Lesson 3: Building and Maintaining Trust

Building and Maintaining Trust

Trust is a key component of any team. It allows team members to provide honest, helpful input and feedback to each other. It establishes confidence that tasks will be completed and that fellow team members will follow through on commitments they have made. It is the glue that holds the team together and allows it to function as a single unit. Without trust, a team will not be able to function and the likelihood of the team successfully completing a project quickly diminishes. As difficult as trust is to build on a co-located team, it is increasingly difficult on a global virtual (GV) team. The lack of contact with team members due to the distance makes trust difficult to build and to maintain.

This lesson has four objectives. It will identify the antecedents of trust. It defines Swift Trust and describes how its characteristics are similar to and different from Personal Trust. It identifies how to develop Personal Trust and the difficulties of doing so on a global, virtual (GV) team. Finally, it identifies several activities that will help build trust among your GV team members.