The Trust Equation uses four objective variables to measure trustworthiness. These four variables are best described as: Credibility, Reliability, Intimacy and Self-Orientation.
We combine these variables into the following equation:
TQ stands for Trust Quotient. The Trust Quotient is a number — like your IQ or EQ — that benchmarks your trustworthiness against the four variables.
Let’s dig into each variable a bit more:
CREDIBILITY has to do with the words we speak. In a sentence, we might say, “I can trust what she says about intellectual property; she’s very credible on the subject.”
RELIABILITY has to do with actions. We might say, “If he says he’ll deliver the product tomorrow, I trust him, because he’s dependable.”
INTIMACY refers to the safety or security that we feel when entrusting someone with something. We might say, “I can trust her with that information; she’s never violated my confidentiality before, and she would never embarrass me.”
SELF-ORIENTATION refers to the person’s focus. In particular, whether the person’s focus is primarily on him or herself, or on the other person. We might say, “I can’t trust him on this deal — I don’t think he cares enough about me, he’s focused on what he gets out of it.” Or more commonly, “I don’t trust him — I think he’s too concerned about how he’s appearing, so he’s not really paying attention.”
#Teamwork has always been important. 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗽𝗵𝘆𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲, 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. Teams have become remote and hybrid. And this more than ever accentuates the need to create cohesive teams capable of withstanding zoom meetings, time differences, asynchronous communication and lack of coffee breaks.
There are many definitions of the characteristics of highly effective teams. I like the one by Patrick Lencioni, author of “The ideal team player”.
According to him, 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐡𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐭 𝟓 𝐤𝐞𝐲 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐬:
these behaviors are almost the 𝗯𝘆𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝟯 𝘃𝗶𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗲𝘀 that the team acquires:
🏆𝗛𝗨𝗠𝗜𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗬 (focus on the “we”) 🏆𝗛𝗨𝗡𝗚𝗘𝗥 (learning and contribution mentality) 🏆𝗦𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗧 (in the sense of emotional intelligence)
The Sketchnote illustrates well that all 3 qualities are necessary and how it affects the team 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴:
👎𝗢𝗡𝗟𝗬 𝗛𝗨𝗠𝗕𝗟𝗘: Pawn, No power of influence or persuasion 👎𝗢𝗡𝗟𝗬 𝗛𝗨𝗡𝗚𝗘𝗥: “Bulldozer” inconsiderate to others. “Pushy” for results 👎𝗢𝗡𝗟𝗬 𝗦𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗧: “Charmer” , not real contributor
The model raises some questions:
💼𝗛𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴: ✔ How to interview in a way that candidates can demonstrate these qualities?
🔎𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗳𝗳: ✔How can the #leadership identify gaps? ✔ How can you support your team developing the missing virtues?
🏛️𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘃𝗶𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 #𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲: ✔How can you establish role models for these behaviors? ✔ How can you share and communicate behavioral expectations to your team according to this model? ✔ How can you implement a system to address violations?
📌 The 𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁 is that if you have a critical majority of members behaving according to the 3 virtues, the others will necessarily have to adapt or become isolated from the rest or even drop out.
📌It seems to me that the practice of these behaviors, although being a choice, is greatly facilitated in environments of #psychologicalsafety. One more reason to promote it.
have trust in each other. Team members feel safe in the team, they dare to experiment, be themselves, and share their opinion. Successful teams
understand the impact. Their team members believe they making a difference in the world and they have a clear purpose as a team. Successful teams
are reliable to each other, their team members deliver what they promise, and they keep each other accountable. Furthermore, successful teams,
have clarity in the team, especially in their work agreements, clarity of roles and what each one entails and clarity of what the team’s goals and objectives are. Successful teams
care about results. They understand it’s all about team results, not individuals, and the team has a clear goal.
HOW TO DEAL WITH WORKPLACE CONFLICT
Start by acknowledging that there is a conflict within the team. Talk about the elephant in the room and address this dysfunction within the team. A good approach on confronting team conflicts is running a dedicated workshop. A whole working day with everyone making this their only priority. Find the facilitation plan here.
3 TOOLS TO CONTINUOUSLY AVOID THE BIG FIGHT
Start your meetings with checkins to see what everyone is up to and what they are bringing to the meeting. A great tool to use are the Management 3.0 Improv Cards.
Use the Celebration Grid to learn from your mistakes as team. Speak openly about failures, also on a personal relationship level and make it a habit, for example by establishing a weekly recap or learning session.
Establish a healthy feedback culture. Start by introducing the Feedback Wrap to give actionable feedback, the kind that leads to positive, self-motivated action and not disgruntled teammates.
Do you want your next 1-on-1 to be even more effective?
Here’s how:
Instead of traditional coaching questions, use inquisitive statements!
Inquisitive statements turn questions into statements.
