Have you ever noticed that it takes time to build trust in an organization? As a corollary to this, cynicism seems to multiply like weeds. Cynicism tends to permeate an organization where trust is in short supply. The good news is that once trust is established, a church team can enter into appropriate, constructive conflict, without fear that it will turn destructive. Trust has to do with a willingness on people’s part to be vulnerable within the team. It’s an openness about mistakes and weaknesses. Organizations and teams that lack trust are unable to engage in unfiltered and passionate disagreement around the mission of the organization. Instead, they resort to veiled discussions and guarded comments.
Does Your Team Lack Trust?
Once you have a trusting team, you can have honest disagreements that lead to decisions and plans of action that people are actually committed to. So much of what I see in organizations is compliance (‘I’ll do what you ask, but my heart’s not in it’), but very little commitment. Commitment arises only after each member of a team has been able to wrestle with the initiatives that are presented, offer their disagreements, and grapple with all of the alternatives before arriving at a decision. Once that occurs, the team can hold one another accountable, because there is a shared sense of ownership in the decision.
Trust –> Disagree –> Commit to Decisions –> Hold Each Other Responsible –> Focus on the Achievements Everyone Created
How is trust established? Let’s look at the building blocks that are critical to the growth of trust:
Predictability
Consistency
Dependability
Congruence
Begin with predictability: You’re able to predict in advance what I will do. That’s because I’m consistent. I do the same thing, over and over again, free from variation or contradiction. But I could do the same wrong thing over and over. So that means I have to be dependable: I get the same positive result over and over again from the person or organization.
The last building block is congruence. What I say is backed up by what I do. I talked about this quite a bit in my blog postings last fall. Our ability to think and act inconsistently, and then cover up the discrepancy, knows no limits.
