Teamwork begins where everyone can rely on everyone else without having to check.
Working in a team means handing part of the work to others. You build on someone else’s contribution without having made it yourself. That only works if you can count on the other person doing what they promise – and being able to do it.
The team principle in detail
Four steps through the principle: understand, check, connect, apply. Open any topic to read more.
The explanationTwo things belong together. Reliability is a quality of the person who is trusted.
- Two things belong together.
- Reliability is a quality of the person who is trusted.
- Trust is the others’ response to it.
- The core statement demands the first and describes the second.
- Trust grows out of reliability that people have experienced: out of promises kept, not out of good intentions.
Read closelyWhat the principle says – and what it doesn’t
Anyone who constantly has to check is doing the work twice. The more you depend on one another, the more hinges on each individual’s reliability.
- It does not say
- The less people look, the better. Research does not support that. The key words are “having to” – the point is being forced to check, not keeping an eye on one another.
- That a single failure is final. Reliability can be regained when someone offers a second chance.
- Strictly speaking
- Trust does not replace looking; it makes looking acceptable. In good teams, members do look at one another’s work, and no one experiences that as distrust.
The signs3 signs that the principle is at work · 3 that it is missing
- Commitments are kept or withdrawn in good time.
- Tasks are handed over without anyone secretly doing the work twice.
- Someone who checks in is not seen as an inspector.
- Deadlines are quietly missed.
- Everyone covers themselves and double-checks the others’ work.
- People would rather not hand over anything important in the first place.
The research6 sources: 4 primary studies, 1 meta-analysis, 1 theory · 1995–2016 · with research limitations
- low
- moderate
- high
Moderate – the link between trust and team performance is well established meta-analytically; the addition about checking is not.
- 1995Roger C. Mayer, James H. Davis & F. David Schoorman
Foundational model: trust is the willingness to make oneself vulnerable. It rests on three judgments: ability, benevolence, integrity.
- 1995Daniel J. McAllister
194 managers and professionals: trust has two roots – a cognitive one (reliability, competence) and an affective one (care and concern). Both foster cooperation in different ways.
- 2000Kurt T. Dirks
NCAA men’s college basketball teams: trust in the coach is both a consequence and a cause of team performance.
- 2004Claus W. Langfred
71 self-managing teams of MBA students: high trust reduces mutual monitoring. When individual autonomy is low, high trust helps performance; when it is high, high trust hurts it.
- 2010Bart A. De Jong & Tom Elfring
Ongoing teams at a tax consultancy: trust improves performance through more effort and more mutual monitoring – not less.
- Research qualifies precisely the part about checking.
- In self-managing teams with high individual autonomy, high trust went hand in hand with less mutual monitoring and poorer performance.
- In ongoing teams, trust even improved performance through more mutual monitoring.
- So the evidence supports “trust raises performance” – not “looking is unnecessary.”
Read more: what the research shows
Research examines the topic as trust within teams (“intrateam trust”): the willingness to make oneself vulnerable to the others. According to the foundational model by Roger C. Mayer, James H. Davis and F. David Schoorman, it rests on three judgments: ability, benevolence and integrity. Daniel J. McAllister distinguished a cognitive root (reliability, competence) from an affective one (care and concern). The meta-analysis by Bart A. De Jong, Kurt T. Dirks and Nicole Gillespie shows that intrateam trust has an above-average correlation with team performance – and a stronger one still when members depend on one another.
The originJohn C. Maxwell · “The Law of Countability”
- 2001OriginJohn C. Maxwell
The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork
- The Law of CountabilityTeam members must be able to count on one another when it counts
- todayExpanded
What is added here is the clause about checking – along with the limit research places on it.
The related team principles11 Attunement · 13 Safety · 14 Conflict · 06 Weakest Link
Reliability builds on “Attunement” and is the foundation for “Safety” and “Conflict”.
“Weakest Link” and “Bench” are close neighbors.
It stands in tension with “Effort” and “Scoreboard”: both require visibility, and thus a form of looking.
The action steps5 steps: Only commit to what you can deliver – and speak up early when things get tight.
- Only commit to what you can deliver – and speak up early when things get tight.
- Make commitments concrete: who, what, by when. Only then can people actually experience reliability.
- Agree on open check-ins. Brief progress updates that apply to everyone are not a sign of distrust – especially where everyone works very independently.
- Pay attention to all three foundations of trust: Is the person able to do it? Do they mean well toward the team? Do they keep their word?
- If someone has let the team down: address it and give a clearly defined second chance.
The questions for your team3 questions for your team conversation: Where do we check up on one another because we have to – and why is that?
- Where do we check up on one another because we have to – and why is that?
- Which commitment in recent weeks was broken without anyone talking about it?
- What form of open check-in would help us without coming across as distrust?
Take time for one question at your next team meeting. Talk about it openly and note down what you take away from it.
The picture to rememberOne dot jumps; the others spread a net and catch it. With each jump, the lines of the net grow firmer and more golden.
- One dot jumps.
- The others spread a net and catch it.
- With each jump, the lines of the net grow firmer and more golden.
What the Team Principle of Reliability looks like in practice
One Ice Axe Holds Six Men
In 1953, an American expedition led by Charles Houston attempts the first ascent of K2; in a storm, the men lower the ailing Art Gilkey on a rope. On August 10, five climbers fall at the same time – and 26-year-old Pete Schoening holds them all, along with Gilkey, with the rope and an ice axe he has jammed behind a frozen boulder.
The Man No One Sees
While Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land on the Moon on July 20, 1969, Michael Collins circles alone for some 28 hours in the command module “Columbia,” out of radio contact for about 47 minutes on every orbit. He has with him a 117-page notebook containing 18 rendezvous procedures in case the lunar module does not lift off as planned.
Five Neighbors Instead of Collateral
In 1976, the economist Muhammad Yunus lends 27 US dollars to 42 people without collateral in the village of Jobra in Bangladesh; in 1983 this becomes the Grameen Bank. Five women borrowers form a group; at first only two receive a loan – and if one member does not repay, the whole group gets no further loans.
