Trust

Delivering the impossible requires trust.

The biggest underlying reason why teams don’t perform is often lack of trust. Surprisingly, it is not necessarily obvious upfront. Usually people have a number of various reasons why things don’t work as they should: lack of communication, cultural differences, uncooperative partners, etc. And it is easy to get bogged down in those details, get lost in the trees, and not come to the core issue.

And the core issue is absence of trust. Not just the trust that somebody will do what they said they were going to do. But the trust the allows team members to be vulnerable, admit mistakes, and speak up, because they will be heard.

There is a popular book “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni I read a while ago. It covers the topic nicely. And yet, there is a difference for me between academic understanding that trust is essential to seeing how this plays out in the real world.

Trust may not matter that much when the work is structured, and things are clearly outlined. In the world of startups, the ask of the teams is to deliver the impossible. Such things cannot be accomplished through good management alone. You also need leadership that is built on trust.