How do you generate trust?

Hi Valerie, for me it's quite simple, it's not so far to search than that, it requires only to adhere to the PMI Code of ethics and professional conduct.
Thank you so much for sharing.

This is a very good discussion. Trust can be a personal decision. Based on background/experience, some people can build trust in shorter period, and some may take long. As a team leader, building a secure environment for team members to trust each other is not an easy task. Given the nature of project is temporary, sometimes leaders have not enough time to build the trust before the team has to catch up the schedule. Making use of team building opportunities can help to build the trust environment.

A two way trust should have the highest work efficiency and best output quality. One way trust should work as well, but the communication may not be as efficient and not really sustainable.

Greetings Cheikh,

You are one the first on this discussion to mention the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. Thank you for bringing it up. Certainly the code provides an excellent framework for trust (among many other elements), but the term "trust" does not have a universal definition.

A two way trust should have the highest work efficiency and best output quality. One way trust should work as well, but the communication may not be as efficient and not really sustainable.

In building a trust relationship, it is hardly to be absolutely one sided. When two parties working for one task, It is about the level of trust, it changes over time as well. The communication efficiency would be highest if both parties are having a trusted relationship. However, if trust only happen on one side, the relationship would still work, but it may not be efficient, and takes time to build the trust. That is what ethics and integrity comes into play. A person with ethical behaviour and high integrity can build up his credit for trust. A life example is the cooperation with a new vendor in a company. When the vendor first came into office, the members in the office would not have a lot of trust to the vendor staff. The vendor staff still have to do the work with the company, but may be asked a lot of questions or bring up a lot of queries to their work, not believing they can deliver quality result. After a period of time when the vendor colleague shows their sincerity and integrity in their work, it built the trust. The level of trust will become higher when more of these things happened.

Indeed Valerie, but the point of view of the PMI counts and makes more sense than any other point of view. Thank you so much again for the clarification.

Hi Valerie! Thanks for the excellent question which is very relevant to PMs.
Project teams involve people from various disciplines who have to quickly gel together and work towards achieving common goals.
Teams with high levels of mutual trust are certainly more likely to be more productive and thus achieve higher levels of success.
As part of our PMI Leadership Institute Master Class (LIMC), we read and discussed Patrick Lencioni's "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team", a leadership fable which emphasized the critical importance of trust in team success.
Another great read on the topic is Stephen Covey's "The Speed of Trust."
In my experience, an important step is to develop an environment of open communication and respect for divergent views. Since trust begets trust, PMs need to act in a manner which shows that they truly trust their team members.
Reacting to bad news in a mature and balanced manner is also key since negative overreactions will deter team members from communicating issues.
Another practical way to build trust is to signal actions, communicate about progress, and deliver on promises. Done in a repeatable manner, one can significantly strengthen trust levels.