7 Bad Habits That Can Damage Project Teams

Paul is the principal of Bird Advisory in Perth, Western Australia.

  Leadership   Talent Management  

Brittleness is the converse of vulnerability: the vital element for building trust. To build trust, you should avoid “embrittlers”—habitual behaviors that can erode trust and damage project teams. Here I look at seven of these bad habits—and their antidotes.

What is an Embrittler?
At a biological level, vulnerability means putting yourself in a position where you could be harmed—exposing a soft underbelly or lowering defenses. It’s a risky strategy that counts on the other party recognizing that there is no threat, and reciprocating. Where both parties have mutually de-armed, they are enabled to trust, engage and work together.

This applies to project teams, but we’re talking about psychological vulnerability—and the exposure of weaknesses is still very real.

The opposite of vulnerability is often described as “brittleness.” Imagine being armored in a protective shell, like a beetle. It’s hard (until it fails under stress), it’s designed to provide protection for your sense of self, but it certainly gets in the way of reciprocated vulnerability—and thus inhibits building trust.

There are some behavioral patterns that tend to promote brittleness rather than vulnerability. I call these “embrittlers.” If you are interested in building trust, watch out for these bad habits—…

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