What is Vulnerability-Based Trust?
Know the Difference: Vulnerability-Based Trust and Predictive Trust
Vulnerability-based trust is the foundation of highly effective teamwork. Unfortunately, many teams and team leaders don’t work towards this type of trust.
Many teams create a team environment that is predictable.
They can be polite and hospitable, but the atmosphere may never make someone comfortable enough to address complex issues and feelings or hold team members accountable. The messiness that comes with relationships is avoided, held back, or disregarded.
Team members within this environment practice predictive trust with each other. Predictive trust isn’t overtly mean or deceitful (although it can include that). Instead, it’s not being truly honest with yourself or with those you are working with.
When teams use Predictive Trust, they will:
- Avoid speaking about an issue, hold someone accountable, or take decisive action.
- Assign blame to other sources rather than own an issue.
- Disregard or avoid feedback
At each of these points, individuals make a conscious decision to avoid having difficult conversations. The consequences will vary depending on the situation, but there are many real-world examples of how this can play out.
Example of Predictive Trust: Uber's Firing of Travis Kalenick
An example of Predictive Trust can be seen in 2017 at the ridesharing company Uber and the forced resignation of then-CEO, Travis Kalenick. Leading up to this situation, Uber was widely hailed as a significant success and innovative company.
Jim Cramer, the host of Mad Money on CNBC, described the situation as “Kalenick had to break ‘billions of eggs’ to make this omelet” (the omelet being Kalenick’s termination).
Kalenick and his leadership team engaged in behaviors and made decisions that allowed them to avoid accountability for the company and their own personal issues.
They continued to work and had a lot of success leading up to the eventual resignation of Kalenick. In 2016, the leading perspective on what might cause Uber and Kalenick’s downfall wasn’t how the leadership team was operating, it was whether people would continue to use ride-sharing apps like Uber.
We now know that Kalenick and his leadership team engaged in the following:
- Did not review and resolve cases of misogyny and sexual harrasment at Uber
- Kalanick was not held accountable for his awful behavior towards Uber drivers.
- Uber fired employees who brought claims of sexual harassment.
In each of these instances and decisions, the leadership team failed to speak up and be truthful about what was happening. When individuals don’t speak up, when teams avoid responsibility, the consequences will soon be realized.
For Kalenick, the consequence was losing his job, and Uber was significantly hurt in the process.
Example of Vulnerability-Based Trust: Ted Lasso
Teams that engage in vulnerability-based trust are very different. When they engage in vulnerability-based trust, they will:
- Let down their guard and be genuine.
- Ask for feedback regarding areas within their responsibility.
- Willingly apologize to each other.
- Acknowledge an individual weakness to each other.
A great example of vulnerability-based trust is from the Apple TV Show Ted Lasso, specifically in the show’s first season.
Ted Lasso is an American college football coach who is hired to manage a fictional professional English soccer team. The new owner of the soccer club, Rebecca Welton, hires Ted Lasso in the hopes that he will ruin the team because he has no idea how to manage a soccer team.
Rebecca initiates problems and situations throughout the show to nudge Ted toward failure. In each instance, Ted responds with grace and empathy. He doesn’t hide who he is and continually recognizes his own weaknesses to everyone.
In Episode 9, titled All Apologies, Rebecca reveals to Ted her true intentions about why she hired him.
She admits that she wanted to ruin the club to get back at her former husband because he loved the team more than he cared for her. She sought to destroy the football club and use Ted in the process.
Ted’s response? He forgave her because “everyone goes a little bit crazy during a divorce.”
Now, this situation might seem made for Hollywood. However, it’s clear from the firing of Travis Kalenick at Uber that people do make very poor decisions without consideration of who they are hurting.
In the show, if Ted Lasso hadn’t created an environment that allowed people to be vulnerable, Rebecca likely wouldn’t have told him what she did, and their relationship (and the organization) would have suffered.
It’s likely that many factors resulted in then-CEO Kalenick’s destructive behaviors. Now, imagine if Uber’s leadership team had their own Ted Lasso. How would they have responded differently? Unfortunately, we will never know, but considering how vulnerability-based trust can change the direction of poor decisions and behavior is an interesting thought exercise.
How to build Vulnerability-Base Trust
Vulnerability-based trust is a foundational concept within the Five Behaviors Team Training program, the Five Behaviors of a Team assessment. In our work with teams, we use this program as a way to map out a path toward navigating how to accomplish shared results.
The program was designed based on Patrick Lencioni’s bestselling book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
The program starts with Trust and moves through four additional behaviors (Conflict, Commitment, Accountability, and Results) that team members should engage in to become more effective.
It shouldn’t be surprising that most teams spend more time during this training trying to develop vulnerability-based trust than all of the other behaviors. In one instance, a team we worked with never made it past the discussion about vulnerability-based trust because there was so much they needed to work through and discuss.
If your team wants to take a step towards becoming more cohesive, it’s essential to think about a few different considerations:
- How long has your team worked together? Often, new team dysfunctions are caused because people don’t understand each other’s point of view or communication style.
- Is your team willing to work on building vulnerability-based trust? In one instance, a team leader made the statement, “I don’t need to know how to work with my team; they need to learn how to work better with me!” Before any trust-building work can happen, the team must be willing to commit to the process.
Answer these questions first before even considering starting the process of developing vulnerability-based trust on your team.
After you have spent time considering these questions, you might want to schedule a DiSC Training first before getting into working on trust.
This program will help start the process of becoming more self-aware about how others see you and why communication issues may exist. After this session, the team can then move into starting the process of building vulnerability-based trust with each other.