How To Build Trust In A Virtual Team

How to Build Trust in a Virtual Team

A Story, a Strategy and an Exercise

A massive global study on trust published in the Harvard Business Review found that only 49% of full-time employees had “a great deal of trust” in the people who work above and alongside them. This is a big deal given how trust can affect every aspect of an organization.

“Trust is like blood pressure,” according to author and consultant Frank Sonnenburg. “It’s silent, vital to good health, and if abused it can be deadly.” I would argue that on virtual teams, we’re at high risk for hypertension. But there are ways to build trust within remote teams. 

I know this firsthand from working with some of the most innovative organizations on the planet and helping them amplify connection, belonging and trust. I created the We! Connection Toolkit for this purpose, and in this chapter, I’m going to share some of my favorite tips and ideas to build trust.

First, it’s important to understand that connection is a fundamental component of trust. Other components include reliability, accountability, generosity and creating boundaries. 

I agree with researcher and author Brené Brown who says connection is “the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.” This definition for connection serves as the foundation for building trust in a team—in person or virtually.

In this context, there are five essential ingredients to building trust. Culturally, you must ensure people feel that you:

• Are willing to know them.
• See them.
• Hear them.
• Understand them.
• Are with them.

It’s not just that you as the leader see, hear, understand, and are with them and willing to know them. Rather, these become cultural norms and values for the organization. 

Trust Improves Performance

Several years ago, Google launched a massive research project to determine what characteristics are most important in high-performing teams. The No. 1 characteristic was the degree of psychological safety a team experienced. One way Google defines psychological safety is fostering a culture of inclusivity. You’re not stifling anybody’s ideas. You’re inviting people to be themselves. 

If you want people to really be themselves, you’ve got to be willing to know them. You’ve got to see them. You have to hear them (and they have to feel heard). You have to get them, and they have to feel understood. You’ve got to be with them. That means supporting and building them up.

We live in a culture where there’s always too much to do and too little time to do it. What I’m going to share with you is a quick way to create a culture of trust in a virtual team.

But before we talk about tools for building trust, I want to share a story. This one is about a time I tried to build a relationship of trust, and failed—at least at first. 

The Airport Rental Car

I was on a flight that had to turn back because of bad weather, and so we landed at our original airport. There, everyone who had been on the flight had two choices: sleep in the airport or rent a car and drive several hours to our destination. 

There was chatter on the plane about renting a car or getting a three-hour Uber. People were talking about all different options. I thought, it’s 2 a.m. If I try to drive myself, I’m going to crash. So is it possible there are a few people who can trust each other enough to rent a car together and drive?

Since I help organizations amplify connection, belonging and trust for a living, I figured I wouldn’t have any trouble building some trust with the people around me. I talked with a woman who I’d sat by on the plane. When the idea came up to rent a car together with a couple other people, there was interest but hesitation. There was reticence to trust.

Most human beings have had experiences where their trust has been broken. Given that, I set out with the intent to build trust. I started to, in what I thought was a cool, chill way, throw out little trinkets of trustworthy sort of information. I mentioned this TEDx talk I gave once. I told the woman I could send her a link to the talk to prove that I’m not an axe murderer. I talked about my wife. I mentioned my son Otto. 

Despite all my efforts to weave in details I thought would build trust, it was going nowhere. If anything, I was probably coming across as overbearing. That was until we got to the kiosk at the rental car place. 

We had intended to each rent a car and go our separate ways. Then somebody from way behind me said, “Chad Littlefield, is that you?” I had no idea who the person was. It turned out that he had seen me at a speaking event. He starts talking about how great the talk was. He says he still uses some of my tools to create connection before content and empower people.

It wasn’t until that very moment that the woman I had been sitting next to seemed to change her mind. The key? I’d gotten third-party validation, so now we were good to go.

The point is in order to create that level of third-party trust in a virtual team, you have to be able to connect and get to know each other. Trust can be awfully contagious in a team—especially when it starts at the top. 

Ask Powerful Questions

How do you create these trust-building conversations? One great tool for doing this is to ask powerful questions. Adults tend to ask, on average, six to 12 questions a day. That’s next to nothing compared to 3- to 5-year-olds who tend to ask about 300 to 400 questions per day.

One of the most trusting things we can do is to be interested in others. Yet we spend most of our time trying to be interesting. I was trying to be interesting and trustworthy to this person on the plane. But it wasn’t working. I hit a brick wall. It wasn’t until I had this third-party stamp of approval, and was more curious about her world and what was going on in her life, that I was able to build trust and rapport with her.

Cards to Build Trust

Now I want to share with you one of my favorite exercises to build trust in a virtual team. The exercise uses visuals to make trust visible. Trust, like blood pressure, is this invisible thing that has a very significant impact on the health of your team.

The exercise I’m going to share with you utilizes We! Engage Cards. This is a deck of cards I designed that has quotes on one side and images on the other. This exercise uses the image side. (You can get a free digital, printable version at www.weand.me/free, or you can buy the full deck on Amazon or at www.weand.me.)

To start the exercise, spread the cards out image side up. Invite each person to choose one image they feel represents an aspect of trust that they want to share with the group.

Now have people in your group pair up or form a small group. Then they can share how the image they chose represents trust. You might also invite people to share a story about a time when a team member exemplified that element of trust.

You can vary this exercise in many different ways. You might invite people to choose an image that represents a tool they use to build trust. You can invite people to pick an image that represents one important ingredient of trust. Or you can have people choose an image that reminds them of a story where somebody did an amazing job building trust with them.

By making conversations about trust transparent, we take the invisible and make it visible. When trust is visible, we have the chance to build and amplify it.