Trust, alignment and confrontation: the ABC’s of the team

My job brings me into dealing with large or small companies, and the questions I am most often asked are about the work team.

Are there rules to follow to build a good team?

Mistakes to avoid?

How to keep a team strong and productive across time?

And I could go on and on…

But to all these questions there are no simple answers or pre-packaged solutions. What does exist, however, are some fundamental “ingredients” that must be built, kept in mind and monitored consistently:

• Trust
• Alignment
• Comparison

With these three concepts it is in fact possible to create virtuous dynamics, grow our business and monitor the “health” of our team or our company.

The importance of both delegating and acknowledging everyone’s value

In my experience, trust is the first and most essential step we must take whenever we embark on a new professional adventure.

When setting up a project, an enterprise or a corporation it is indeed crucial to have trust in our project and at the same time trust our colleagues or partners.

There is little to no progress without trust in my opinion!

Instead, when there is trust, it is almost natural to delegate and distribute tasks and responsibilities, triggering healthy dynamics within the team.

Another natural consequence of trust is the recognition of the value of everyone within the work group: when relationships between people are free from jealousy and judgement and are based instead on trust in others, recognizing deserved merit becomes an automatic practice. And the great thing is that it benefits the team as a whole, not just the individual!

Ultimately, it is a very important structural aspect to delegate and recognize the responsibilities of each member within the team and to the world.

How much does sharing information within the team matter

Once you’ve delegated in a “healthy” way, a consistent and regular alignment is the next step in ensuring the end result. On everything.

Yes you got it right! Even the little things need to be given great consideration, because they are the ones that help make up the big picture.

When the practice of alignment is established, the team becomes responsive and versatile; even small things (such as the Monday meeting, even when there are no big items on the agenda to discuss) can help to maintain as much alignment as possible among all parties, who thus become autonomous and more effective in handling problems and unexpected events. In short, even seemingly insignificant details matter.

So to quote Jurassic Park («A butterfly can flap its wings in Beijing, and in Central Park, you get rain instead of sunshine!») for the team to function well, those in New York are always better off knowing there’s a butterfly in Beijing.

Visible&Invisible: each team member is unique and irreplaceable

If we think of work teams or companies consisting of a “front office” and a “back office” (using a metaphor we can talk about who is on stage and who is behind the scenes) trust, delegation, alignment and confrontation become even more crucial.

In these contexts, the world “behind the scenes” is made up of people who, regardless of role, are invisible. And it is precisely because of this invisibility that the weight and importance of trust, delegation, and alignment increases.

Regardless of the recognition that is granted by the outside world, in fact, each team member must feel that his successes are his successes and his problems are his problems, and the fundamental ingredient for this to happen is trust! Because it is from trust that the assignment of roles and the consequent delegations derive, based on the recognition of the uniqueness of each one.

If I feel my uniqueness acknowledged and appreciated, I feel part of a process, of a company, of a reality!

I can assure you that putting this into practice is a challenge and a commitment, and it requires constant attention and care to preserve and implemented every day.

Try it to believe it 😉

If you want to explore further this is the book that I wrote together with Simone Moro, internationally known mountaineer with whom I have been working since 1999…

IL TEAM INVISIBILE ed. Rizzoli 2021👉 LINK is now also an audiobook, in italian for now! Available 👂 on Audible 👉 LINK