fixing the busted math of trust
Much of what is required of a Diverse Group of People Doing Something That Matters is uncomfortable. It’s socially weird. Reasonable, safety-seeking people - that is, most people most of the time - can rapidly author arguments against the kinds of moves that enable productive risks and outsized, improbable results.
Moves like giving direct feedback, pursuing difficult conversations, bringing subtext to the surface, making expectations really clear, calling out the elephant(s) in the room.
An argument often levied against such moves, particularly on a team that hasn’t had a ton of time together, is they all require trust.
I think that’s right. I think that folks get the math of trust all twisted, though. They look at the wrong variables and coefficients and run a busted function. They foreclose risk taking that would actually build trust … in the name of trust.
In the words of noted people management expert Scooby Doo: ruh roh.
I have often heard folks say that they just haven’t had enough time with other people to trust them. I have also often heard that trust comes from vulnerability - specifically emotional vulnerability. The theory is that trust between teammates comes from a) lots of time together b) talking about feelings (or past experiences that generate difficult feelings). I think that’s bad math.
In my experience, trust on teams is driven by reps rather than duration and by vulnerable doing rather than vulnerable feeling. This is why folks who work together at a startup, on a campaign, on a championship team, at a great high school, or in a platoon can enjoy immense trust in a matter of weeks or months that other teams fail to cultivate in years. Those high-trust teams do lots of things (reps) with real stakes (stress / risk).
In the math of trust, reps are the variable; stress (or risk) is the coefficient. Stress or risk is the multiplier.
If you don’t believe me about the stress, think about the differing levels of trust you might feel for
an obstetrician who successfully guides you through a complicated delivery of your first child and
a friendly mailman who has consistently delivered letters to you for a year
Birthing your child is vastly more stressful and risky than getting your mail. Chances are, there is a much deeper well of trust with the OB, even if you only worked with her that one time.
The trust that comes from high stakes reps is real and robust - it sticks around and serves in new contexts. It’s way more durable than the ephemeral intimacy that often springs up after a team retreat. Many of those retreats engineer moments of emotional connection and there may be some real immediate risk to the work undertaken at them. The retreat where there are many reps and high stakes is rare, however. So often what happens on the retreat is an extended exercise. There’s only one work product, it takes all dang day (or weekend, or week) for you to complete the exercise, and it isn’t going to be in front of the customers or the board or the students or the voters. Low reps, low risk —> little trust.
Trust really matters. Reasonable, safety-seeking people need to feel safe taking risks with others on the team if you have any hope of achieving improbable results together. I suggest forcing this with lots of reps - get people building and shipping stuff together, fast and regularly, that will actually be used by others and move you closer to your mission.
Don’t sit around and wait for the exquisite flower of trust to bloom - seed, sun, water, every damn day.
-Eric
