Trust: The Key to Successful Collaboration

When teams are working effectively together there is a certain energy in them that makes it seem like they've "caught fire" and the entire team is "in flow" (Daniel Goleman: Working With Emotional Intelligence, 1998: 227). Goleman describes the team that worked on Sojourner Rover, the robot that 'walked' on the surface of Mars and sent information back to earth about its neighbouring planet. The Sojourner team worked intensively for years fired by the enormity of what they were doing, sharing tasks and jointly making decisions irrespective of their role or position in the hierarchy. The mood was playful but the task was serious. When they met unexpected problems the entire team responded quickly and creatively. They were in flow.
Teams that are in flow are characterised by certain common traits. These include intense loyalty on the part of team members, a diverse range of talents, shared passion, a sense of fun and rewarding and a high degree of trust. While all these traits are important, Larson and LaFasto's study of winning teams found that trust is key. It directs vital energy towards to task and away from politicking. It promotes easy and efficient communication. Effort is coordinated and people willingly support or substitute for each other. Because team members know that they will be supported if they fail, problems, mistakes and possible glitches become apparent early enough for the impact to be minimised.
However, trust seems to be such an intangible quality that many team leaders despair of knowing how to build it. Larson and LaFasto suggest that it can be fostered by increasing the level of involvement and autonomy that team members experience. When all team members are clear about the goal, have a say in how to get there, and are empowered to take risks and make decisions their trust in each other and the level of their collaboration increases manifold.

Personal Goals versus Team Vision

Jim Seymour the American football player was asked to recall a time when he had been on a team that performed poorly. He responded with the following story reported by Larson and LaFasto (1988) in their book Teamwork: What Must Go Right/What Can Go Wrong:
In 1971, the Chicago Bears were fairly confident of doing well. Everyone was working hard to get to the playoffs and go to the Super Bowl. The incentive was money. If the team went to the Super Bowl the players and coaches would make more money than they had made all year. Unfortunately the head coach and the owner of the team didn't see eye to eye. Things began to deteriorate: the coaches fought amongst themselves, there were no attempts to review the games that the team lost or learn from past mistakes. Soon the mood was defeated. The team felt unsupported, players began to leave immediately after a game sometimes not waiting to even take a shower. It tore the team apart. They lost seven games in a row and went to last place.
Larson and LaFasto argue that personal success got elevated above the team goal.
However, the pursuit of personal success is a fact of life. Almost everyone in a team wants to succeed and every member of the team knows that they are as much in competition with their teammates as they are with other teams. But when individual goals are aligned with that of the team, it reinforces the shared vision. Understandably football players need to make money just like anyone else, yet how different the mood would have been if all the players and coaches had been inspired by one shared vision: to win the Super Bowl!

A Clear, Elevated Goal

In 1961 President John Kennedy gave a speech exhorting an entire nation to put a man on the moon before the decade was over. Some years later he visited the team at NASA who were working furiously to fulfil his vision and was introduced to several eminent scientists and researchers. He met the administrators, the accountants, the aspiring astronauts. Everyone seemed to share a sense of pride and passion for their collective dream. Walking through the corridors on the way back to his limousine he came across an elderly grey-haired man stooping with a bucket in one hand and a mop in another. The President stopped to make conversation, asking a somewhat redundant question, 'And what do you do here at the Cape?' Straightening his back the old man looked squarely at the President, 'Sir,' he replied, 'I'm doing the same as everybody else. I'm working here to put a man on the moon.'
Adapted from The Magic of Metaphor by Nick Owen, 2001

What happens when team members are inspired by a goal, a vision that is much bigger than their current task?

What Makes for Successful Teams?

In her study of 150 self-managed teams Professor Vanessa Drukat of the Weatherhead School of Management found that outstanding teams had ten features in common which include empathy, cooperation, a commitment to improvement, flexibility, self-awareness and initiative (see Goleman, D.1998). In addition, bonds with other teams and the ability to tap into resources available in the wider organisation were found to be crucial to the success of the team.

A similar study of teams as diverse as McDonald’s Chicken McNugget team and the USS Kitty Hawk, Carl E. Larson and Frank M.J. LaFasto (1989) concluded that effective teams are characterised by:
· a clear, elevating goal
· a results-driven structure
· competent team members
· unified commitment
· a collaborative climate
· standards of excellence
· external support and recognition
· principled leadership

Clearly, the effectiveness of a team depends on the passion and enthusiasm of its members, the quality of the relationships between them and its relationship with the wider community/ organisation. Without these the technical skills and competencies of its members will not reach full potential.