maintaining trust?

Comments

[Lokesh Datta]

I wish provide a bit of information on this post. As you can see, the original content appears on All Collaboration (www.allcollaboration.com). Focusing on collaboration, All Collaboration offer points-of-view, original research, reviews of products and services, interviews with industry luminaries, and the “best of” articles on the web. This portal on collaboration is founded by Steve Lamont (Twitter: @SteveLamont) and Lokesh Datta (Twitter: @LDatta). The original content of this post is created by Lokesh Datta.

I would encourage you to visit the original post where you can also see numerous insightful comments from our audience. See: http://allcollaboration.com/home/2010/4/28/collaboration-building-and-managing-trust.html

Regards, Lokesh Datta

[Jesse @ Team Building Information]

This is an important subject and you've given some excellent advice on establishing and encouraging trust in the workplace. What role do you think "preselection" has in the ability to foster trust in the workplace as it always seems like there's the few "bad apples" that ruin the whole basket.