How Deepening Trust and Building Curiosity Takes Teams from Good to Great
As Jim Collins describes in his book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t, the companies that thrive are the ones that work together. When teams are united, there’s stronger communications and decreased disconnect. This leads to better productivity, increased morale, and an overall better flow on the floor and throughout the entire organization.
So how does a team go from good to great?
A Real-Life Example
Thinking about building stronger, more connected teams brings me back to an experience of coaching a maintenance leadership team. When I came to this team, they were already successful. They weren’t dysfunctional and generally worked well together, and had some of the best results across their entire organization. But through coaching sessions with me, they hoped to bring more alignment and trust to their team, so they could ensure they were all on the same page.
Early on in the coaching process, the team made a key discovery: the importance of trust. To reach their goal of better alignment, the team realized that they needed to deepen their sense of trust—and to build trust, they needed more curiosity!
It’s a simple solution. And yet, the “curiosity advantage” can be the boost a team needs to deepen trust, strengthen the connection, and go from good to great.
Observable Behaviors for Deepening Trust
With this maintenance leadership team, we looked at a few positive, observable behaviors they could use to grow and improve trust.
#1. Commitment to each other. When a team has trust, you know someone has always has your back. And in turn, you’ll always be ready to show up for others on your team.
#2. Belief in each other. Similarly, a strong team believes not only in what’s possible, but in each other. For a great example of this, look to the TV show Ted Lasso, which shows how an unlikely soccer coach turns around his team through belief and positivity.
#3: No more judgement and blame. Our blames are hardwired to judge. When something goes wrong on the floor, we jump to judgmental questions and thoughts: why didn’t this job get done? Why didn’t this person do their job? But when we shift from judgment to curiosity, amazing things can happen!
#4: The impact of words. Your words impact how others feel—and how you make others feel determines their level of trust in you. By staying curious and being intentional with your words, you can work to build find and find improved results.
It all comes down to curiosity! As this team learned, curiosity is the key to trust. When we’re grounded in curiosity, our hearts and minds are in an authentic place. Curiosity saves us from judgment mode, prevents disconnection, and brings us together by building trust.