> I wanted the team to know I trusted them. This can be very powerful. People will often rise (or sink) to the level corresponding to how much you show you bel

> I wanted the team to know I trusted them. This can be very powerful. People will often rise (or sink) to the level corresponding to how much you show you believe in them. Imagine you hand someone the reigns and say, "Here, take over this for me. I know you're going to do a good job." And you sincerely mean it because you've bothered to understand them well enough to know that they can. In a lot of cases, you'll be amazed at what they will accomplish. They may even be amazed too. Often, forming good, healthy relationships and building people up is what's really effective at getting people to get stuff done. So many of the other things people do (endless status reports, procedures and methodologies du jour, applying pressure or creating fear, etc.) are really just bandaids to attempt to force productivity to happen when it's really not happening because the basics haven't been covered.