When I lead team building workshops on team values, the notion of trust often emerges. However, even if it seems obvious to everyone most of the time, I decided to try a little experiment with a team that I currently accompany to go a little further.
As part of our skills development within Good!, we had the pleasure of being accompanied by Jacques-Antoine Malarewicz, specialist in the systemic approach and author of several books on the same subject. During one of our sessions, he told us about one of his business adventures in which he helped an executive committee to gain cohesion. It is from this story that I was inspired to try my experiment.
Here's what happened! 😉
The experience
Following a workshop on team values in which the notion of trust, I simply asked the participants, while moving around to avoid rushing anyone's gaze and posting a blank sheet of flipchart on the wall:
Do you trust me?
Slightly surprised (even a little worried) and perhaps feeling like they didn't really have a choice, there were a few nods and a few cautious yeses.
I then asked, showing the blank sheet of flipchart:
If you trust me, sign the bottom of this sheet.
Naturally, reactions occurred of the type:
But what are we signing?
What are you going to do with it?
A certain malaise was palpable in the group and I admit that I was not exempt either: I was alone in front of about twenty people after all! 😛
However, playing the game to the end by feeding this heavy atmosphere, I simply replied:
I do not know yet. Of course, you are under no obligation.
Now if you trust me, sign the bottom of this sheet.
The act of signing is often associated with a commitment, which means that we tend to think carefully about what we are risking by doing so. This is why it was important for me to support the non-binding character to make the action more authentic and responsible possible. I mean by responsibility the fact of acting in one's soul and conscience by assuming the possible consequences.
After a long minute or two (and yes everything seems long in this atmosphere!), a person finally decided to sign by openly expressing the fact that they had confidence. Then another followed suit, then another…until almost the whole group finally signed.
This is what the Flipchart sheet looked like at the time:
I then asked:
Has everyone signed?
We then realized that the whole group except one person had signed. I thanked this person for his frankness and told him that I fully respected his decision.
You could already feel that the air was becoming much more breathable and some smiles were returning as if an ordeal had just ended! 😛
The debriefing
So I followed up with the following question:
What made you sign? 🙂
The signatories expressed the fact that they had had me in training all day, then all morning (this experience took place in the afternoon) and that the behavior that I had been able to exhibit so far gave them confidence . This allowed me to introduce some of the notions of trust.
Trust by Jurgen Appelo (Management 3.0)
The latter expresses that to gain the trust of others, it is necessary to:
- Say what we do and do what we say
- To be predictably pleasant (pleasantly predictable should work too right?)
Thus, in multiplying interactions, we can influence the level of trust we have with others, positively or negatively.
Finally, he specifies that we can only trust others if we make ourselves trust yourself first and that we should not change one's mind that when new information has convinced and no not under pressure.
In this sense, it was interesting to notice that the only person who did not sign was a person whom I had not had in training and who had only arrived at the end of the morning: she therefore had not had the time to "gauge" me if I may say so. After making this observation, her justification was rather to say that she never commits to something if she does not know why (real option When you hold us!); interesting thing because I'm sure that's usually the case for others as well, but they did it this time anyway! How is it possible ? 🙂
I also had a few people after the fact explain to me that they had agreed on the fact that if such a person signed, then they would sign too. Otherwise they wouldn't have done it. Interesting point when you look at it from another angle: if you had been asked to jump off a bridge, would you have been able to do it if such and such a person had done it?
The substance ultimately remains the same, the fact of committing remains a personal and responsible decision (because it is not mandatory), regardless of the reasons that led us to take it.
Trust: an act of faith
I then took up the example of the workshop Zoom which the participants had been able to play a few hours earlier.
Have you, even once, doubted the validity of what your interlocutor was telling you?
The answer was unanimous No ! For what ? Simply because everyone had taken the decision to believe that everyone would do their best to achieve their common goal.
Even if it can be argued that people rub shoulders enough to know each other, I doubt that they have already participated in this activity before!... which according to Kurt Lewin's equation would therefore imply a possible change in behavior. Thus, without real proof, each made the choice to believe in the good faith of the other, which was probably one of the keys to their success. From this perspective, one could say that trust has a component irrational, and yet, in a world as pragmatic as ours, one could easily multiply examples of this type.
By the way, did you know that etymologically, the term trust means " faith in something or someone »? How everything is connected! 😉
Conclusion
This thrilling experience was very enriching for me and I think it helped me to forge a special bond with the participants. Would I do it again? I don't know. It turns out that I rather improvised this part and the atmosphere of the group surely encouraged me. Now, I think it can be very learning for the participants as long as it is done for the group in lightness and benevolence.
One question might burn your lips: "What if it hadn't worked?" ".
I would then be happy to share with you the answer of JA Malarewicz:
I don't think in case it doesn't work, I do everything to make it work.
