The Importance Of Trust In A Cross-Functional Team

With a cross-functional team such as Google’s, trust is extremely important to establish. Turaga (2013) described trust this way: “Psychology studies state that to trust is to believe that the other person will do what is expected” (p. 14). Trust really consists of just a little more than managing expectations among a group of individuals. Turaga (2013) goes on to say that “Many a time, with trust as the foundation of the relationship, one tends to predict what the other can do even without knowing much about the other person or without much knowledge of the situation” (p. 14). This is relevant since teams within organizations such as Google do not have an endless amount of time to establish trust for reaching goals. There are a few things

This is especially important for a team like Google’s that comes from a wide range of backgrounds and talents. These individuals will want to understand very quickly how they are to perform and where they fit in. Clear communication will help gain a fast understand and trust among the group.

Second, is being supportive. Providing help, advice, and coaching makes leaders approachable which encourages greater trust (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2013). When team members come to seek out help, it is important that leaders are there with answers. When leaders serve in this capacity, it builds trust by giving people the resources and confidence they need to do their job.

Third, leaders must demand the respect of their team. Leaders must be able to delegate and make sound decisions, while empowering their team members to perform (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2013). For the highly skilled individuals among Google’s group, leaders should empower their employees to use their knowledge, skills, and abilities without being micromanaged. Micromanaging creates the opposite of trust, therefore hindering the team

People like routines and things that are familiar. If the leaders at Google can get all the departments into a routine together, it would relieve anxiety and allow for greater trust in the norms of day to day activities.

Sixth, leaders must be professional and competent in business sense and abilities (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2013). No one is going to trust leaders who have no idea as to what they are doing. Google hand picked these groups because of their knowledge. These individuals would expect leadership to lead in a way that proves trust and the competency to lead quickly and efficiently.

Finally, there is much to be said about an organization that can quickly build relationships and trust among team members. Studies have revealed some success on relationship-based corporations that quickly build trust among team members. Marshall (1999) said, “A relationship­based corporation is a framework for leading and managing a business that honors the fundamental needs of the individual, builds trust based relationships, and creates a work environment that can tap into the full potential, intellectual capital, and energy of the workforce, so they are able to produce breakthrough results” (Marshall, 1999, p.5). One would expect Google to implement this type of idea to quickly gain trust among these three very talented departmental