Trust At Work: Tactics and Tools for Building High Performing Teams

Google conducted a two-year study to determine the most important characteristics in their highest performing teams.   The common denominator was trust, helping then build what they called "psychological safety".   They describe it as follows.

"In a team with high psychological safety, teammates feel safe to take risks around their team members. They feel confident that no one on the team will embarrass or punish anyone else for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea.  In other words, great teams thrive on trust." (Source:  Inc.com, "Google Spent Years Studying Effective Teams", Justin Bariso, January, 2018)

But how do business owners, managers, and team leaders build team trust?  It is difficult to define and impossible to demand. The key lies in our ability to assist team members in deciding, individually, that they want to be a part of the team, that they buy-in to the team's purpose, agree with the team's plan and practices, and find it worth it to contribute discretionary effort--going above and beyond normal job description requirements to ensure group success.  Trust At Work introduces The Team Trust ModelTM, a model that provides leaders with a PROCESS (something we know well) to help us manage our PEOPLE issues,  (sometimes confusing and complex).  The book describes the six steps and questions that all team members answer, conciously or not, anytime they find themselves on a team, provides real-world examples of the impact these questions have on teams, and offers a number of practical, immediately applicable tools leaders can use to help build team trust and exceptional team performance.  A must-read for anyone attempting to improve their team!