While functional teams look radically different across contexts — a cryptocurrency hedge fund, a Navy SEAL unit, a family — Joe argues that one quality is universal: trust. A functional team that processes canned tomatoes and a functional family in Silicon Valley may have nothing else in common, but both require trust to operate.
Trust is multifaceted. It includes financial trust (you won’t screw me), conflict trust (we can fight and come out stronger), reliability trust (you’ll do what you say), and competence trust (you can perform your role). Each dimension matters and each is built the same way: through difficult conversations, not avoided ones.
“Trust is multifaceted and there’s lots of ways to get to it, but trust is a very key thing. And you can’t say — it’s very hard to control somebody out of trust.”
What makes trust particularly powerful as a metric is that it’s hard to weaponize. Unlike “safety,” which people sometimes use to control others’ behavior, trust requires you to actually be trustworthy. You build it by sharing what’s really happening — including your fears — and by addressing problems directly rather than letting them fester.
Related Concepts
- Conflict-avoidant managers destroy trust
- Keeping it together blocks team trust
- Safety comes from working through conflict