Trust and respect. Easy job.

Beginning of April I wanted to rest at our poolside to read a book for a couple of hours. I did not succeed. Normally it’s always quiet around the pool with people relaxing during their health programs. This time there were 6 Americans, partners in business (three men and three women) working in the same company on a project. One of them seemed to be the project leader. The other five were team leaders in the same project.

Particularly their speech was loud. In my opinion nobody was listening. It was good to see that when one of the group was telling something, the others were touched by a single word of their speech and started to make up their mind to share their thoughts immediately after the former one stopped it’s talk. Adding or taking away things or bringing in even better thoughts. Unrest and struggle. Not a single dialogue, only debate to find out who was right or maybe even more… the strongest. Trying to find the winner of the game that did not show up the period I stayed at the pool. I walked back home and even there I could hear the loud voices blaring over the water. They stayed, only the six of them, for a longer period. All the other guests left step by step.

The team has to trust and respect me...???
One of the team leaders dropped the theme he did not get any trust and respect from the team members. For him it was a struggle to manage the team this way and he asked his colleagues for counsel and advice. If necessary even to enforce.

After his request a kind of drama worked out. All kind of answers and skills mentioned in management books came up. One solution showed up even better and more suitable than another. And when this solutions should not work it was all about the team members and you had to work on the individual members. A girl named Bianca in his team, for instance, did not show respect or trust to any of the other team leaders in the same organization. They all agreed. This had nothing to do with the team leader itself but with this girl. Better if she should leave the organization. So they started to talk about how to do that the most easiest and cheapest way. A real and meaningful solution – but who am I? - that could help did not show up for me.

Trust and respect? An easy job. It is what you get!

Sometimes you hear the story you have to earn it. I only partly connect with that thought. When this is true, you have to work for it. Trust and respect have nothing to do with that. It is all about the energy people give / send to attract and make them enthusiastic and to lead by example. You have to show your purity in who you are and in what you are doing. It’s not working with a box full of tips and tricks.

You do good and you do not feel concerned, you are concerned and available. With that what’s going on in the project, with the team (well-being and growth) and the surroundings of the project. It is all about the purpose of the overall thing. Everybody need to get a chance to grow by sharing their individual unique contribution. The value is more than the sum of the individual parts. Narcissistic and dominant behavior do not fit in and are killing in that what we call "team spirit". 

Ever thought about the meaning of the word respect? It's build up out of two parts "re" (again) and "spect" (watching, in relation to the ongoing good things a person shows). 

If you have to build up trust, you can ask yourself when trust is 100%. If you can only reach 98% - I do not know actually how to measure – then trust still is 0. Trust is about only 100% or nothing. It is there or it is not there. And if trust in employees or in managers is damaged, or in general a relation is damaged, then there is no trust. There is nothing in between.

This does not say you always have to agree. If the boss, who has and need to be boss (just out of trust), makes another decision than thought or personally wanted this does not say there is a loss in trust. It is about the connection and the explanation (if possible before) about the decision.

You show respect to somebody else. If this respect is sincere, so no show in the game we call networking to get ‘friends’, then three main things are involved. Respect in relation to the other persons wisdom (more than knowledge), his/her compassion and his/her purity in thought and action.

To the group of Americans… good luck with trying to build or maybe even force it the way you suggest… Show your true and pure self in connection to get it. If you do not get it most of the time it has nothing to do with the other team members and maybe not even with you. There is also something that’s called ‘Click’. Trying to force is as already signing your own dismissal. Maybe, to grow again and give you new opportunities, better for you and for the team. 

Frans Captijn
Host / Catalyst / Talenteer at Captijn Insight

Captijn Insight: “Catalyst in your process to new sustainable flow in life and work. Whether you are an individual, couple, team or an organization.” 

www.captijninsight.com

captijninsight@gmail.com