Engagement and Trust

My teammates are unaware of, and probably unconcerned with, the amount of time I’ve devoted to preparation. They simply expect me to show up and make my contribution. We have a four-hour event and my section is three minutes and twenty-four seconds in duration – less than 2% of the product. Because it’s a concert showcasing student and faculty performances, each of us shares accountability for being at the top of our game in the moments on stage. Rehearsing and cleaning up mistakes is largely done alone, so the interdependence is invisible – yet very much real.

More and more, I see my friends and colleagues managing multiple priorities simultaneously. I have a coworker with one conference call on an earbud while participating on another meeting on a Zoom screen. She toggles back and forth, depending on which conversation becomes the most urgent or requires her most focused engagement. The science suggests that at no time is she actually giving full attention to either meeting.

There is simply nothing more fundamental to relationships and team wellness than trust. It is also the hardest element of connection to both earn and maintain. Since everyone has been burned at some point in their past, it often only takes a small breach to devolve the connection back to negative territory. The chance that a teammate will lower their guard again after a violation, no matter how minor, is slim. You had – and lost – your chance.

Eventually, everyone in your inner circle will say or do something that annoys you. Some will repeat these words and behaviors often enough to make you wonder why they’re still in your circle. Because a rich community requires diversity to survive, we don’t usually take the drastic route of cutting people out. In most cases, we’re left with the option to either tolerate or appreciate. When tensions are high, we tend to opt for tolerance. But, when we step back and look at the bigger picture, appreciation unfolds. Relationships, teams, neighborhoods, and communities are built on these responses. Let’s consider three examples and the lessons they teach.

Team engagement is more challenging when interacting through a laptop screen or a smartphone. It’s easier than ever to get away with multitasking. When the group gets larger, distractions are more tempting. What keeps teammates tuned in? Beyond the drug of charisma when a compelling speaker has the floor, the most effective fuel for sustained engagement is connection. And connection is not about you or your needs. It’s about the other people on the team.

Virtually every team we measure scores high on the statement, “I have at least one trusted colleague on the team.” Far fewer clients, however, reflect full-group trust in the survey questions designed to evaluate the psychological safety of the entire team. Almost everyone has a trusted teammate as one-to-one interactions are easier to navigate than group dynamics. Without full-team trust, the organization’s energy is misallocated to internal politics. Consider these steps to building or rebuilding a sustainable foundation of trust in the workplace.

As the primary driver of team trust, accountability is elusive. Meeting deadlines, keeping promises and behaving in a way that is true to company values are examples of the daily contributions we all make to team wellness. In a culture of accountability, only exceptions to these behaviors are noticed. When getting a pass is the norm, following through with commitments gets celebrated as special. So, how do you build a culture of accountability?

Performing in “the zone” is a team endeavor. Most people can nail just about any solo skill with focus, discipline, and repetition. The pressure is largely internal. When you add other humans to the mix, however, the ability to find the zone is more difficult. Sometimes the effort to perform becomes the failure to perform when under pressure.

Trust is the secret sauce that enables teams to thrive. Once it is anchored in a relationship, growth and innovation become possible. Without it, much of the team’s energy is spent managing interpersonal chaos. This is the value proposition for most teams. The less time and resources consumed by office politics, the more time and resources focused on the organization’s mission. As elusive as group trust may seem, there is a proven path.

How long does it take to transform the spirit of a workplace? Depending on the depth and duration of the struggle, employee morale can be turned around quickly. Healthy, thriving teams are always evolving their environments. Struggling teams must execute a deliberate decision to sponsor change.

Stay in your lane! Teams can achieve impressive success without collaboration. The recipe is simple: work hard, ensure competence, and be nice. As long as everyone makes their contribution, business gets done and, often, the results are good. Greatness, however, is rarely achieved without a commitment to share ideas and resources. But inviting a teammate into your lane means having to be accountable for the overlap. It’s harder work. We all drive differently when there’s a passenger onboard.

Try this exchange if you’d like to boost transparency and accountability on your team. It’s a simple exercise that unveils each teammate’s contribution to the group and a glimpse of the motives that drive their passion for the work. To implement this exercise with your team, follow these five simple steps:

Most teamwork is relationship driven. Everyone has a role and function relative to their teammates’ roles and functions. Yet, each interaction is fueled by a solo decision made in the privacy of your thoughts. Before we collaborate, a few items must be clear:

Classroom teachers can spot them in an instant. The most engaged person in the room sends off energy that elevates the entire group. Beyond standard eye contact and nods of understanding, this teammate absorbs his or her environment. Connections are forged physically, emotionally, and intellectually. What might you do if you wanted to deliver engagement at this level?

Every interaction either adds or subtracts from the trust of a partnership. Whether you give trust freely or require it to be earned, it grows and shrinks continuously. When you look closely into the aspects of interpersonal exchange that populate a typical workplace, the disparity in willingness to take risks amongst teammates makes sense. Consider the three primary drivers of trust: connection, respect, and accountability.

One true measure of engagement is if, in the eyes of your peers, you matter. Whether in a business meeting or an interpersonal exchange, everybody knows what it feels like to be invisible. Your partners might be making eye contact but their attention is on other priorities. Colleagues are checking their smartphones during your presentation. It’s the classic portrayal of “presenteeism” – the body is present but the spirit is not. Consider these three methods to achieve invisibility:

Engaging with unknown partners poses risks. Without the context of a track record, it’s hard to predict the direction collaboration might take. A cocktail of trust, courage, and adventure must be consumed before dancing with a stranger.

It was a battle of emotional immune systems. The team’s leader was burned out. He had been in his role too long without growth or challenge. Each day, he dragged himself into work, put in his hours, produced the minimum necessary to keep his job, left at 5:00 on the nose, and returned home to refuel sufficiently to come back and do it again. Another day…another dollar. Most of his direct reports followed his lead and sleepwalked through their careers…except one.

Gallup’s 30/50/20 metric seems to hold true in any industry. You know the breakdown – in any given workplace, about 30% of the employees are engaged – they would run through a wall for the organization. About 50% of the employees are disengaged. They’re not really hurting the business with intent. They come to work, do their jobs, and collect their paychecks. These are not the folks, though, you’d ask to go the extra mile. And then, there’s the 20% of the work team that is actively disengaged. Not all of these employees are intentionally trying to harm the workplace. In most cases, they’ve simply decided to devote the bulk of their energy to perpetuating toxicity.

A hand shot up during a recent Team Clock workshop.  Having just finished reading a best selling business book focusing on team dysfunctions, she expressed confusion about the relationship between trust and conflict.