How can you develop trust in a team?
Most problems in this area (at least the ones that are readily solvable) stem from two basic causes - misunderstandings that are unresolved, and inappropriate leadership.

Team members are frequently irritated by aspects of work, both with their management and their colleagues. It would be unusual to be happy about everything! However, power relationships often prevent people from raising these issues, or just lack of skill in dealing with them around the meeting table, and so they 'fester' in silence.

Trust in a team is typically resolved by sharing views, feelings and needs. This usually doesn't happen naturally in teams and so a facilitator is often required.

When would you use 'outdoors' teambuilding?
This is very often seen as a solution for trust issues in teams and it can work. Ideally when you need to bring team interaction issues out into the open very quickly, and where the team members are enthusiastic about this sort of thing. Can be a great 'unfreezing' activity. However, it usually backfires when the 'trust' developed is only a physical thing, such as having someone hold you suspended on a rope. Talk it through with us - we can recommend whether you should use this method or not.

An example of a team building trust and defusing conflict -

Case Studies: Building trust

The management team of a department booked a day with us to do some development work. It emerged early on that several members felt unwilling to bring certain staff issues to the group; they displayed far more trust within their individual teams than with other management team members. They began to build bridges by discussing what sort of 'ground rules' - particularly of confidentiality - should be established for the team. This enabled them to get into gentle discussion of some real problems for the whole department, allowing everyone to say how they would have been better resolved with more cooperation. Gradually, they managed to establish a mutually acceptable 'threshold' and list the sorts of issues that would be above this, and would be acceptable for everybody to bring to the management table. This was only the beginning of a development process, but a vital one.