Relationship Rocks: Obstacles to Building Trust and Respect in Teams

Your positive influence is a potential outcome of the relationships that you build with others. Your ability to truly inspire and move others to action only occurs if they can trust you emotionally as well as with their time and their energy. Far too often, we bump into relationship “rocks” that impede progress and must be moved before we can make progress on common goals.

Do you ever have a week when certain themes seem to occur again and again? This week, volunteer experiences provided great ideas for recognizing several relationship “rocks”.

Think about one of your volunteer experiences, whether serving on a board, or providing a pair of “extra hands” for a specific event, or contributing your knowledge and skill to a task force. Now take a moment to consider the quality of that experience. Would you do it again?

Ten to one, if you said no, your response is related to the way that people worked together towards a goal rather than disappointment in the goal itself.

My bet is that you bumped into one or more relationship rocks. Let’s take a look at four that were brought to my attention this week.

Relationship Rock- Not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!

A volunteer, contributing time and energy to a foundation board lamented that the full commitment wasn’t disclosed “up front”. This is what was said, “I think they didn’t want to tell me everything, afraid that I’d say no. Then I got on the board; and the president started throwing all kinds of demands at me to be on this committee and that committee. Meetings early in the morning, meetings at night- I hate all of these meetings. Then when I don’t make one, I was told about the disappointment with my contribution. I didn’t sign up for this; I’m a ‘doer, not a meeting attender’, but I’d feel guilty if I quit. Sure I’m resentful, but I only have eighteen months left on my three year commitment.”

Can you picture this volunteer supporting this organization once the three years is up? And can you picture this volunteer recommending this foundation to others for their volunteer time and talents? When you don’t tell the truth, it breaks trust. Broken trust breaks relationships. Broken relationships nearly always hurt the progress towards our goals.

Relationship Rock- Changes without mutual consent.

A volunteer recently made a commitment to an event to contribute two hours at a registration desk. As a new person to the experience, it was a great opportunity to meet a flow of new people. She said, “sure” to the request, and showed up to work. Upon walking through the door, she was greeted with, “Hi, I know you signed up to work the registration desk, but you’re going to be a guide for the groups instead”. There was no conversation between the two of them for mutual consent- just a flat statement telling the volunteer what she was going to do that was different from the initial agreement. This command and control style sustained itself throughout the event. The commitment was for only two hours; but did the communication style change that volunteer’s impression of making future commitments with this particular event? You bet it did!

Relationship building with volunteers (so important to building cohesive teams and valuable to recruiting volunteers) has a foundation of collaboration rather than abrupt directives and assumptive demands.

Relationship Rock- Expectations without clear direction.

In another conversation with a volunteer, he told the story of being part of a marketing committee serving on a board. His committee was given expectations for accomplishment, but when the members asked for specific guidance, the response was, “oh, you’ll just figure it out. That’s what others have done in the past.” Can you feel the frustration that started to churn?

In working with delegation skills, the most effective delegators strike a balance between giving a specific and clear goal with a time frame and an invitation to team members to make their own plan for achievement. However, the leader needs to be available for more specific guidance should their team(s) need it (click here to see the degrees of delegation chart).

Relationship Rock- Conflict Without Resolution.

Let’s take one more look at the experience of the “job change” from our second example. The volunteer was giving her time to an event that was entirely new to her. She was given instructions as to how to guide a group from one room to another with time frames, the path to use, and the directions to give the group. That was helpful. However, a second woman came up, and changed the time frames, saying that her way was better. Shortly into the event, a third woman came over to correct the volunteer’s use of time to the original instructions from the first woman. When she was asked about the mixed instructions, the response was, “oh, that woman does that, but it’s wrong. We just ignore her, and tell the guides to do it this way.” Hmmm. If several people know that another team member is doing something that isn’t helpful or flat out wrong, wouldn’t it make sense to correct her rather than inviting confusion and eroding the smooth operation of the event?

When there is conflict, take the time to identify the root issue and take action on it rather than allowing time, energy and effort to be at odds with the goal to be achieved.

Relationship rocks- most of them hurt. Whether bruising our pride, hurting progress towards a goal, bumping up against our values, or blocking the truth, relationship rocks cause pain. What is the action that you can take to recognize the relationship rocks coming your way? What is your next step to remove them?

By Susan B. Wilson, President, Executive Strategies