Become a magician of management: build mutual trust and respect in your team by 5 simple steps (works for orthodox materialists as well as for voodoos)

The foundation of any group behavior is communication. The better we convey information, the easier it is to create social connections and share ideas (and, in turn, motivate each other to make changes in the world according to our vision). The basis of this process is mutual trust and respect (in that order). I won’t communicate with someone if I can’t predict their reaction to the information I share. That’s about trust. Similarly, I won’t communicate if I don’t believe the person can understand what’s said and use the information beneficially. That’s about respect.

Usually, it takes some time to start trusting and respecting someone. We seek and accumulate evidence that our interlocutor can be trusted and respected, relying on our own and others’ experiences. But this is a rather lengthy process, and if we rely on it in team dynamics, we’ll work slowly and inefficiently for quite some time until all team members “get used” to each other.

However, there is an approach that practically reduces the time needed for team members to “get used” to each other to zero. This approach truly works like magic if applied consistently. It’s called the “culture of trust and respect.” It assumes that within the team, we initially believe that everyone can be trusted until proven otherwise. We also respect each other regardless of whether there are objective reasons for it. Simply, a person trusts another person because trust between people is natural. Simply, a person respects another because every person deserves respect. Working in such a culture is pleasant and easy. You find yourself in a magical world where you can share any ideas, even the strangest ones, and be listened to attentively, where you can ask any questions and receive answers. This inspires and motivates.

Creating and maintaining such a culture is not always easy, primarily because we are all different, and it’s not always easy for us to understand each other’s visions and behaviors. You need to keep a constant focus on understanding as a goal, putting aside the desire to prove your own point as secondary. To support this, Dr. Adizes developed simple meeting rules (the three main ones directly related to the process you’ve already seen), which can help you spread the culture of trust and respect within your team.

Rule #0: Meetings always start on time.

This demonstrates respect for everyone participating in the meeting. Anyone who is late must pay a penalty for every minute of delay. This shows that they acknowledge breaking the rules. The penalty doesn’t have to be monetary; it could be something symbolic like push-ups. The key is not the severity of the penalty but the recognition of the rules and the willingness to follow them equally with everyone else.

Rule #1: Anyone can speak for as long as needed to express their thoughts.

During this time, no one interrupts, either verbally or with gestures—raising hands to indicate a desire to speak is not allowed until the speaker has finished.

At first, it might seem that this could drag out the meeting, but you’ll be surprised at how much less time it takes when people are allowed to fully express themselves.

The only thing the meeting facilitator needs to watch for is going off-topic. If the current speaker tries to move on to another topic, they should be stopped, and the floor should be given to the next speaker according to Rule #2.

Rule #2: The current speaker passes the right to speak to the next person by naming them.

This is important for establishing a friendly atmosphere and reducing emotional tension, which usually arises during discussions.

Rule #3: To determine the next speaker, the current speaker looks to their right

(for remote meetings, participants can be assigned numbers to determine the sequence of the “look”) and chooses the nearest person who raised their hand.

This eliminates the possibility of “dominating the floor” by particularly active speakers and provides equal opportunities for everyone to speak.

Rule #4: If someone tries to interrupt the current speaker, they lose their right to speak in that round of the discussion.

The punishment for interfering with the current speaker should be exactly this because the loss of the opportunity to speak most effectively impacts those trying to dominate the floor.

Rule #5: Meetings always end on time.

This demonstrates respect for all participants, as everyone has their own schedule of meetings and tasks they planned to accomplish.

These rules are just part of the complete balanced decision-making process proposed by Dr. Adizes, but they are the easiest to implement, so we recommend starting with them.