Slide 1
Slide 1 text
Refactoring Trust
on your Team
Rebecca Miller-Webster
@rmillwebster
CTO, Tandem (formerly DevMynd)
@madeintandem
Founder, Write/Speak/Code
@writespeakcode
Slide 2
Slide 2 text
https://www.flickr.com/photos/z_b_p/2854947005
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Slide 3
Slide 3 text
No content
Slide 4
Slide 4 text
Lack of Trust
Stay silent in meetings or after a
disagreement
Passive aggressive behavior Micromanaging
Seek individual recognition
“Meeting after the meeting”
Interpersonal conflict
Revisit the same issues over and over
“Dirty Yes”: Say yes to your face and no
behind your back Cynicism
Withholding information and ideas
Invisible Army: Using ‘we” to express
your own point of view Frustration
Avoid tough conversations and giving
feedback
Defensiveness Resentment
Slide 5
Slide 5 text
Trust Matters
A Lot
Slide 6
Slide 6 text
–Stephen M.R. Covey & Doug R. Conant, Harvard Business Review
“Trust is … not a nice-to-have; it’s a must have. Without it,
every part of your organization can fall, literally, into disrepair.
With trust, all things are possible — most importantly:
continuous improvement and sustainable, measurable,
tangible results in the marketplace.”
Slide 7
Slide 7 text
Five
Dysfunctions of
Teams
Inattention
to Results
Avoidance of
Accountability
Lack of
Commitment
Fear of
Conflict
Absence of
Trust
Slide 8
Slide 8 text
Trust matters
• Fundamental to our sense of safety, autonomy, and dignity as a
human being
• Part of every relationship
• Allows us to disagree, debate & test each other’s thinking
• Trust on teams is correlated with business profitability
Slide 9
Slide 9 text
Do your people think your
trustworthy?
• Hotels where employees strongly believed their managers
followed through on promises and demonstrated the values they
preached were substantially more profitable.
• Very small improvement in rating significantly increased profit
• Trust in managers have more impact on profits than more
employee ‘satisfaction’ or ‘commitment.’
Tony Simons, Associate Professor of Management at Cornell University Hotel School
Slide 10
Slide 10 text
Neuroscience of Trust
• Trust in social interactions increases oxytocin
• Oxytocin increases
• risk tolerance
• ability to make decisions and take actions
• critical analysis, logic, and creativity
• verbal communication skills
• well-being and safety
Slide 11
Slide 11 text
Neuroscience of Distrust
• Fight / Flight / Freeze response
• Limited use of “thinking brain”
• Respond with unconscious, innate defensive behaviors
• Anxiety, fear, anger, aggression, withdrawal
• Threat alert
Slide 12
Slide 12 text
Self-Protection
• most successful people learn to be competitive with their peers,
and protective of their reputations
• takes away focus from current work
• fear of others using “it” for their gain
Slide 13
Slide 13 text
– Brené Brown
“Leaders must either invest a
reasonable amount of time attending
to fears and feelings, or squander an
unreasonable amount of time trying
to manage ineffective and
unproductive behavior.”
Slide 14
Slide 14 text
What is trust?
Slide 15
Slide 15 text
Trust
• assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or
something
• to place confidence in; rely on
• reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing;
confidence.
• confident expectation of something; hope.
• confidence in the certainty of future payment for property or goods received;
credit.
Slide 16
Slide 16 text
Trust
• reliance
• confidence
Slide 17
Slide 17 text
Trust is choosing
to risk making
something you value
vulnerable to another
person’s actions.
The Thin Book of Trust by Charles Feltman:
Slide 18
Slide 18 text
Choosing to risk
Slide 19
Slide 19 text
Risk Assessment
Slide 20
Slide 20 text
Something we value
Slide 21
Slide 21 text
What do we value?
