Assessments Don't Fix Trust Gaps

You and your team did the assessment. Nothing really changed. Why?

You brought in DISC, did the 360 reviews, maybe found your Strengths, or your Big-Five. Everyone got their report and the debrief. There were nods of recognition (self and others.) There were insights and probably some good "aha" moments.

Then... nothing really changed.

Or if there was a change, things quickly reverted back when work got stressful. In the end, the team dynamics stayed the same. The trust gaps stayed, or widened. The person who steamrolls still steamrolls. The person who is reluctant to contribute is still reluctant. This is one of the most expensive mistakes high-performing teams make: 

Treating insight like transformation.

Here's the truth: Knowing why you behave a certain way doesn't rewire the behavior.

Sometimes knowing why you behave a certain way, actually more deeply engrains that behavior. "This is just who I am, part of my personality."

Assessments are fantastic at creating awareness. And they can provide valuable insights to work with. I'm not against them. By themselves, though, they're not great at creating actual change. Why? Knowing is not feeling. Trust and team cohesion don't live in your head. They live in your nervous system. They come from feeling.

Trust is built through:

• Repeated experiences of safety and reliability

• Seeing how people show up under pressure

• Understanding what someone actually values (not what they say they value)

• Witnessing consistency between words and actions (this is a big one!)

An assessment gives you information about personality types. It doesn't give you the embodied experience of trust being built and rebuilt in real time.

I worked with a team where some of the members had taken multiple assessments and attended several leadership trainings over a few years. They knew their personality profiles inside and out. They understood standard leadership principles. But they still didn't trust each other. The steamrollers still steamrolled. This was largely due to the fact that they had never taken the insights from the tests and trainings and put them into actions and behaviors. They "understood" but they did not embody the behaviors needed to move forward. They didn't change the way they navigated conflict. They didn't alter the way they recovered from (or simply covered up) mistakes. They didn't define what their stated values look like in terms of behavior, or hold up those values and behaviors when things got stressful.

They knew the right answers. They didn't own them. They didn't embody them.

When that team spent a day experiencing what happens when you commit to something together, when you stick with that commitment even when things break down, when you call yourself out on your own mistakes, when you have to adapt, and when you reconnect around a shared purpose ... well, that's when the change finally stuck. That's when they felt the right answers.

When I work with teams at my farm we incorporate the horses into the work. Their behavior doesn't lie. And they don't hold back their opinions. When a team member checks out emotionally, the horses know. When someone's trying to control the outcome instead of collaborate, the horses know. When genuine trust is present, the horses respond to that too.

By the end of the day, they understood each other, not just intellectually, but embodied-ly.

Trust isn't information. It's experience.

And we don't stop there. We use the information, the insights, and the embodied feelings to create your Conscious Team Blueprint. Then we test it with the horses. At Flying Changes Coach we go beyond traditional "let's have a fun and get to know each other a little bit" team building. And we go beyond the "aha" moments of assessment insights. Teams work together to build trust, create a common purpose and goals, and build a blueprint for team behavior, cohesion, and success. You'll also have fun and get to know each other. Ask me how I can help your team build a Conscious Team Blueprint for themselves.

www.flyingchangescoach.com