Trust decides whether your team tells you about a problem while it is still cheap to fix.
Why high trust pays off
Only 37% of construction professionals rate the trust in their organization as very high. The firms that reach that level see it in their results.
- Work with repeat clients 57% of the time , compared with 42% at above-average firms
- 74% of employees would recommend their firm, compared with 50% at average firms and 21% at average or below
- More confidence that the project will hit its schedule and budget
Source: Autodesk & FMI, Trust Matters (2020).
What low trust looks like on your site
Amy Edmondson, a social psychologist at Harvard, studies psychological safety, which means a state where people feel safe to speak up. When your team does not feel safe, four things stop happening:
- Your team stops asking questions, because nobody wants to look ignorant
- Your team stops admitting mistakes, because nobody wants to look incompetent
- Your team stops offering ideas, because nobody wants to look intrusive
- Your team stops challenging how things are done, because nobody wants to look negative or slow the work down
On your site, this looks like silence.
Source: Autodesk & FMI, Trust Matters (2020).
What high-trust firms do differently
The same four behaviors measured across firms:
| Behavior | Very high trust | Above average | Average or below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Explicit about what they need | 40% | 17% | 5% |
| Comfortable sharing bad news | 30% | 18% | 13% |
| Likely to voice ideas to managers | 93% | 87% | 63% |
| Report a problem as soon as they see it | 60% | 38% | 23% |
Three steps to build trust on your next project
1. Measure trust every quarter
Keep it to six questions on a 1 to 5 scale, which takes under three minutes to answer. Run the same questions at the same time each quarter so you can see the trend over time.
The six questions:
- Overall, I would rate the level of trust on this project team as high.
- When someone asks something of me, they are explicit about why and what they are trying to achieve.
- I would feel safe raising a mistake or bad news without fear of being blamed.
- I would feel comfortable bringing up an idea for doing something better.
- If I saw a problem that could affect schedule or budget, I would flag it immediately.
- My role and responsibilities on this project are clearly defined.
Run it as confidential. Tell your team that results are shared as totals, and that no answer is traced back to a person.
2. Create your team charter
- Get to know your people, for example through DiSC work style assessments
- Agree on a site purpose statement, which explains why the work matters
- Write living team agreements that cover how conflict gets raised and how communication flows
- Make roles, responsibilities, and decision rights explicit
Your site purpose covers why your team is here. Your team agreements cover how your team works. The article on getting construction teams aligned at kickoff walks through the charter in more detail.
3. Work the charter together
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- Pick a meeting structure that fits your team, for example a weekly OAC meeting with the owner, architect, and contractor, or a quarterly reflection meeting
- Build your team’s skills in sharing information early, giving and receiving feedback, handling difficult conversations across work styles, and making trade-offs together
Get the full key takeaways
Download the key takeaways on LinkedIn.
Want help with your own site? Book a free site culture assessment. You’ll find the problems and get action steps you can use right away.