Alignment Starts With Trust

There are many buzzwords in current business literature regarding teams, teamwork, and team building. Examples include a recent shift in thinking from "employee satisfaction" to "team engagement"; there is cyclical emphasis on organizational "vision"' vs "mission" and dozens of variations thereon; and there is perennial recurrence of the need for "alignment", although definitions of alignment vary widely.

The first item on the often used Rockefeller Habits execution checklist is, "The executive team is healthy and aligned." When I use this checklist with teams, I will often ask them to rate how true this statement is regarding their team on a scale of one to ten - one meaning "not at all healthy OR aligned" and ten meaning "completely healthy AND aligned." The resulting discussion about just what "healthy" and "aligned" means, and just "who exactly is the executive team?" often goes on for longer than one might expect.

Sometimes a team will give themselves an average score of between 6 and 8 and use this score to make statements like, "We are mostly aligned, at least on the important stuff."

Unfortunately, mostly aligned may be the most dangerous state of all.

Here are some attributes I have witnessed in organizations where the leadership (executive) team describe themselves as mostly aligned:

• Departmental teams will often receive inconsistent instructions from their leaders based on different interpretations of a new strategic direction, etc.
• Priorities across teams or departments will lack coordination and often be conflicting
• Performance metrics and expectations that reward silo performance and individual achievement will often take precedence over organization-wide results and customer satisfaction
• Team or department meetings will contain vastly different content, focus, and messages from the others and from the leadership team meetings themselves.

In his 5 Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, Patrick Lencioni describes five things that represent dysfunction: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. While any of these can be present, the lack of trust typically leads to the others. This kind of team dysfunction defines the lack of alignment well.

If this is true, then alignment starts with trust.

One of my favorite reads of 2019 is The Trust Edge by David Horsager. He illustrates eight pillars that support trust, and gives great insight into how these pillars must be present in order for high trust relationships to thrive.

Adapted from Horsagers work, I created a simple tool for diagnosing the level of trust in a given relationship. Over the past few months, I have used this with individual team members grappling with interpersonal relationships, used it in our home to assess why a particular external relationship was feeling strained, and my wife, Melina, and I have even used it between us to explore ways we might improve our marriage.

Here's how it works…

Trust Diagnosis Tool

To begin, consider a relationship that is of importance to you. Answer the following Y/N questions:

Step 1

Total the number of Ys in each column.

Step 2

Envision a future state where both parties have improved so that there are now eight Ys in both columns. What would be true about the relationship dynamic then?

To really make this come alive, write a short statement describing what the relationship would look like at that moment in the future:

Step 3

Take some time to carefully reflect on the statement written above and on each area of needed improvement. Think about what you could do to improve your areas of deficiency.

Make a list of the 3 trust pillars you need to act on and the specific actions you need to take to address your deficiencies:

In some cases, simply deciding to address your own areas of deficiency can create dramatic improvements in the relationship.

Step 4

Does this potential improvement in the relationship represent enough value to you to take the final step and have a courageous conversation with the person or team about these pillars? Keep in mind, courage itself is not a virtue, it is simply being willing to take a step further when you are at your limits of virtue. Courage is required to both to own your deficiencies with humility, and acknowledge where you perceive a lack of consistency in the other person.

Here are some suggested ways you might have a courageous conversation using this tool:

• Ask the other party if they would be willing to explore ways to deepen mutual trust.
• Explain that the eight pillars listed represent where trust might be lacking, and you are interested in mutually exploring each for potential improvements.
• Each take a copy of the question sheet and complete with the other in mind.
• Share your answers together and explore the reasons why or why not each is present in your relationship.

Finally, a key to developing trust is being willing to go first and be vulnerable. Since none of us are perfect, sharing your assessment of yourself regarding the other person first is a great way to demonstrate this vulnerability.

Following my courageous conversation, what specific actions will I begin taking immediately in order to improve trust in the relationship:

If you have any questions about this tool, or how it could be effectively used to deepen relationships important to you, please reach out. If you use the tool, I'd love to hear about the outcomes from it too.

Here is to deep, trust-filled relationships and aligned lives!