How do you build trust in teams? It starts with #empathy.

Trust doesn’t just happen. In teams, at work, at home, with leaders, with clients, with anyone – it’s a process of learning, understanding and building that takes effort and time.

We all know that trust is a predictor of team performance and company outcomes. And it’s obviously an area that is discussed frequently, from corporate values to manager training, to coaching and more.

Today, we want to explore with you how #empathy leads to trust in teams - seeing each other for who we are and building open and honest relationships around this - and dig into how personality profiling can help you build this empathy to start with.

The TALY Personality Profiling bring together…

• scientifically-backed personality profiling

• tailored to the needs of your business, culture and the role

• delivered through customised, locally-built AI tools to ensure accuracy

Get in touch to find out more about how you can use TALY profiling to give you the insights you need to build great teams - from recruitment onwards! Or Book a Demo today to see how easy it is to start using TALY in your business.

What are the foundations of trust?

Countless articles, stories and presentations have been given about the foundation of trust. So we don’t need to go into that again.

A couple that I think are pretty great can be found here, here and here. CultureAmp has a great perspective on building trust too

There are also countless HR platforms and tech solutions trying to help leaders to get better at building trust, like this and this.

But essentially, it all boils down to understanding. Asking questions and sharing ideas. Giving feedback and receiving feedback. Doing what you say you’ll do, and being clear on what you need others to do. Openness, vulnerability, transparency and clarity – simple ideas that take a lot of effort and practice.

How can personality help?

This is a true example. A leader was having trouble getting a new employee to perform. After 6 months, they were ready to let this person go and to move on to someone new.

The problem – they just assumed the new employee was like them, saw the world the same way, brought the same style in managing clients – and when the new employee started to do things in a different way, the tension quickly followed. Both were frustrated, both anxious, both feeling like they’d made the wrong decision.

But a simple, quick session to talk about ways of working, expectations, different working styles based on personality – and the setting of clear goals – quickly cleared the air and allowed the team to start building the foundations of trust that are so important.

As this example shows, a little openness and understanding goes a long way to building trust and the positive outcomes that follow. 

Using personality profiling and Emotional Intelligence are proven methods for helping to get under the hood of each individual team member to build data and insight around the similarities and differences in teams – super charging your efforts at understanding.

How do you get started

First, start by realising that we are all different. That each leader brings their own personality and point of view, as does each team member.

As Jeff Bezos, everyone is smart in some way. You just have to find out what kind of smart they are.

(I know, you may love or hate him, but the line still makes sense!)

Your personality is proven to give you an understanding of what motivates you, how you like to work, how you respond in different situations, what kind of leadership you respond to and so much more.

And it can give you this understanding for others in your team too. 

Pretty important areas of understanding for building trust – I’m sure you’ll agree.  

So, with this knowledge that personality profiling and emotional intelligence can help you quickly build understanding and trust, here are 5 tips for supercharging trust in your team.

Start with the science

The first step is to get a clear read on the personalities in the room. Don’t use bias or assumption to do this – use a science-based profiling tool, and make sure everyone is using the same tool.

Getting the right metrics to start with matters – this way you know you’re all starting from the same place, you’re comparing apples with apples, and there is a shared experience and even playing field.

Have open and honest conversations – that respect individual differences

With the right information in hand, you have the opportunity to start having great conversations – not based on assumptions but actually based on data.

And many studies have shown that seeing and understanding team members, especially new ones, is critical to building ongoing engagement and for retention.

Remember, there are no right or wrong personalities – we are who we are. This exercise ONLY works if everyone is:

·      open and understanding around these differences

·      empathises with each others point of view

·      and understands that the purpose for sharing is to find ways of working and building trust that respect everyone’s point of view.

Start early

Imagine this – you’re in a job interview for a new role. The conversation is obviously mostly about you, the role, the team, where you’ll fit in and how it can work.

But then the team leader pauses and starts to open up about their personality, how they work, how they tend to respond to things. They aren’t doing this to say you need to fit in – rather they are setting the culture right from the start that openness matters, and that the more open and honest we are about who we are, the stronger the team will be.

So the best time to start talking about personality, similarities and differences?

At recruitment!

Personality profiles don’t belong in a draw

With all this great insight into your team, why would you put the personality insights away and forget about them. In team connection moments or in moments of tension you have this great resource to tap into.

And it’s a pretty easy mind map to work through:

·      What is the source of the tension/problem?

·      What elements of your personality might be leading to the tension, or skewing how you see the situation?

·      What elements of their personality may be leading to the tension, or skewing how they see the situation?

·      How can you meet in the middle?

Don’t discount Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence – another important element in the TALY Personality Profiling – is simple. Basically the more we are open to reading and understanding our own emotions, and the more we read and understand the emotions of those around us, the stronger our relationships will be.

So when it comes to building understanding, empathy and trust, emotional intelligence is a key factor.

The great thing about Emotional Intelligence is that, rather than being a fixed trait, it’s actually a skill. This means you can continue to work to develop it, increasing your ability to build strong connections with your teams.

Measure where you are today, and use this understanding to identify opportunities for training and development that will strengthen your performance into the future.

Overall, the key point… trust starts with empathy. Finding intelligent and easy ways to truely understand each other at work, and to build effective relationships based on this understanding, is the key to building a foundation that works for everyone.

The TALY approach to personality profiling brings together a unique mix of Five Factor and Emotional Intelligence profiling to help organisations, hiring managers and teams to make better decisions about recruitment and teams.

Get in touch to find out more… we love talking about this stuff! Or Book a Demo today to see how easy it is to start using TALY in your business.