Enhancing trust in (virtual) teams with the SW(OT) Exercise

Inspired by the MIT research on what makes teams great we found that especially on distributed/virtual teams TRUST is even more essential than in team that meet physically, regularly. As we know, in those physical meetings we do a lot trust-buildning as a natural process. So, could we enhance trust in our distributed teams. In fact – we could!
The finding we built upon was that in high performing teams each team member speaks to each other member about as much as everyone else.

So – should we just tell people to do just that? Knowing about intrinsic motivation and habits – we knew we have to find a model that is both simple – and returning immediate results. This one does!
This exercise builds on a simple one I made up a couple of years ago: Let all participants of a team reveal their perceived strengths and weaknesses with each other. Or, put graphically “use the top of the SWOT Model”. You know, Strength-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats. By doing so 2-by-2 we found trust in ordinary teams to make radical change.

Here’s the model: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9hwbscd1con3hz4/Team%20Bonding%20-%20170712.pptx.pdf?dl=0

Of course, as your team moves on the “S&W” may be replaced by “strengths and ambitions” or what ever steps you are ready to take.
Good Luck!
//Johan L