At Management 3.0, we call this method Improvement Dialogue.
And we have a game for download containing 160 statements from four areas of inquisitive statements: personal, relational, organizational, and environmental.
All statements are designed to be powerful by implicitly using • why, • how, • what, and • when (hidden within the statements).
These question words invite deeper discussions, many of which help people bring their underlying assumptions to the surface.
Personal coaching, one-on-ones, and pair working are three examples of people helping employees and colleagues learn how to do better work. Using inquisitive statements instead of traditional coaching questions, you can improve a person’s performance using principles taken from Appreciative Inquiry, Powerful Questions, and Improvisational Theater.
Personal Topics, one of the goals of one-on-one coaching sessions is to align work and outcomes with a person’s motivations. You can use your quality time to discuss intrinsic desires, personality traits, personal history, and personal ambitions.
Relational Topics, a second area to cover in one-on-one coaching is the relationship between the two participants. You’re trying to achieve a good working relationship. Therefore, any issues that are impeding a healthy and productive collaboration need to be resolved.
Organizational Topics, you should also talk about organizational changes and news, team performance, organizational structure, upcoming opportunities, innovative capability, and how to help other team members succeed. You’re there to discuss how to get the whole system to improve and generate more value.
Environmental Topics, the last area in one-on-one coaching is a conversation about the environment. You can talk about politics, technology, the economy, and anything else that impacts a person’s performance and happiness.
You can decide not to use one area when it does not apply to your situation and adjust the inquiry scope to what is realistic and actionable.
How to get started with an improvement dialogue
This is what you can do to get started with improvement dialogues:
Initiate coaching, pairing, one-on-one, or copilot session.
Invite your colleague, friend, coach, or copilot for a private talk in a comfortable environment (preferably not in a dull office).
Print the statements in a way that makes it easy to pick at random. Leave out the areas that do not apply to your situation.
Explain the rules: no questions allowed, only reply in the affirmative, and contribute to the dialogue.
Pick questions, develop your conversations, and support each other’s contributions.
Make notes of any insights and action items.
Evaluate. Yes, you are now allowed to disagree and ask questions.
Let’s quickly experiment with an improvement dialogue
The idea of an improvement dialogue is that a person picks a random statement from the list (or draws it from a pile of cards) and completes the sentence in any way she likes. Here is an example, with the statement: “What I need most is:..”:
“What I need most is… a bit more time to learn new tools and technologies.”
The coach, manager, pairing partner, or copilot now should respond to that statement in the affirmative and suggest bringing the dialogue forward.
“OK, perhaps we can find out what busy work is keeping you from learning new things.”
It is then up to both participants to keep the conversation flowing by always staying optimistic and contributing to the previous statement.
“Yes, I have a hunch that management’s daily interruptions are costing me too much time.”
“I see. Well, it should not be too difficult to measure this and validate that assumption.”
“You’re right, and I’ll see if I can find a time tracker app on my smartphone to do this.”
“Good, and I will check if someone else has done something like that before.”
Lack of clear goals: A strategy must have clear and measurable goals. Without them, it is impossible to determine whether or not the strategy is successful.
Lack of focus: A good strategy must focus on a specific goal or objective. A strategy that tries to accomplish too many things at once is bound to fail.
Poor implementation: Even the best strategy will fail if it is not implemented properly. Implementation requires careful planning, resource allocation, and execution.
Ignoring market realities: A strategy must take into account the realities of the market. Failure to do so can result in a strategy that is out of touch with the needs of customers and the competitive landscape.
Failure to adapt: A strategy must be flexible enough to adapt to changing market conditions and new challenges. A strategy that is rigid and inflexible is doomed to fail.
Lack of resources: A strategy that does not have the necessary resources to succeed is bound to fail. Resources include money, people, technology, and infrastructure.
Lack of leadership: Finally, a strategy must have strong leadership to guide its implementation. A lack of leadership can result in confusion, infighting, and a failure to execute the strategy effectively.
Anything to add?
Figure by Jeroen Kraaijenbrink The list of 7 ‘main failings’ as they were called is from Johnson, Scholes & Whittington, 2011, Exploring Strategy, pg 489-491
As a Professional Manager, you would know how to navigate through the priorities and expectations of your stakeholders. In this article, we will explore why it is important to know if you are in a Relation-based or performance-Based Organization; and how that might affect your relations with stakeholders and performance in the team!
Why is it important to know the difference between a Relation-based or performance-Based Organization?
As a manager that has worked in both a Relation-based and performance-Based Organization, a Professional Manager understands that the business mission priorities and core values change dramatically! In addition, the reward and recognition system for team evaluation will differ significantly, when you work in an organization that doesn’t value performance over relations…
What is the difference between a Relation-based or performance-Based Organization?
