In one of my last articles I talked about teams and one of the most crucial parts of forming a team is that every member of the team, for most of the time, puts the team objectives ahead of their own. And, they don’t break trust with the team.
Both of these things are really difficult for people at times when they work in a low trust, low team environment. This week I saw an episode of “Seal Team” on TV called Fog of War. Looking past the drama of a Seal team on crazy missions, this episode was about putting the team and trust first!
A new recruit to the team wanting to fit in makes a choice to save himself which breaks trust with the team. The potential for things to go sideways in this case are more than at work however, the lessons are similar.
The new recruit made a mistake while on mission. That mistake cost a life. A senior team member thought he was the one who had made the mistake and took accountability for his actions and pushed back hard on the team as they conspired to save his career. The new recruit said nothing.
Once found out, the senior team member forgave the new recruit and discharged him from the team.
So what might this mean for the rest of us in terms of being able to form teams based on trust and based on putting the team's objectives ahead of our personal objectives (fame, fortune, recognition, promotion, more money)?
For me it suggests that it’s not easy to do.
My personal experience leading, was that people slowly got it and understood how I wanted our team to work. Still there were one or two in a team of 30+ who stood aside from the team which didn’t work well. After a while, they were "benched", removed from the team, just like the new recruit. As a leader those changes were necessary. As a coach, I wonder how else a connection may have been made with those people to have them want to join the team?
This episode of Seal Team (and I know, it's a TV show, just stick with me a little longer) really underscored for me how difficult it is.
This is where high performing leadership helps develop a collective and collaborative environment that supports “trust building”, puts the team first and makes it safe to do so.
If you’re the leader wanting to create a team, purpose has to relate to being a team (and getting results). Values have to be based around the collective and around collaboration. And these two have to be reinforced and lived every day to build trust and put the team first.
The more opportunities there are for people to connect to these things on a regular basis, hold each other accountable to them and use them for decision making, the more they will be ingrained in behaviour and the sooner your group or department will become a team.