Money Beliefs Your or team’s work or effort
Career / Job
Way of doing things
Deadlines
Promotion “Good name,” Reputation, or Status
Thoughts and Ideas
Goal Happiness and wellbeing
Hopes, Fears, or Concerns
Slide 22
Slide 22 text
By making it
vulnerable
to another’s actions
Slide 23
Slide 23 text
Five
Dysfunctions of
Teams
Need for
Invulnerability
Inattention
to Results
Avoidance of
Accountability
Lack of
Commitment
Fear of
Conflict
Absence of
Trust
Slide 24
Slide 24 text
By Leena Snidate / Codenomicon (http://heartbleed.com/heartbleed.svg)
[CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
Slide 25
Slide 25 text
Relational Vulnerability
• “Emotion we experience during times of uncertainty, risk, and
emotional exposure”
• “Showing up when you can’t control the outcome”
• Cannot “engineer” vulnerability out of relationships
• Innovation requires us to accept inevitable failure and keep
going.
Quotes from Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
Slide 26
Slide 26 text
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
https://www.flickr.com/photos/
drsnitch/19325871168/
Slide 27
Slide 27 text
Trust is built in
small moments
Slide 28
Slide 28 text
How do you (re)build
trust?
Slide 29
Slide 29 text
No content
Slide 30
Slide 30 text
B Boundaries
R Reliability
A Accountability
V Vault
I Integrity
N Non-Judgement
G Generosity
Elements of Trust from Rising Strong, Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
Slide 31
Slide 31 text
Boundaries
• You respect my boundaries.
• When you’re not clear about what’s ok and not ok, you ask.
• You are willing to say no.
Slide 32
Slide 32 text
Boundary Examples
• Starting and ending meetings on time
• Not looking at phones or computers during meetings
• Not checking email after a certain time
• Not taking work home on the weekends
BRAVING: Boundaries
Slide 33
Slide 33 text
BRAVING: Boundaries
Slide 34
Slide 34 text
Lack of Boundaries
• Resentment
• Anger
• Frustration
• Talking behind people’s backs
• Blame
BRAVING: Boundaries
Slide 35
Slide 35 text
CC BY 3.0
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:
Bamboo_Fence_with_Gate_-_Agri-Horticultural_Society_of_India_-
_Alipore_-_Kolkata_2013-01-05_2369.JPG
Boundaries aren’t walls
BRAVING: Boundaries
Slide 36
Slide 36 text
Boundaries are healthy
• Don’t need to apologize
• Not team’s job to make you feel better about it
• Explain the reasoning
• Be open to questions
• Team often thankful for the clarity and context
BRAVING: Boundaries
Slide 37
Slide 37 text
What can you do?
• Clear expectations, including …
• Success Criteria
• Timeframe
• Resources
• Explain your reasoning and be open to questions
• Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.
BRAVING: Boundaries
Slide 38
Slide 38 text
Reliability
• You do what you say you’ll do
• At work this means staying aware of your competencies and
limitations so you don’t over promise and are able to deliver on
commitments and balance competing priorities
Slide 39
Slide 39 text
Cycle of Commitment
Request /
Offer
Respond
Commit
Act
Report
BRAVING: Reliability
Slide 40
Slide 40 text
What can you do?
• Agile: Stand up, Planning Poker
• Respond positively when someone asks for help
• Clarify requests & offers: who, what, when
• Be committed to what you ask for
• Report on commitments
BRAVING: Reliability
Slide 41
Slide 41 text
Accountability
• You own your mistakes, apologize, and make amends
Slide 42
Slide 42 text
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/
7216770@N04/14565696612
BRAVING: Accountability
Slide 43
Slide 43 text
Take responsibility
• Acknowledge: recognize what you did wrong or the damage in the other
person’s eyes.
• Even if that wasn’t your intention
• Apologize: take responsibility for what you’ve done, ask forgiveness, and
declare your intention to redeem yourself.
• Don’t repeat the behavior that led to the betrayal
• Help fix problems your actions created
BRAVING: Accountability
Slide 44
Slide 44 text
What can you do?
• Take the time to listen to why people are doing what they are doing
• Avoid hero-ing
• Take responsibility for your behavior and the impact it had on
others
• Apologize: commit to behaving differently in the future and
describe those specific behaviors
BRAVING: Accountability
Slide 45
Slide 45 text
Vault
• You don’t share information or experiences that aren’t yours to
share
• I need to know my confidences are kept and you are not sharing
with me information about other people that should be kept
confidential
Slide 46
Slide 46 text
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/mkuram/3610488258/in/photostream/
BRAVING: Vault
Slide 47
Slide 47 text
Back-Channel Communication
• not being direct or upfront with people.
