The single most important component of teamwork is TRUST. It’s through trust that groups of people can attain great accomplishments.

However, building trust can be difficult within groups of people. There can be cultural, personality, leadership, environmental and many other barriers to trust.

Some societies are naturally more trusting than others. I believe the US, despite its reputation as a nation of individualistic citizens, has people with a high degree of propensity to trust one another.  Americans tend to be able to form groups that can innovate rather easily. Such propensity for societal trust has led to a rich and vibrant financial market that gives good access to capital for entrepreneurs and businesses.

Others in parts of the Middle East, may unquestionably trust family members but can be naturally suspicious of everyone else.  This would lead to many successes at the family-business level but less so at a global business scale.

The ability to pull together and innovate and reach big goals is largely based on how easily people come together to solve problems in a trusting environment.

The difficult thing about trust is that it cannot be just prescribed.  People must come together and learn to trust one another on their own personal terms.

Whether in a marriage or in a work environment, trust is a vitally important human ingredient to accomplishing great things collectively together. It’s worth your time to consider carefully.