Developing trust in teams

When you think about teams at work, what is the most important thing for them to have? Many ideas come to mind, like a team’s skill set or motivation levels, but others argue that it boils down to trust. 

The opposite of trust is suspicion. Drew Fortin SVP, Sales and Marketing

But why would something as simple as trusting another make such a difference? This can easily be summed up by the quote to the left from Drew Fortin, given during a recent interview on team trust. If your team isn’t willing to trust one another, their actions will never contain risk. And if your team isn’t taking risks, then they’re not going to be able to effectively adapt or innovate when challenging situations head their way. 

This also leads to team members not voicing their opinions, because a lack of trust will make them feel the team won’t be receptive to them. When an employee doesn’t mesh well with the people on their team due to trust issues, this can lead to friction among the team or disengaged individuals. No matter how talented those individuals are separately, if they can’t trust one another, they’ll never get those “out of this world” results we all strive for.

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