Building Trust in the World of Zoom

Zoom and other virtual meeting spaces helped save personal and professional relationships across the globe during the COVID-19 pandemic. While we all adjusted to an explosion in the prevalence of virtual teams, which have since revolutionized the modern workplace, the challenges were — and still are, quite honestly — clear.

The lighting. The sound. The background. The Wi-Fi. The inadvertent interruptions from partners, kids, pets, and even unexpected doorbells. It all adds up to Zoom fatigue.

And that is not even half of it.

Using technology and virtual meetings to communicate, nurture professional relationships, and increase revenue inherently leaves participants feeling disconnected. While the calls for employees to return to the office are being met with resistance, a structured hybrid approach is a resounding answer to encouraging a productive workspace.

This means Zoom meetings will remain a large part of the business culture.

So, how do we leverage virtual meeting platforms to remain connected to new hires, seasoned employees, upper management, prospective and existing clients, and vendors? How do we build trust with essential teams that rely on technology to communicate? We have answers.

Pre-Meeting Preparation & Communication

Before the meeting, create an agenda and provide participants with links, documents, and other reference materials to actively engage in the conversation.

When meeting organizers set well-defined objectives and clearly communicate the purpose of the meeting before it starts, participants are more likely to trust that their time is being valued and used productively.

Be Punctual & Prepared

Whether you are the organizer or participant, being punctual shows that you respect everyone else’s schedules and demonstrates that you are a positive addition to the conversation. If you were emailed meeting documents, read them before the meeting and have them available when it starts. When other participants feel others are unprepared (deservedly or otherwise), there is an immediate lack of trust.

Use Video & Active Nonverbal Cues

While appearing on video is not everyone’s favorite, it helps participants see facial expressions and body language, enhancing the sense of connection. Nonverbal cues, like nodding and smiling, show engagement and empathy.

Introduce Participants, Their Roles & Backgrounds

It is not uncommon to see unfamiliar faces in Zoom meetings. Immediately, this sends everyone scrambling for details about the participants, which takes their attention away from the forum.

Begin the meeting by making sure everyone’s role and background is clear, paying special attention to newcomers or infrequent attendees.  Ask participants to share something personal (even as simple as where they’re located) to help establish personal connections and foster a sense of belonging. Inclusivity helps build trust and respect.

Actively Listen and Encourage Openness

Actively listening to each person and thoughtfully responding to their comments encourages open dialogue and shows you value their input. Encourage participants to ask questions and address any concerns they might have. Share your thoughts, experiences, and challenges when relevant. If you aren’t sure if it’s appropriate (or don’t have the opportunity to) interject, use the visual response button or the meeting chat to show support and add to others’ messages. While engaging publicly may feel vulnerable, this vulnerability can encourage others to do the same, fostering a sense of authenticity and trust while demonstrating your willingness to be transparent and responsive.

Follow Agendas, Stay Focused & Manage Time Effectively

Demonstrate that you are organized and respect other participants’ commitments by sticking to the meeting agenda. Allocate time for each agenda item and stay on track. Reliable behavior and respecting participants’ time build trust in your ability to lead or participate in a productive meeting.

Align the Team Through Technology

Share meeting notes, action items, and next steps with participants and ensure consistency across all communication platforms using resources like shared calendars, collaboration channels, online filing systems, and project management tools. This demonstrates accountability and helps keep everyone on the same page. It can also encourage participants to provide feedback on the meeting format, content, and structure to reduce redundancies and improve processes while showing you value their input.

 

Building trust virtually requires all four elements of the Trust Equation, credibility, reliability, intimacy, and self-orientation, to facilitate meaningful interactions and collaborate effectively.

 

Trust-Based Resources to Maximize Your Team’s Potential:

How to Get Clients to Take Your Advice (Quickly and Willingly)

There are seemingly endless reasons our clients do not take our advice. Challenges like internal disagreements, budget constraints, and rotating decision-makers can cause countless proposals to be refused or ignored, regardless of how obvious the need may appear.

