Trust and Commitment: Pillars of a Successful Team
Trust and commitment are two critical pillars of a successful team. They foster collaboration, trustworthy relationships, problem-solving skills, communication, and fulfillment of the set objectives. The absence of trust and commitment adversely affect the way team members communicate while working.
The Impact of Lack of Trust on Communication
The lack of trust among team members cause ineffective communication. Trust enables people to focus more on collective goals than personal interests. In other words, it brings people together where they work in harmony and help one another to improve on their weaknesses. Individuals who do not trust each other do not interact well and usually experience social conflicts (Hirsch). As such, they try to minimize their communication with their colleagues, and thus, they do things individually. The team becomes more of a competition between members, which hinders them from achieving the overall objective.
The Consequences of Lack of Commitment
Furthermore, the lack of commitment cultivates withdrawal and isolation of team members. Specifically, every team has the set goals that they are supposed to meet. The contributions of each member significantly affect the outcomes. On that note, uncommitted people do not recognize the importance of communicating with others. They never mind whether the team would achieve its objectives successfully or not. At this point, individuals do not share ideas and opinions or even solve their differences (Hirsch). The quality of work they produce is poor since they do not help one another to know how they can improve their weaknesses or build their strengths. Therefore, the lack of commitment has negative consequences in team communication since it makes members not interact while working.
An Example From a Manager's Perspective
Indeed, having worked as a manager at some point in life, I realized that it is hectic to ensure that team members undertake their duties when they lack trust and commitment. For example, when I assigned work to them, I expected them to be committed and do their best to give the unsurpassed results possible. Through communication team members reported if they are experiencing challenges, which I solved immediately to avoid affecting the overall outcomes negatively.
In Conclusion
To sum up, the lack of commitment and absence of trust adversely affect how team members communicate while undertaking their responsibilities. People cannot eliminate their differences and work toward a common goal without communicating with each other.
Work Cited
Hirsch, Wendy. “Trust: Does it impact team performance… or not?” Science For Work, 2016, https://scienceforwork.com/blog/trust-impact-team-performance/. Accessed 29 Nov. 2018.
