A Question of Trust David Trickey - Senior Partner for TCO International Diversity

Management (Italy) based in Bologna

Measuring and developing trust in teams
According to the World Economic Forum1 the level of trust levels in governments, the United
Nations and global companies is now at its lowest level since tracking began in 2001. A
Harvard Business School report2 found that trust in business leaders has been steadily falling
over a seven year period with less that 1% of respondents having a very high opinion of their
bosses honesty and ethical standards.
Such low levels of trust affect bottom-line productivity as people minimise their vulnerability
by 'playing safe', ever more elaborate and costly checking systems are introduced, offers of
advice are ignored, and valuable but sensitive information is withheld. This all leads to
communication breakdowns, defensiveness, poor team learning and higher levels of anxiety.
Team energies are diverted away from the external needs of the customer towards second
guessing the real motives of colleagues internally.
On the other hand, there is plenty of research evidence to show that high levels of trust can be
linked to the successful management of some of today’s key business challenges (see Table 1).
Indeed, most business leaders see high levels of trust as a competitive advantage in the
struggle to retain talent, to motivate
Table 1. teams and bind people together across
There is now clear research evidence for borders. It is probably the cheapest and
higher levels of trust linked to: most under explored lever for increased
productivity available to organisations.
HIGHER LEVELS OF But, when was the last time you explored
• cooperation and collaboration in business the issue of trust openly with your work
• competitive advantage colleagues? How many team-building
• performance in alliances processes explicitly put the issue of trust
• knowledge transfer on the table or seek to measure and
• productivity in virtual teamwork build trust between team members in a
• innovation focused way? The rarity of such events
• support for change initiatives lies in the acute sensitivity of the trust
• leadership effectiveness
issue. Suggesting that there is a trust
• organisational commitment and morale
deficit hurts people at the level of
• employee retention
identity. It is also not a simple concept to
• effective working relationships
understand. My own reading suggests
there are over a 100 definitions. Trust
has many facets, operates on a number of levels, changes over time and repairing its often
fragile membrane can make a surgeon’s job seem easy.
When working across different national boundaries the building blocks of trust are even less
available. We tend to place higher initial trust with friends, family members or people who
share our way of thinking and behaving. Foreigners don't so easily fall into these categories.
The meaning of trust is not universal - vertrauen in German has different associations
compared to fiducia in Italian which, in turn, is conceptually different from trust for Anglo-
Saxons – so we may conclude that people from other cultures are untrustworthy simply
because we have grown up to give different emphasis to a range of trustworthiness signals.
As a result we tend to bury any open discussions of the issue....and hope for the best,
instinctively believing that trust development, although essential, is ultimately elusive.

1
World Economic Forum Trust Survey – latest figures for December 2005 at
http://www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Full+Survey:+Trust+in+Governments,+Corporations+and+Glo
bal+Institutions+Continues+to+Decline

2
Harvard Business School and Pew Research Center, 2002
Over the last few years I have been asked to support a number of multicultural teams where
trust was surfaced as a key ingredient for productivity. Those which developed higher levels of
trust found that it acted as both as the lubricant which brought out the best in their
cooperation as well as the glue which bound them together under the strains of geographical
distance and cultural diversity. The rest of this article tells the story of one of these
teams…let’s call it the ‘EuroTeam’.
The 10-member ‘EuroTeam’ was responsible for leading the European integration of new IT
systems and with members from seven countries. Already established for 18 months, they had
survived a number of organisational restructuring traumas and cost-cutting drives which had
lead to a refocusing on national targets. The ‘EuroTeam’ had been considered a pioneer in the
‘international days’ of the organisation as their systems were the first to link the multinational
structure together – but informal conversations with the members suggested that the way they
worked together could be improved and there were fears that the new challenges ahead would
severely test their levels of commitment to a geographically dispersed team – especially with
the organisation’s trust damaging move to recentralise. Perceptions of the relative
commitment of some members came to the surface in this respect and Marco, the team
leader, expressed frustration that members were not sharing information proactively enough.
Working virtually most of the time, Marco found it tough even to arrange meetings twice a
year, but he firmly believed that “such eyeball-to-eyeball meetings help us to deal with some
tougher ‘soft’ issues which we just can’t work through in a conference call” – and trust was one
of the issues he wanted to deal with at their next meeting when I first joined as external
facilitator.
Prior to the first team development session we asked all members to complete The
International Team Trust Indicator. This is a diagnostic questionnaire by WorldWork Ltd, a
company which designs international management development tools. Two years ago I had
been commissioned by WorldWork to research the key criteria for trust at an international level
– since US trust instruments seemed to rely heavily on US trust criteria - on the basis of which
their psychometricians would develop an on-line questionnaire (see Table 2).
Table 2. 10 TRUST CRITERIA

1. Competence Trust based on a perception that team members are competent, and so will not let me down

2. Commonality Trust based on background, values, approaches, interests and objectives held in common

3. Benevolence Trust based on the belief that other team members are concerned about my overall welfare

Trust based on the fact that other team members maintain promises, are team oriented and
4. Integrity
behave towards me in accordance with a moral code

Trust based on the observation that the behaviour of team members is consistent over time and
5. Predictability
in different contexts

6. Security Trust arising from the feeling that I have nothing to fear from the other members of the group

Trust based on the observation that other group members actively include me in their social and
7. Inclusion
work activities

