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Team Science and Collaborative Research: Tools to Increase Trust
High performing teams have well developed trust and strong sense of psychological safety among team members. How can you improve trust between your team members?
Trust Resources
- Trust and Distust: New Relationships and Realities
Lewicki, R., McAllister, D., & Bies, R. (1998). Trust and Distrust: New Relationships and Realities. The Academy of Management Review, 23(3), 438-458. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/259288
Trust in Organizations by Call Number: HM131 .T715 1996ISBN: 0803957408Publication Date: 1995-11-21This volume brings together a cross-disciplinary group of contributors to present some of the latest, most exciting conceptual perspectives in the field and to demonstrate a variety of new methodological approaches to the study of trust.
Why debrief?
- Debriefs: Teams Learning From Doing in ContextAllen, J. A., Reiter-Palmon, R., Crowe, J., & Scott, C. (2018). Debriefs: Teams learning from doing in context. American Psychologist, 73(4), 504.
Team Debriefing Models
Team debriefs are excellent opportunities to increase trust among team members. Debriefs can be informal or formal, and they can happen before, during or after a collaboration project.
After-Action Reviews were originally intended as a debriefing model for U.S. Army units, and they were conducted "after-action," whether a training run or an actual combat mission. AARs can be informal or formal debriefs that typically ask three questions: what happened, why it happened, how it can be done better in the future.
Here are some resources on how to conduct AARs
- After-Action Review Guide (USAID)This guide is from the USAID; however, it can be used for a variety of settings.
- Guidance to After-Action Reviews (World Health Organization)The WHO guidance for after action review (AAR) presents the methodology for planning and implementing a successful AAR to review actions taken in response to public health event, but also as a routine management tool for continuous learning and improvements. Four formats of AARs are described including the debrief, working group, key informant interview and mixed method AARs, and the accompanying toolkits containing materials to support the designing, preparing, conducting, and following up on each AAR format.
- Guide to After Action Reviews from the Center of Evidence-Based ManagementThis tool is for all teams who want to maximize learning from their work (ranging from one-time events to long-term projects). Regardless of project outcomes, there are always successes to document and lessons to learn. The entire project team should attend the AAR; everyone’s voice counts.
Other Team Debriefing Models
- Huddles - these meetings can occur right after the event, ad-hoc, or on a daily basis for on-the-spot assessment. This approach has been used in many healthcare teams; however, daily huddles are becoming more common in research practices.
- Gardner, A. L., Shunk, R., Dulay, M., Strewler, A., & O'Brien, B. (2018). Huddling for High-Performing Teams. Federal practitioner : for the health care professionals of the VA, DoD, and PHS, 35(9), 16–22.
- Huddles Work: Why Your Company Should Join the Movement (commercial blog post
Measuring and Improving Trust in Your Team
Team and Self Assessments - These instruments help you discover the strengths and weaknesses of your team’s orientation to collaboration. These tools can be used to inform leaders and members of teams where the team may be struggling and where the team is performing well. It’s great to use these before, during and after a large project as a process evaluation of your collaboration.
Team and Self Assessment Resources
- Collaboration Self-Assessment ToolThis tool from St. Cloud University was originally designed to measure collaboration skill of student teachers; however, it can be used in a variety of settings.
- Collaboration: A Self-Evaluation ToolThe tool is a self-assessment exercise allowing groups to rate their collaboration on key factors. Key factors examined here include goals, communication, sustainability, evaluation, political climate, resources, catalysts, policies/laws/regulations, history, connectedness, leadership, community development, and understanding community.
- New Jersey Department of Education Collaborative Teams Self-AssessmentThis tools is from the New Jersey State Department of Education and used primarily for schools; however, it can be translated for a variety of settings.
- Prevention Institute's Collaboration Assessment ToolThe Collaboration Assessment Tool helps individuals and coalitions identify specific strengths and areas of growth and enables partnerships to subsequently establish a baseline and gauge their progress via periodic checks on domains of effective collaboration.