Trust and Performance

Simon Sinek has a great video on the relationship between Trust and Performance.

He refers to the time he spent with the US Navy Seals as an example of an incredibly high-performing team.

Navy Seals are the best of the best, incredibly high performers.

Sinek shows how the US Navy has found the relationship between performance and trust impacts overall team performance.

He claims that the best Seals teams are based on trust, even above performance at times. Ideally, they want everyone on a team to give High Trust and High Performance. However, they would rather include a member that ranks high on Trust and is a moderate Performer (on their scale of performance!) than a high Performer that ranks moderately on Trust.

Furthermore, they would even prefer a low Performer that scores highly on Trust than the High Performer/ Low Trust individual.

Why? They have found that the High Performer/ Low Trust person is a toxic leader and a toxic team member.

I thought about people I had employed in the past and one or two came to mind. I kept them on because their numbers seemed so strong, I didn’t think we could afford to let them go.

It bit me on the arse.

EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

We have performance metrics in business, we don’t measure trustworthiness.

Yet we can. We can set expectations about how our teams work together, not just what they do. When we have set an expectation, we can assess performance against it, and it's easier than you think.

What are the behaviours that build trust? Does everyone in your business demonstrate them? How do you know? Do you recognise the high-trust performers and counsel the underperformers?

Perhaps you should.

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