Space Shuttle Lessons - Trust

Any of you visiting my work area may have noticed the large poster for a Space Shuttle launch. That is not accidental. The entire Space Shuttle Program amazes as one of the finest examples of the human spirit to break the natural barriers, like gravity, and human resiliency. Its history is full of great lessons. A Space Shuttle is the most complex machine ever built. it serves as an inspiration to me. If we can send people to space on such a complex machine and bring them back safely, surely, whatever we are facing that day, we can handle.

Space Shuttle Teams Trust

I recently finished reading a book called WHEELS STOP about how NASA recovered from the Challenger tragedy. NASA was able to recover from that tragedy fast and was back better than ever. Teamwork played a big role on this.

There is a section in the book that applies to us working in teams. Milt Heflin worked as the lead flight director on several missions. He was great in team building. While Heflin was certainly in charge, he had a group of capable men and women who knew their stuff and who were also not afraid to speak up when they felt the situation warranted.

Said Heflin: I am often asked, "How in the world did you stand that tension and stress? "I am surrounded by people, and they are not going to let me make a mistake. They are too damn good. They're not going to take me down a path, and if they think I'm headed down a path and I'm missing the point on something, they will get in my face and tell me. That's where the trust comes in. A team is put together with people who if they didn't know the answer, they will tell you they don't know the answer. They will tell you what they are thinking or where they want to go. When they tell you something, you can take it to the bank. Lead flight director is far from a lonely position". - Milt Heflin, NASA flight director for seven shuttle missions.

NASA recovered from tragedy, working as a team at multiple levels and locations. This is an inspiration for us to do better with our teams.

Leadership and Level of Trust

The leader of a team and of the entire organization sets the tone for the group’s culture and level of trust. A leader who doesn’t trust his or her team can discourage trust among the team members, too. Before any work with a team to improve their trust levels, a look at the organization’s culture and at its leaders will be a good idea.

Poor leadership habits, fears, and personal ambition can plant the seeds of distrust in groups. From leaders who operate from fear, to those who disclose too much, the level of distrust in an organization and its work groups often is traceable right back to the top. Leaders are often unaware of how they influence their teams and organizational culture by being a model for appropriate behaviors.

Simple Practices to Building Team Trust

1. Value the people. Value your employees as people more than you value them as production units. You get to show how much you value your employees every day, in a thousand ways. When you make human decisions instead of mechanical ones based only on dollars and cents or "operational efficiency," people notice.

2. Role model appropriate leadership. Lead by Example. Remember that trust begins and ends with you, as a supervisor, a lead, a manager, a leader, a CEO, whatever your role is. Make sure your words match your actions, your work results match your expectations from others. Role model appropriate leadership and get your fellow leaders to do the same thing. Too many managers look at "the employees" as a bloc and seldom think about the individual people they supervise, or their needs or challenges. Real leaders are intently focused on the people who report to them and the energy on the team.

3. Don’t make all the decisions. Some leaders are naturally wired to make decisions within a team while others need to make decisions alone. In either case, it’s possible to invite other voices into the process. Sometimes people don’t necessarily need to have their way; they just need to have their way considered. Create clear and simple pathways for people to contribute to decision-making.

4. Empower the team to go as far as they can go. Avoid being a micro-manager. Once you have entrusted someone with a project, empower them to run as far as they can with it. When you insert your opinions, redirect their progress, or hover over them too much, it erodes trust in the relationship and their abilities. Give clear guardrails and objectives, and let them loose. You can monitor progress, of course, just to be sure.

5. Let them fail…safely. Your team won’t always get it right…so let them fail safely. Create opportunities for feedback loops during project development and after completion. Sometimes fresh eyes from other teammates can make a good idea a great idea, introduce a new angle of thinking, or allow a mid-process tweak that raises the level of excellence. It’s about creating opportunities to edit one other’s work. It builds trust but also requires a tremendous amount of trust. The same goes for the leader. Admit when the company makes mistakes, or when you personally make a mistake.

6. Address Incompetence. Allowing bad situations to continue or let under-performing teammates continue on the team for too long are reflections on your leadership. Addressing issues, incompetence and inconsistency quickly, professionally, and graciously will strengthen the team. If you avoid this, it erodes the morale and the trust of the rest of the team. Everyone knows when someone is not cutting it, and when a leader ignores it, the team is left to wonder whether the leader is not smart enough to see it or not courageous enough to address it. Addressing incompetence and inconsistency quickly, professionally, and graciously will strengthen the team.

Give it time. Trust is not built in one meeting, one conversation, or one decision. It is built day by day, conversation by conversation, decision by decision over time. The building of trust is not something we can put on auto-pilot; rather, we have to champion it, guard it, and nurture it throughout the lifespan of the team. We are all on the same ship. We will be successful, together.

What are your best practices for building trust in your team or organization?