Often when I work with teams, I find that the members don’t really trust each other. Team members might agree that their boss or co-workers have the skills to do their jobs, but that’s about it. As a result, there is often a lot of blaming, turf guarding, defensiveness and even sabotage where teamwork and leadership could be.

What is vulnerability trust? Lencioni defines it as a place where both leaders and team members, “comfortably and quickly acknowledge, without provocation, their mistakes, weaknesses, failures, and need for help. They also recognize the strengths of others, even when those strengths exceed their own.”

Vulnerability is the driving force of connection. It’s courageous. It’s gentle. It’s the basis for building a cohesive team. But we’ve turned it into a weakness. We’ve made ourselves ‘strong.’ We’ve toughened up, hardened up and protect ourselves from being hurt. Vulnerability does not mean offering every detail of your life. It’s about intention and taking the risk so that issues can be revealed and worked with.

One of the first things that we do when we work with a team is to establish vulnerability trust. One tool that we use is the DiSC® assessment. When presented effectively, the team starts to grow and become cohesive. Team members start to share their varying perspectives on issues. This results in greater commitment and accountability to the team’s shared vision. In other words, they become a cohesive team and get positive results!