Close your eyes. Picture the highest performing teams that you have been a part of or have seen in action. Actions between team members are seamless, synchronized. Tom Brady dropping back and throwing a completed pass. The Navy’s Blue Angels performing daring aerial maneuvers wingtip to wingtip, at hundreds of miles per hour. A five-star restaurant staff serving its finest for its customers at its busiest times. You get the picture.
These teams’ actions are interrelated, complex, yet look choreographed and connected. It is as though they know each other’s next move in advance, anticipating and matching with their own. Poetry in motion.
Whether you are picturing a business setting, sporting event or military mission, the precision and efficiency of such high performance can be traced back to one common denominator – trust. Trust enables team members to perform at a level that others can’t match, because each acts with the confidence, speed and surety that their team knows exactly what they will do and will, in turn, be prepared to act in kind, all toward the aligned, clearly defined goal to be achieved.
Those of us who have enjoyed being a part of such teams know how fulfilling and proud we felt to achieve at these highest levels – together. However, recalling these times in our respective careers, we also realize how difficult this level of performance is to achieve. Why so? Trust takes work, trust can take time to develop with new teams or team members and trust, as we all know, can be fragile. But, in my experience, there is no stronger enabler of true apex performance, the kind you remember for a lifetime. Building trust is not only worth the time and effort, it is essential. It is the oxygen of top performance.
So, where to start? Those who have built this level of trust know that the first step must begin within. In order to be trusted, we must first prove trustworthy. Being trustworthy starts simply with making commitments and keeping them; repeat, repeat, repeat. Through this, we earn respect for our discipline and integrity. We can be counted on.
We also build this respect a step at a time as we develop and deepen relationships with whom we interact. As Theodore Roosevelt once observed, “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”. As leaders, and team members alike, that is where it all must begin and consistently be reinforced for trust to develop. Being sincerely interested in others and continually deepening those relationships through frequent and genuine interactions forms, then strengthens, a bond we feel toward others. That bond starts as familiarity but through care and commitment becomes trust.
I have observed that the more difficult the challenge or more critical the situation, the more trust matters. In times of crisis, individuals and teams are often selected on the basis of trust. The stakes are too high, the margin for error too thin to do otherwise. Those so chosen earned the respect based on their performance; they are trusted. In my journey, that is among the highest endorsements one can ever receive. Author George MacDonald, takes it even further noting that “to be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved”.
Looking for the highest performance possible with your team? Build trust.
Can I count on you?
Authored By: Jeff Boyer, Managing Director