While clients may say they are hesitant to rely too heavily on vendor advice, have had negative past experiences, or even claim we lack understanding of the situation, all of these excuses may point to an overall lack of trust that can keep clients from believing your recommendation is the best solution.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, expertise is not the key to getting your advice heard and taken.

Getting clients to take your advice requires credibility, reliability, intimacy, and self-orientation, and while most of us are quick to emphasize the credibility and reliability of our solutions, we tend to overlook the importance of intimacy and self-orientation.

No matter how good your advice may be, your solutions are not the cornerstone of the relationship. Your client’s needs are.

And the key to understanding your client’s needs is effective communication. Here’s how to get there from here.

Listen to Show Empathy and Understanding

No matter the industry or your client’s role in the company, it is essential to recognize that most professionals are more knowledgeable than ever. With ever more information and solutions accessible in moments via the internet, an advisor’s value as an information provider is practically obsolete.

While our clients may hire us for our expertise, they also bring their own expertise to the table. And they want to know that you recognize what they bring and what’s at stake for them. Actively listening – to their feelings, emotions, needs, and preferences in addition to the problem they have – allows them to feel heard and understood.

Ask more and better questions about their goals, concerns, and challenges to show you are genuinely there to help provide real solutions that will contribute to their success. Emotional intelligence and listening skills demonstrate empathy, respect, and support that will enable them to overcome their fears and doubts, making them more likely to trust and act on your recommendations.

Focus on What It Means for Them

When providing in-depth solutions, beware of defaulting to showing off how much you know.

Instead, phrase your advice confidently by focusing on your client’s needs to:

  • Clarify complex concepts by using simpler, more straightforward ideas.
  • Make your advice easy to implement by breaking it down into smaller steps that can lead to gradual improvement.
  • Provide practical guidelines for proceeding with the next steps.
  • Be humble and willing to pivot the approach if/when their needs change.

Finally, anticipate, acknowledge, and address any concerns, doubts, or objections your clients might have, and give them space and time to think through your advice.

They will perceive greater value in your advice when the rationale behind your recommendations aligns with their goals and contributes to their success over time.

Provide Evidence to Support Your Advice

To communicate how your advice aligns with your client’s goals and needs, show evidence of how your recommendations can impact their performance, profitability, or reputation.

Share success stories, case studies, and client testimonials to illustrate your points and make them more relatable while demonstrating other positive outcomes that bolster credibility and help clients recognize potential benefits.

While charts and graphs can enhance understanding and make your advice more compelling, sharing real-life stories of how others have benefited from similar advice can inspire and encourage your clients to act.

Involve Your Clients in the Process

When developing and implementing recommendations for clients, it’s easy to forget that they also know what they are doing. After all, it’s their business. Show your clients that you value their experience and work as a partner, not an authority.

Involving them in the process, seeking their input and feedback, and incorporating their suggestions and preferences can increase their ownership and commitment to the solution and address any issues or objections in real time.

This ongoing engagement reinforces your commitment and helps overcome potential roadblocks while recognizing and celebrating the positive outcomes.

Reinforcing the value of your recommendations and encouraging future cooperation begins with effective communication, empathy, and understanding. Trustworthy relationships deliver value and increase clients’ likelihood of embracing your recommendations sooner and more efficiently.

At the end of the day, being right only matters if you’re being heard.

Trust-Based Resources to Maximize Your Team’s Potential:

 

Trustworthiness and Teams

This post was co-authored by Sandy Styer and Noelle Mykolenko.

Trust is paramount to collaboration. In a team setting, we are called on to build trust with multiple people at once. This adds complexity because any action we take to create trust with one person may be closely viewed (and interpreted) by others with whom we are not directly interacting.

Core to of our way of thinking about trustworthiness is the Trust Equation, which describes trustworthiness through the four components of Credibility, Reliability, Intimacy and Self-Orientation. (Take our online Trust Quotient Self-assessment to see your trustworthiness strengths and opportunities.)

Applying the Trust Equation in a Team Setting

Some actions that demonstrate trustworthiness are particularly useful for the complexities of a team setting. Here are four specific ways to build trust and further collaboration in teams:

CREDIBILITY: When the team is first assembled, go beyond the usual organization-focused introductions [“I’m Jane Smith, a SR PM in the RV Division.”] and have each team member say something about what they bring to the group and what they hope the project outcomes will be. We believe in people whom we know something about; resume headlines are a weak form of credibility.

