How Fast Can You Build a Team?

Speed of Trust

Latin Proverb:  It is equally an error to trust all men or no man.

In my post from a week ago, we learned how King David and Jesus built strong teams.  While those examples can be intimidating to folks like you and me, we were encouraged by Patrick Lencioni’s advice to “start by building trust.”

Over the past few years at NASA, we’ve used the FranklinCovey group to provide leadership training on “Leading at the Speed of Trust.”  Based on Stephen M. R. Covey’s 2006 best-seller The Speed of Trust, their approach contends that trust is the one thing that changes everything.  Covey notes that when trust goes up, speed improves, and costs of doing business goes down.  He also notes that to build trust, we must first start with ourselves.  That’s why I like to point out that our most powerful leadership tool is a mirror (see the September 21, 2013 blog post for more on that).  It is particularly challenging to build trust with others in an environment where only one-third of Americans believe that other people can be trusted…

Today, let’s explore how we can inspire trust:  first by starting with our own credibility then by employing 13 behaviors to build trust with others.

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Building a High-Performing Team…Getting Started Right

Week 11 of the NIV Leadership Bible focuses on Team Building.  Leadership author John Maxwell likes to say, “Nothing of significance was ever achieved by an individual acting alone.”  So, one mark of a great leader is having great followers.

Great followers are often specialists.  My boys and I like to watch the movie, The Avengers.  As the movie shows, specialists often differ in personality and views.  And the movie does a great job illustrating how teams are not effective until the team members learn to combine their individual strengths to produce an outcome that no single member alone could have produced (even if the team members are super-heroes!).

High-performing teams are tough to build.  Let’s turn to the Bible for a couple of examples of how to do it right.

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