A relation-based organization and a performance-based organization are two different approaches to how an organization operates and manages its employees.
In a relation-based organization, the focus is on building strong relationships between the employer and employees, and between employees themselves. This approach emphasizes trust, loyalty, and communication. Such organizations tend to have a more relaxed work environment and may make decisions based on employee satisfaction and happiness.
In a performance-based organization, the focus is on achieving specific performance objectives and outcomes. This approach emphasizes clear goals and targets, performance metrics, and accountability. Such organizations tend to have a more formal work environment and may make decisions based on data and results.
It’s worth noting that many organizations incorporate aspects of both models, depending on the business and the context. It is not necessarily better or worse to be relation-based or performance-based, it’s about finding the balance that works for your organization and context.
Be a Mid-performer with High-Trust Team Member
Although many organizations claim that they value both equally, watch this interesting video from Simon Sinek to learn why it is better to be Mid-performer with Hight-trust in any organization.
Here is what Simon has to say: I’ve worked with the Navy SEALs and I asked them “how do you pick the guys that go in SEAL Team 6?” Because they’re the best of the best of the best! They drew a graph for me and on one side the word performance and on the other side they wrote the word trust!
The way they define the terms is performance on the battlefield and performance off the battlefield. So, Performance is your skills, this is what makes your quarterly earnings, whatever you translate into the right performance in its traditional sense!
Trust is how are you off the battlefield. What kind of person are you? The way they put it is “I’m going to trust you with my life but do I trust you with my money and my wife?”
This is what they told me, nobody wants this person: The low performer & low trust, of course!
Of course, everybody wants this person a high performer of high trust!
But, what they learned is that the high performer of low trust is a toxic leader and a toxic team member and people would rather have a medium performer of high trust; sometimes even a low performer of high trust!
The problem in business is that we have lopsided metrics, we have a million-in-one metrics to measure someone’s performance and negligible to no metrics to measure someone’s trustworthiness!
So what we end up doing is promoting or bonusing toxicity in our businesses which is bad for the long game, because it eventually destroys the whole organization and its “Quality Culture!”
The irony is it’s unbelievably easy to find High-performers with Low-Trust, people go to any team and say who’s the A**hole and they’ll all point to the same person. Equally, if you go to any team and say, who do you trust more than anybody else who’s always got your back when the chips are down they will be there with you; they will also all point to the same person: the mid-performer with high-trustworthiness!
It’s the best gifted natural leader who’s getting who’s creating an environment for everybody else to succeed and they may not be your most individual highest performer but that person you better keep on your team.
Clifton Strength to identify your VIP team players!
Using a Clifton Strength or other similar psychological evaluation and assessments help your organization identify the diversity available in your team. Being inclusive to leverage all the strengths and empowering them in the right position is a key strength of a Professional Manager.
As part of the Professional Manager training, managers should understand, respect, and learn how to manage and develop their team for success. Navigating through the Tuckerman Ladder would be much easier and faster, with the help of these evaluations!
A Professional Manager is a person that could excel in both Performance-Based and Relation-Based organizations. The focus of this website is not to improve the Technical aspects of a PM training, but to focus on Managerial skills and improving the interpersonal skills required to work with others in the team. Therefore, improvement in understanding of personality differences and collaboration skills with high emotional intelligence is required.
The goal is to assist the Professional Manager in making better decisions faster using the latest best practices and available tools. As part of our initiative to digitally transform the future PM needed for a QPMO, we are introducing a new app that guides our managers through a 21-day journey of mindfulness practices targeted at the office and work-related situations. The app with help monitor the person’s physiological changes and provide early warning to prevent mistakes and remind corrective actions.
This article provides a review and conceptual comparison between self‐report and performance‐based measures of emotional intelligence.
Analyses of reliability, psychometric properties, and various forms of validity lead to the conclusion that self‐report techniques measure a dispositional construct, that may have some predictive validity, but which is highly correlated with personality and independent of intelligence. Although seemingly more valid, performance‐based measures have certain limitations, especially when scored with reference to consensual norms, which leads to problems of skew and restriction of range. Scaling procedures may partially ameliorate these scoring weaknesses. Alternative approaches to scoring, such as expert judgement, also suffer problems since the nature of the requisite expertise is unclear.
Use of experimental paradigms for studying individual differences in information‐processing may, however, inform expertise. Other difficulties for performance‐based measures include limited predictive and operational validity, restricting practical utility in organizational settings.
Further research appears necessary before tests of E1 are suitable for making real‐life decisions about individuals.
As part of your relation-based interpersonal skills, you have to develop a good relation in receiving feedback and also giving constructive criticism. There are certain triggers that would emotionally block the thinking mind if wrong buttons are pushed. A Clifton strength test and other personality tests such as MBTI test would identify a different personality types of your team members and how they will interact with each other.