RELIABILITY: Be predictable and dependable in context of the team’s goals and culture. When you turn in a piece of work, refer back to the master schedule and how your piece relates. Adopt team norms and use common language (jargon and acronyms). Be consistent in how you interact with all team members, staying especially alert to actions that could be perceived as special treatment – favorable or unfavorable – based on role or organizational differences.

INTIMACY: When someone starts a call with: “So, how was everyone’s weekend?” really share something: “We had so much fun; my 5 year old daughter played T-ball in the back yard, and she was hilarious whacking at the ball and running around the bases.” We trust those who are willing to take the small personal risk of revealing something about themselves; encourage it through role-modeling and asking open-ended questions that can’t be easily answered by a simple “fine” or “ok.”

This goes for bad news too.  Be open about blocks you’re running into or delays you’re facing. It builds trust to admit something like “I’m struggling to identify the target audience is for this piece, which makes it hard to write.  Could we get consensus on this call?”  Such an admission also may be the best way to get the help you want and deserve.

SELF-ORIENTATION: When you’re with the group, be relentlessly present. Avoid multi-tasking, no matter how pressing your deadlines are or how relevant you think the conversation is to your area. Be equally attuned to opportunities for you to help other team members as you are for how they can contribute to the outcomes for which you are personally responsible.

When we work in teams, it’s easy to over-focus on our own outcomes, and in so doing we sometimes forget that the people with whom we’re working are people, and not just a means to our end.

A Virtual Wrench in the (Team)works

Today, whether it’s due to globalization or a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many more of us are working on virtual teams.

When we interact with others face-to-face, we send and receive all kinds of clues and indicators that help us assess trustworthiness, and by which we can show others they can trust us. Casual encounters in the hallway, tone of voice and body language, and small daily experiences all contribute to building trust. Face-to-face is high-bandwidth trust time.

With so much of the world now working in virtual teams, building trust among the members of a team who don’t look one another in the eye or share coffee every morning is an added challenge. See our recent blogpost about building trust in virtual settings.

While there are differences between working face to face in a team and working virtually, the practices in this blog post are effective for either situation. All of them revolve around remembering that we are part of a team that consists of other very real people, individuals in their own right who have contributions to make and goals to achieve.

 

Trust Matters, The Podcast: The Ghosting of Business Future (Episode 27)

The owner of a small tech consultancy talks about her recent experience being ghosted by a contractor she hired. She asks “What should I do about being ghosted?  How can I prevent this from happening again in the future?”

Want to learn more about how to handle ghosting in business? Read recent blog by Charles H. Green.

Do you want to send your questions to Charlie & Trust Matters, The Podcast?

We’ll answer almost ANY question about confusing, complicated or awkward business situations with clients, management, and colleagues.

Email: [email protected]

We’ll be posting new episodes every other Tuesday.
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Trust Matters, The Podcast: Trusting a Team Member on a High-Profile Project (Episode 19)

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Trust Matters, The Podcast: Competing on Competitors’ Lower Rates (Episode 12)

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Trust Matters, The Podcast: How to Establish Trust When Managing a New Team (Episode 8)

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Trust Matters, The Podcast: How to Manage an Untrustworthy Client (Episode 5)

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Trust Matters, The Podcast: Getting Through Procurement (Episode 3)

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How to Build Trust Within a Cross Functional Team

Today’s guest post is from Rick Lepsinger, President of OnpointConsulting. They are long-time friends of ours, and leaders in the field of leadership development. Rick addresses a key application for trust in the business world – cross-functional teams.

Trust is the foundation of any organization. On cross-functional teams, where collaboration between members of different functional units is a core part of effective day-to-day operations but when no one has direct authority over anyone else, trust is critical. However, it can be more difficult to build in a multi-functional team especially when team members are geographically dispersed.

Building trust among multi-functional team members is a key part of enhancing the overall productivity, profitability, and functionality of these teams.