• “Meeting after the meeting” — sharing reactions, emotions, or
opinions with people before or after a meeting, rather than
sharing them in the meeting.
• Gossip
• “Dirty yes” — say “yes” to your face and then “no” behind your back
BRAVING: Vault
Slide 48
Slide 48 text
BRAVING: Vault
Slide 49
Slide 49 text
What can you do?
• Model public conversations when appropriate
• Ask if subject knows its being shared
• Don’t give or receive gossip
• Difficult circumstances
• Be vague if saying nothing is creating gossip
• Ask a person what you can share
BRAVING: Vault
Slide 50
Slide 50 text
Integrity
• You choose courage over comfort
• You choose what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy
• You choose to practice your values rather than just professing
them
Slide 51
Slide 51 text
https://medium.com/@bentlegen/the-best-tool-for-the-job-isnt-always-6ed364f3f775
BRAVING: Integrity
Slide 52
Slide 52 text
What are your values?
• Same values for work and home.
• What behaviors support?
• What behaviors take away?
• When were you fully living into your values?
BRAVING: Integrity
Slide 53
Slide 53 text
What can you do?
• Be explicit about the things that matter - Examples of good and bad
• Check yourself when someone does something differently - Is this a thing
that matters?
• Create new expectations when things happen - take responsibility for not
being explicit
• Be thoughtful and intentional about handling disagreements
• Find an person to role play, run ideas by, and review
BRAVING: Integrity
Slide 54
Slide 54 text
Non-judgement
• I can ask you for what I need and you can ask for what you need
• We can talk about how we feel without judgement
• We can ask each other for help without judgement
Slide 55
Slide 55 text
BRAVING: Non-judgement
Slide 56
Slide 56 text
What do team members do that
earn trust?
• Ask for Help
• Confidence you’ll know if they are struggling or in over their head
• Not asking for help leads to not receiving challenging work
• Leads to delegation
BRAVING: Non-judgement
Slide 57
Slide 57 text
Are you technically irrelevant?
• Afraid of being judged for lack of knowledge or understanding
• We judge
• person doing worse than us
• area where we are insecure
• Feels good to feel superior … for a little while
BRAVING: Non-judgement
Slide 58
Slide 58 text
What can you do?
• Ask for help
• Help others when they ask
• Stay curious about why you are judging
• Be aware of your own insecurities
BRAVING: Non-judgement
Slide 59
Slide 59 text
Generosity
• You extend the most generous interpretation possible to
intentions, words, and actions of others
Slide 60
Slide 60 text
BRAVING: Generosity
Slide 61
Slide 61 text
What can you do?
• What boundaries need to be in place for you to be generous with your
assumptions about other’s behavior?
• Provide clear expectations and set boundaries
• We are each responsible for our own behavior and the things we can
control
• Don’t hold grudges
• Get to personally know people - listen, ask questions
BRAVING: Generosity
Slide 62
Slide 62 text
Refactoring Trust
Slide 63
Slide 63 text
Start where people are
• Develop observable behaviors for elements of trust and
organizational values
• Behaviors in the context of current reality of culture and
organization
• Create a North Star
Slide 64
Slide 64 text
Trusting Teams
During meetings, most important and
difficult issues are put on the table to be
resolved
Acknowledge and apologize for mistakes
- openly admit weakness and mistakes.
Willingly makes sacrifices for the good of
the team
Productive debate and discussions -
ends with clear and specific resolutions
and call to action
Do what you say you’ll do
Passionate & unguarded in their
discussion of issues
Concerned about letting down peers
Willing to say no Call out each other’s unproductive
behaviors
Ask for help
Concerned about letting down peers Don’t over promise
Retain employees
Leave meetings confident that peers are
committed to the decisions made
Meetings are engaging and productive
Slide 65
Slide 65 text
0. Self-reflect
Slide 66
Slide 66 text
Self-trust
• Foundations of trusting others is trusting ourselves
• Often out of our element — innovation, changing market
conditions etc
Slide 67
Slide 67 text
Leading is Lonely
• Employees complaining of exhaustion, were actually lonely.
