Build High Performing Teams by Improving Team Trust

Coaching for Business Owners & Entrepreneurs

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

Some call it psychological safety.

Your Executive Coaching journey should include a focus on building a better team.

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.
Your Executive Coaching should include a better understanding of this trust dynamic and how it impacts your team.
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.

STEP 1 – PEOPLE

Key question: Do I even want to be on this team? Each member of the team must satisfy this basic question before any other work can be achieved.

STEP 2 – PURPOSE

Key question: Do I understand why we exist as a team? Is there clarity around our mission? Each member of the team must satisfy this next question to gain clarity before commitment.

STEP 3 – PLAN

Key question: How is this going to be done? I understand the purpose, but tell me more about how we’re going to do this.

STEP 4 – PRACTICE

Key question: What drives the way we will do things? What works and what does not? If we discover something is not working, how will we change that? There should not be any artificial roadblocks in the way of team success.

STEP 5 – PERFORMANCE

Key question: How will we measure success? Will it be a fair assessment? Fair and equitable performance evaluation and measurement is required. Old, stale ways of waiting for annual reviews must be eliminated. Today’s workforce demands better feedback and coaching from their leaders.

STEP 6 – PAYOFF

Key question: What is the payoff for accomplishing everything we set out to do? Are the rewards worth the effort. Rewards are not limited to monetary compensation. Think about recognition, pride, self-esteem, and other measures of achievement.

The BIG So What?

Leaders whose teams achieve maximum results in all six categories will experience greater team trust. Having an environment of high trust results in better performance overall.