Successful teams trust each other.

All of us have been part of teams that worked together successfully. We’ve also seen teams that did not. Have you noticed what differentiates the two experiences? ? I think the success of teams finally boils down to a simple quality – trust.

Trusting each other is crucial for a well-functioning team. The team leader needs to trust the team members to do their assigned activities well. Nobody likes a superior who is breathing down their necks, checking and monitoring every activity. Trust cannot be built if a team member shirks their given assignments and gives excuses. If everyone trusts everyone else in the team, the team performs brilliantly.

How did I learn to trust my team? I was lucky to have good role models when I was a new entrant in the industry.? My team leaders trusted me. As a result, I have always trusted my teams to carry out their given assignments. I have faith that they will? escalate any issue to me if there was something that I needed to know. There should be no fear in delivering bad news. Our status meetings were always open discussions about what worked and what did not work. If something did not work, we analyzed the root cause and changed our efforts? to make it work.

In my last job role, I was responsible for the India operation at an organization in the financial industry. Finance is not my area of expertise. However, I can comfortably handle technology, customers, strategy, communication and teams. I also like to learn. I was upfront with the team about my vulnerability and told them that I would be trusting their expertise in the financial domain. I would be learning from them. As a team manager, I always consulted them for any domain related query.

This trust was amply rewarded. We were successful in building a large practice serving customers across India, and became renowned for excellent service delivery with great customer satisfaction.