Looking back on previous work environments where I built trust quickly, I've realized in many cases, it's because we acted like we trusted each other until we did trust each other.
For example, when I joined a new team within my company, I decided on day 1 that no matter how I felt, I'd assume that my coworkers were acting with the best intentions. I took all the actions I would if I had worked with them for 10 years and deeply trusted them.
Below are a couple of ways that I’ve displayed trust or seen trust displayed early and that also built trusting relationships.
Asking for help
The best way to show we trust people and get them to trust us is by asking for help.
Whenever new team members join, I've noticed that those who ask for advice are the ones others trust first (myself included!). With those new teammates, I've found myself speaking more positively to their manager about them and delegating more complex projects to them.
I think it's because when someone asks us for help, it displays their vulnerability which we can empathize with, and their awareness of the knowledge boundaries, so we trust they'll ask for help if they get stuck—not just get stuck indefinitely.
Offering grace
Secondly, we all build trust by offering team members grace and the benefit of the doubt. One example that stands out is when I was stressed about dealing with a challenging customer situation and was impatiently answering a new team member's questions. It would have been appropriate for them to silently judge me and share how rude their new coworker was with a partner or snap back at me on the call. But instead, they interrupted the session to ask if this was still a good time to chat, at which point I shared what was happening. They empathized with me about the tricky situation and offered to brainstorm about it or reschedule our call. Over the next week, they followed up to see how my problem was going and wished me luck.
They offered me so much grace, and besides being embarrassed by my behavior, I was also more willing to make mistakes around them and bring them into high-pressure problem areas since I knew how they'd act.
My impression is we all want to offer the benefit of the doubt when a coworkers acts badly. However, I've found that when I'm new, I often lack confidence and assume that when someone is off, it's because of something I'm doing. The only way I know to remedy this is by staying aware of my bias going in and giving myself grace by not assuming I'm always the cause of the situation.
We all know how important trust is for being successful in any role. For product managers, the trust between ourselves and coworkers is often correlated with the success of our product. For example, a sales member trusting a product manager may translate into how much they trust the product and how well they sell the product to a customer.
Good luck to all of us who are new team members! Hopefully this reflection helps us build more successful products and happier working relationships.