Trust and Team Dynamics

Creating a well-functioning team is an exceedingly difficult endeavor that requires common purpose, leadership, organization, clearly delineated roles, communication, and, most importantly, trust (Goetsch & Davis, 2021, p. 147-151). Sometimes, something can go wrong along the way.

When a team was well-functioning at one point and then later fell apart, there was definitely a failure of leadership. One of the things a good leader does is to keep his team members engaged in the project. If a team member disappears or otherwise “checks out,” the leader must figure out why this happened and pull the team member back in. This is not only for that wayward team member’s benefit but also for the overall success of the project (mission).

Pulling a team member back into a project is not an easy task! At some point, trust was broken, and it must be rebuilt.

The importance of trust cannot be underestimated. Soderberg and Romney (2022) state that trust is “the glue that holds human associations together.” This applies not only to single teams, but organizations, communities, and indeed whole societies. Wike & Holzwart (2008) note that “[h]igh levels of social capital and social trust have been linked to any number of positive social outcomes, including low crime rates.” Wike and Holzwart were analyzing a major political event – the fall of communism – but the same principles apply at all levels, including small teams.

Soderberg and Romney (2022) are concerned with establishing trust. They find that authentic and proactive behavior are crucial characteristics of leaders. They also find that they must “demonstrate humility in their communication” and that they should exhibit “compassion in their behavior.” Their findings are based on research at assisted-living care facilities, however.

So, how to rebuild trust once it has been lost? Schniter, Sheremeta, and Sznycer (2012) conducted research on this topic, and they identify three remedial strategies. First, the “offender” (Schniter et al’s word) should recognize that trust has indeed been broken, and then apologize. Second, the offender should persuade and assure “victims” (again, their word) that they are valued and promise to act trustworthy in the future. Finally, the offender must be willing to pay a cost, somehow.

Schniter et al’s work was conducted through what they call “trust games.” In these games, “trustees made non-binding promises of investment-contingent returns, then investors decided whether to invest, and finally trustees decided how much to return. After an unexpected second game was announced, but before it commenced, trustees could send a one-way message.” Their conclusions were based on the contents of that one-way message along with the actions the investors took after receipt of that message.

Schniter et al do consider the value of the harm caused by the offender. Their experiments involved playing two rounds of this game, and it was found that repeated trust-breaking resulted in a considerably less chance in reestablishing trust (Schniter et al, p. 28).

It's not clear whether this economic model is applicable to team dynamics. It is interesting how far apologies and promises go to rebuilding trust, however.

References

Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2021). Quality management for organizational excellence: Introduction to total quality (9^th ed.). Pearson.

Schniter, E., Sheremeta, R., & Sznycer, D. (2012). Building and rebuilding trust with promises and responsibilities. Economic Science Institute Working Paper. https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1069&context=esi_working_papers

Soderberg, A. & Romney, A. (2022). Building trust: How leaders can engender feelings of trust among followers. Business Horizons 65(2), 173-182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2021.02.031

Wike, R. & Holzwart, K. (2008, 15 April). Where trust is high, crime and corruption are low. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2008/04/15/where-trust-is-high-crime-and-corruption-are-low/