3 Ways to Overcome Chaos and Build Trust with Your Team
In the last couple of years, the business world has seen a dizzying number of transitions. Work from home becoming the norm, summons back to the office, hybrid teams taking shape. Coworkers leaving for different opportunities and companies reorganizing to cope. Not to mention the impact of things like wars and the economy. It has been chaotic, and the levels of uncertainty don’t seem to be decreasing.
When faced with so much change, there are only two real options: succumb to the fight, flight, or freeze response, or choose trust.
In the workplace, the fight, flight, or freeze response looks like:
Excessive competition and defensiveness – people seek protect themselves at any cost, often looking for any opportunity to claim glory and blaming others for problems (Fight)
Quitting or presenteeism – people leave their roles literally, or they are physically present at work, but they are no longer engaged or productive (Flight)
Indecision and suspicion – people are unproductive because they don’t have clear goals, they constantly worry about what they aren’t being told, and are waiting to see what will happen before they act (Freeze)
These are all natural reactions, but when they become persistent patterns of behavior, teams stop functioning and productivity ceases.
If you’re seeing these tendencies in yourself or your teammates, it’s time to intentionally choose trust. It may feel unnatural or scary at first, but it is the only choice that will allow your team to reach its full potential.
There are three key elements to rebuilding trust with your team:
1. Make sure your team knows you care about them as people.
Healthy work relationships promote trust, and all good relationships require a balance of give and take. Adding a couple minutes to get to know each other personally to meeting your agendas and celebrating your team members on a regular basis goes a long way towards making sure your team members know that you value them as individuals, not just for the work that they do.
2. When talking about problems, listen to identify the barriers or breakdowns in process, not to distribute blame.
Your reaction when faced with uncertainty or a challenge matters. Actively avoid pointing fingers or jumping to conclusions if someone shares something you dislike or reveals a problem you didn’t know about. Instead, keep asking questions and listen. Thank people for their honesty and consciously choose to use whatever they say to provide better support. Doing this consistently will encourage better communication so that challenges can be addressed as effectively.
3. Trust your people.
No one likes being left in the dark. If there is a change coming, communicate about it as quickly as possible. The key, however, is to make sure that your team knows where to focus. Make clear distinctions between definitive things that your team needs to take into consideration immediately and the things that are possible considerations for the future. Yes, people may have negative reactions, but being up front helps reduce suspicion. When you trust your team, they are more likely to trust you.
Building and maintaining trust is a process, but it is one that is essential for a team to be effective. When trust grows, the energy that would have gone towards office gossip, self-protection, secrecy, and suspicion can instead be channeled towards collaboration.
Choose Trust.
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