8. Open with Trust based on the fact that other team members share information important to the team
information proactively and clearly

Trust based on the fact that other team members share their true feelings and I can relate to
9. Accessibility
them at a personal level

Trust based on the observation that other group members are trusting and co-operative
10. Reciprocal
towards me
The 50-item questionnaire identifies the behaviours and attitudes that each team member
needs from their colleagues if they are to trust them, and also what they are actually
experiencing in this respect. These individual results are then pooled to provide an overall
report for the team as a whole. The report contains a range of graphical analysis options that
enables the team leader and team members to identify the nature of any trust deficits within
the team.
The results of the pooled responses revealed there were specific aspects of trust to be dealt
with by the Euroteam: a deficit in being Open with Information and most particularly a
significant gap in openness about team members needs and motives.
In subgroups the team focused on team trust alignment by identifying specific actions to close
the top three trust gaps. One action we carried out on the day was to clarify what their
individual needs actually were, based on an
explanation of issues facing them in their local
context. This apparently simple process
produced a huge insight into why they had not
been proactive in the past. It emerged that
there was a basic lack of understanding of each
others’ context which inhibited the proactive
sharing of information. As one team member
said “how could we have been proactive if we
didn’t know you needed this kind of support?
Now I know the kind of things you need and
why you need it, I’ll ensure you get the
information before you get into difficulty!”. A
range of gap closing actions were prioritised,
planned and implemented.
At their next meeting, six months later, we
redid the survey and by facilitating one of their team meetings, we could measure clear
progress on these issues. The results showed that information was perceived to be exchanged
in a more transparent and unambiguous way, people were more approachable and responsive,
readily sharing information with others. This was confirmed by nodding heads around the table
and a few concrete examples of open information exchange.
However, this time we identified new trust related challenges resulting from shifts in the wider
organisational strategy. The new project they were working on required higher levels of
interdependence and exerted tough deadlines. A predictable ‘competence crisis’ had emerged.
Although colleagues were perceived as having good reputations in their fields two year ago
when they started, the questionnaire results were showing a perceived deficit in the skills,
qualifications and experience to cover their roles in the team and there were new doubts about
how reliable colleagues were in delivering to a high standard. We used a part of the session for
everyone to show vulnerability by trusting others with, what were till now, unspoken fears and
concerns that had they had about their role in the imminent project.
‘Compatibility’ was another new trust related issue. People realised for the first time that
others in this multicultural team, although similar in professional background and education,
did not hold values consistent with their own and did not share their way of thinking or
approach. There were already clear signs that this could lead to severe breakdowns in
communication, especially between team members who favoured direct feedback to develop
trust and those gave feedback more implicitly and focused more on preserving personal
relationships. This was most apparent between the straight talking Germans and Dutch on the
one hand and the more interpersonally ‘careful’ British on the other. This created an
opportunity to explore in concrete terms how those in a team with opposing values to ours can
be our best teachers.
The ensuing exchange on these issues was far removed from the polite and passive meetings
six months earlier where new initiatives and actions were driven forward by the ever
enthusiastic volcano of ideas, Marco. People were listening, sharing contributions and
challenging more. They were also taking responsibility for getting a temperature check from
quieter members. Since everyone had been involved in an unreserved, passionate debate on
the issues people left with a heightened sense of commitment to the decisions made.
After this second facilitated meeting the team was now more able to independently manage
the normally elusive issue of trust. They created practical guidelines to ensure that the key
trust criteria needed within the team were more consciously provided by all members. With the
trust issue being looked at through a problem-solving rather than a ‘personal’ lens, we were
able to tackle issues quickly and in the open (itself a trust developing act). Marco admitted to
me after the second session that if they had not been able to bring the dimension of trust to
the surface and deal with it consciously and concretely, the team would have buried a whole
range of issues which in time would have caused the team to implode on impact with the new
project.
I have third session with the ‘EuroTeam’ in six months when we will use the International
Team Trust Indicator to monitor how the new project is affecting the levels of trust factors
needed to sustain the team. In addition Marco will be doing the team leader’s version of the
questionnaire to identify what specifically he needs to do to match his team’s trust criteria. The
simple act of accepting to do this has already further boosted the team’s trust in him to
understand their needs and priorities.
There is no easy way to turn around the World Economic Forum survey on trust, however, the
opportunity to work explicitly on this issue is available and necessary in thousands of teams
the world over...the Euroteam being just one example. If organisations are really going to
leverage trust to their competitive advantage we must work on the daily actions of leaders,
managers and teams where trust can be both measured and developed. Through the virtuous
cycle of giving and getting trust according to differing needs we can make a profound
difference to the quality of collaborative work as members chose to think of the consequences
for trust of their every action. As Reinhard Sprenger says in his excellent book on trust:
“[trust] is a microcosmic phenomenon between you and your colleagues, between this person
and that; how you behave in the world not when everything’s right with the world, but when
the going gets tough…As a manager, you must consider the effects on trust of any action by
management.”
Is your organisation doing enough to cultivate a culture of trust beyond including the word in
mission and values statements? Those that actively deal with the issue head on at all levels
will be developing the key intangible for increased corporate value.

Information about The International Team Trust Indicator can be received from
www.worldwork.biz or from David Trickey at TCO International Diversity Management
d.trickey@tco-international.com

© 2006 TCO International Diversity Management