Recognizing Trust Issues

Recognizing the signs of trust issues is crucial for diagnosing problems as well as guiding any trust-building efforts. Some of the danger signs of low levels of trust on a team include:

  • Lack of Involvement. When team members do not share information or involve colleagues in decisions that may affect them.
  • Lack of Interpersonal Interactions. When every conversation between team members is “strictly business” and team members do not connect on a personal level.
  • Talking Behind Each Other’s Backs. When team members talk about the mistakes of others to everyone except the person who made the mistake.
  • Focus on Functional Rather Than Group Goals. When team members are in it for themselves rather than helping one another meet goals for the good of the whole group.
  • Team Members Avoid Asking for Help. When team members take on too much themselves and avoid asking for help because they believe that they cannot rely on others.
  • Everyone Deflects Responsibility for Their Mistakes. When team members blame others rather than accept responsibility for mistakes or missed commitments.
  • Micro-Managing. When team leaders, and even team members, scrutinize the work and progress of others and start to tell people how to do their work.

Odds are that if trust is lacking, then you may notice several of the above symptoms among your team members. So what can people do to build trust and increase the perception of their trustworthiness?

The 4 Essential Elements of Trust

Many of the aforementioned symptoms of a team with low levels of trust can be attributed to the lack of one or more of the following components (ref the Trust Equation):

  • Credibility. How much team members believe what a person says.
  • Reliability. The extent to which team members “follow through” on commitments.
  • Intimacy. The extent to which team members empathize with others and feel they can confide in one another.
  • Self-Orientation. How much a team member thinks that someone else has his or her best interests at heart.

Actions to Build Trust

Trust takes time and effort to build on any team. Although not always easy, some methods for building trust in a cross-functional team include:

  • Arranging Face to Face Meetings. At least once early in the team’s development, arrange a direct, face-to-face meeting so everyone can put a face to a name. In addition, host online video-conferencing to replicate the characteristics of face-to-face interactions. This provides opportunities for team members to connect and build relationships.
  • Partnering Team Members. Have team members at various locations work closely together on different projects. Then, rotate the teams so that everyone will, eventually, be partnered with everyone else at least once. This provides team members with opportunities to establish credibility (by demonstrating competence), demonstrate reliability (by meeting commitments), and build relationships and demonstrate intimacy.
  • Clarifying Shared Goals and Common Ground. Self-orientation is greatly improved when the entire team is focused on the same objectives. Common ground creates a situation where it is no longer “your” goals or “my” goals but rather “our” goals, which makes cooperation and collaboration desirable.
  • Using Action Plans. Actions plans outline who is responsible for what activity and when that activity is targeted for completion. They can be seen as “contracts” that document agreements. As a result, action plans improve reliability — they increase the likelihood that commitments are top of mind and that people will deliver on their promises.
  • Celebrating Wins as a Group. Whenever a team member or the team as a whole has a major accomplishment (meets a particularly tough deadline, makes a big sale, solves a big productivity challenge, etc.), celebrate that win as a team. This provides a forum for team members to recognize the contributions of others and can enhance the perception of credibility and reliability.
  • Encourage Team Members to Voice Their Concerns. If a problem is ignored, then it won’t get fixed. Such problems eat away at productivity and erode trust over time. Creating a culture where it is expected and safe for team members to voice their concerns and complaints—and acting on them when feasible—is a major part of improving self-orientation and intimacy among the team. When concerns are constructively raised and addressed, team members will feel that they can confide in others without fear of retribution and that their interests are being taken into account.

Using these methods, it is possible to increase trust between team members on a multi-functional team.

Monitoring Team Trust

It’s important to be on the lookout for the danger signs of low levels of trust. But, identifying specific issues can be difficult for team leaders who are not co-located with all or some of the team members and for Human Resources experts who may not be active members of the cross-functional team.

One way to monitor team trust is to use OnPoint’s GRID survey to collect insights and feedback from cross-functional teams. The survey includes questions on elements that impact trust, such as shared goals and clear roles, as well as questions specifically designed to address the quality of relationships and trust among cross-functional team members to help identify problems so they can be corrected.

For more information and advice about building trust within a matrix organization, contact OnPoint Consulting!