A quick note before diving in: I'll be skipping an issue for Thanksgiving 🦃 in the next few weeks and then skipping the last issue in December for Christmas 🌲.

Onto the issue!

Trust is a complicated topic.

Some might disagree with that. They might say trust is simple: you trust someone or don’t. Others might think trust is impossible to attain - it’s an ideal, not a real thing.

Regardless of what others might think, research has found that trust is vital to a team’s success. However, it can be hard to pinpoint what trust is. It's one of those “you’ll know it when you see it” situations. It requires intuition rather than computation.

This leads to confusion about what trust means on teams (especially on software engineering teams where computation is what we do). Trust isn’t thinking a teammate will never make a mistake. Instead, it’s the assumption of good intent and effort. Trust is about knowing that you are safe to do your best work within your team, that you can depend on one another, and everyone else feels the same way.

Let’s dig into this a little bit.

Note: I wrote this article several years ago, but it's been on my mind for the past few weeks (more why in the Team-Building Exercise). Hope you enjoy it!​
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Team-Building Exercise

As we discussed in the last issue, trust is vital to mitigating code review anxiety (among many others). Without trust, we are always wondering, "Am I safe?"

As mentioned in this week's article, creating trust is a complex task. You have to earn the trust of others.

What is the best way to gain it? In my experience, you have to be willing to give it first.

When we extend trust toward others through humble discourse, verbally affirming their decisions, and even deferring judgment calls to our teammates, we build the grounds for trust to grow.

Spend some time this week observing yourself and asking "Am I extending trust to others?" If you aren't, what ways could you begin extending trust toward your team?

One simple one that is helpful but often profound is simply affirming good ideas from others on your team. Instead of only nodding along, unmute and say, "That is a good idea. Let's try it." The simple act of positively affirming a decision or idea can build trust between the team.

Here are some more resources from me to help you build better teams!​

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