The teams who perform the best build and maintain a high level of trust.

Some call it psychological safety.

Your team can achieve new heights by understanding these six essential steps in the cycle to build a high trust team environment.

The Team Trust Model©  In Action

• The Team Leader owns the responsibility for creating a high performing team and is at the center of the model.
• The Trust ARROW represents the potential power of an effective team.
• On every team, each team member must answer some fundamental questions about their commitment to the team, consciously or unconsciously through their actions.
• The Leader’s job is to help team members answer the questions in a positive manner.
• Sharing this model with team members helps to surface the questions to a conscious level, moving the team forward more quickly and with less conflict.
• The circular layout represents the speed of forward progress; like a flywheel, gaining engagement, traction, and momentum.

• The model begins at the PEOPLE stage and moves clockwise.  As each question is answered and as the team makes progress, members move to the next stage.
• It is not necessary for all team members to be at exactly the same stage at the same time for the team to make progress. 
• However, a more individual alignment will generally yield better team results!
• The model is not time sensitive.  It can represent the successful completion of an entire project or the successful completion of any daily activity in the life of the project.
• The higher performing the team, the faster they cycle through the model.
• When questions cannot be answered positively, team members may regress back to previous stages, causing performance to stall.
• Regression can happen.  Ultimately, members may decide to exit the team altogether.

The model represents a process for managing others and is much more effective than conceptual training because a process presents a logical order making it easier to remember and replicate.  This process shows managers what they should DO, not how they should BE.