I’ve been mentoring a group of young Scrum Masters for the last seven months, and recently one of them asked me a question:
How do I foster trust within my team?
Immediately, two thoughts came to mind:
- They’ve been listening. Affecting change isn’t about process, mechanics, or imposition. It’s about people. It’s about helping others, and I couldn’t be prouder that this question came to mind.
- It’s a freakin’ tough question to answer. My response was far more philosophical than practical. In the moment, no simple, straight forward answers came to mind so I’ve been chewing on it since.
But why? Whether family, friends, or colleagues, we’re surrounded by people most times of the day, and our relationships with others are built on a foundation of trust. For example, we trust that the car next to us driving at highway speeds will stay in its own lane. When a friend offers to drive us to the airport, we trust s/he will show on time so we catch our flight. After all these years, we should have a handle on this trust thing, right?
I wish that were so.
[Read more…]