Better Software - September 2008 - (Page 37) What Does a Team Without Trust Look Like? How do you know that a team lacks trust? There are several signs of a nontrusting team: • Fear—People are afraid to speak up, afraid to fail, and afraid of humiliation. • All members are out for themselves—Team members pontificate and spout monologues while at the same time keeping valuable information to themselves. • Lack of engagement—Team members do not support each other and don’t participate in team discussions and decisions. • Defensiveness and negativity— Team members exhibit closed • • • • body language, never saying a good word about other team members or the tasks at hand. Condescension—Ideas are dismissed without consideration or are criticized unfairly. Passive-aggressiveness and lack of integrity—In meetings, people agree to one thing but outside the meetings say and do another. Impatience—There is tension in every working encounter, and team members lack initiative. Rampant gossip and complaining—Team members talk behind each other’s backs and engage in mean-spirited humor instead of healthy, fun humor. It is quite a challenge to take on www.StickyMinds.com such a team and lead team members to trusting each other, especially when you are faced with the fact that, as a leader, you cannot change people. Ordering members to trust each other just doesn’t work. Still, you want to take on the leadership of this team. You respect many of the team members. They are a talented group and have produced great results on other teams. The project they are working on is important to the company, and you figure you can help. But there is one question you need to consider: Can I trust everyone on this team? You may not know all of them well, but you must make sure there is no one on the team you distrust. As Ricardo Semler asks in his book, The Seven Day Weekend, if you don’t SEPTEMBER 2008 BETTER SOFTWARE 37 http://www.StickyMinds.com
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