(Harvard Business Review)
• Emotions of leading — loneliness, isolation, carrying weight of
people/company’s future
Slide 68
Slide 68 text
Self-compassion
• Three elements of self-compassion:
• Self-Kindness: speaking to ourselves as we would speak to our
loved ones, even in face of failure; meet mistakes with kindness
• Common Humanity: we are not alone and humans shares these
feelings of shame and inadequacy
• Mindfulness: appropriate responsibility and rumination on
feelings and emotions; be present
Research from Dr. Kristin Neff
Slide 69
Slide 69 text
1. Show
Vulnerability
Slide 70
Slide 70 text
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218121/
Model Behavior
Slide 71
Slide 71 text
Be vulnerable
• Most important thing you can do is be vulnerable first
• Must risk losing face to show the team it’s ok for them to risk
• Must be genuine
• “Fake vulnerability” or “cordial hypocrisy” does more harm
• E.g. ask questions but don’t pause for others to talk
• E.g. shirk responsibility by asking them to feel sorry for you
Slide 72
Slide 72 text
Team: Personal Histories
• Provide low-risk way to show vulnerability
• Ask team to share answers to a few personal questions with each other
• Innocuous attributes or experiences; Not too revealing
• number of siblings, hometown, unique challenges of childhood, favorite
hobbies, first job, and worst job
• Creates Empathy
• Discourages inaccurate behavior attribution
Five Dysfunctions of Teams
Slide 73
Slide 73 text
2. Talk about Trust
Slide 74
Slide 74 text
Identify the
breach.
Slide 75
Slide 75 text
Psychological Safety
• Google’s #1 element of successful teams
• Psychological safety: Can we take risks on this team without feeling insecure
or embarrassed?
• Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson coined
• Taken-for-granted belief about how others will respond when you ask a
question, seek feedback, admit a mistake, or propose a possibly wacky idea
• Most people feel a need to “manage” interpersonal risk to retain a good
image, especially with their boss
Slide 76
Slide 76 text
Build a container
• Establishing ground rules of a group
• Rules should make people feel safe — ask what other’s need.
• Create a shared language. Introduce your team to BRAVING or
other concepts.
Slide 77
Slide 77 text
Prepare for discomfort
• Practice
• Discuss with friend
• Accept it: “I’m going to feel uncomfortable. I’m going to do it
anyway.”
• Thin Book of Trust has preparation steps and scripts
Slide 78
Slide 78 text
Talk about trust
• Schedule a time
• Start with context: I’d like to talk about trust
• Specific behaviors
• Clear Examples
• Describe the impact of the behavior on team or business
• Follow up with consistent actions
Slide 79
Slide 79 text
3. Keep going
Slide 80
Slide 80 text
http://olayar.deviantart.com/art/Birth-plan-icon-monitoring-518120665
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Slide 81
Slide 81 text
Trust is a practice
• “Repair trust when it is broken, by being intentional and
consistent in your language and actions.” - Charles Feltman, Thin Book
of Trust
• Walk the Walk
Slide 82
Slide 82 text
Team: Share assessments
• Strengths & Weakness:
• Share 1 of each that contribute most to team effectiveness
• Do personality and behavioral assessments
• Share results and discuss
Slide 83
Slide 83 text
What does support look like?
• Open-ended question.
• Not “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
• Clarifies roles and expectations
• Holds them accountable for asking for what they need
Slide 84
Slide 84 text
Define roles in a decision
• Who is accountable? Do they have the authority to do the work?
• Who will carry out decision?
• Who needs to provide input?
• Who is effected and needs to be notified?
• What does success look like?
• Create a checklist of what needs to be done
Slide 85
Slide 85 text
– Brené Brown
“Leaders must either invest a
reasonable amount of time attending
to fears and feelings, or squander an
unreasonable amount of time trying
to manage ineffective and
unproductive behavior.”
Slide 86
Slide 86 text
Refactoring Trust
on your Team
Rebecca Miller-Webster
@rmillwebster
CTO, Tandem (formerly DevMynd)
@madeintandem
Founder, Write/Speak/Code
@writespeakcode
Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
Thin Book of Trust by Charles Felman
Five Dysfunctions of Teams by Patrick Lencioni
Understanding Computers and Cognition by Terry Winograd