Connection across teams rarely happens by accident. It grows when people understand each other better, feel safe to contribute, and have the right habits to work well together.
In higher education and across the wider public sector, cross-team working is now part of everyday life. Shared services, workstreams, functional alignment, programme delivery, student support, digital change. On paper, collaboration makes sense.
In practice, it can still feel hard.
Teams join the meetings. Updates are shared. Everyone says the right things. But underneath, there may still be tension, confusion or quiet frustration. Progress slows. Ownership gets blurred. People start protecting their own patch.
This is why trust matters so much. Not just trust within teams, but trust between them.
Why trust between teams is harder than it sounds
Trust inside a team can take time to build. Across teams, it can feel even more fragile.
That is because people are often working with:
- different pressures
- different priorities
- different ways of communicating
- different histories and assumptions
- different levels of influence
When the pressure is high, it is easy to default to "our work" and "their work". That can create patterns such as:
- updates without real collaboration
- meetings that feel polite but unproductive
- delays caused by unclear ownership
- decisions being revisited because teams are not aligned
- frustration that grows quietly instead of being addressed
The challenge is not usually a lack of goodwill. More often, it is that teams have not been given enough support to understand each other well enough to work together with confidence.
What gets in the way of real collaboration
One of the biggest barriers to cross-team trust is what might be called performative collaboration.
This is when collaboration looks active from the outside, but does not feel genuine in the day-to-day work.
It can look like:
- regular meetings with little real co-creation
- shared plans that do not translate into shared momentum
- people attending but not speaking openly
- work being coordinated through process rather than relationship
This is where trust starts to weaken.
If teams do not feel safe enough to ask awkward questions, challenge assumptions, or admit where things are getting stuck, collaboration becomes shallow. People stay courteous, but not fully open. They cooperate, but do not really connect.
That is why trust across teams depends on more than structure. It depends on psychological safety, stronger relationships, and a more human understanding of what each team brings.
Why a strengths lens helps teams trust each other more
When teams are under strain, it is easy to notice only what is difficult.
Who is slowing things down.
Who is not responding.
Who is asking for too much.
Who seems to be making things more complicated.
A strengths-based approach helps interrupt that pattern.
Instead of defining other teams by friction, it encourages people to notice what is valuable in the way others work.
For example:
- the team that asks difficult questions may be protecting quality
- the colleague who seems cautious may be helping others manage risk
- the person who keeps bringing people together may be holding the wider picture in view
- the team that focuses on detail may be preventing avoidable problems later on
This does not remove disagreement. But it helps teams move from blame to understanding, and from defensiveness to respect.
That matters because trust builds faster when people feel recognised for what they contribute, not just judged for what they delay.
You can see a related theme in: Your Team Already Has What It Takes — Here’s How to See It
How strengths-based reflection builds empathy
Cross-team frustration often grows out of assumption.
“We always have to chase them.”
“They do not understand our pressures.”
“They are blocking progress.”
“They never see the full picture.”
Strengths-based reflection creates a pause in that cycle.
It invites teams to ask:
- What is this team trying to protect or achieve?
- What strengths are they using when they approach the work this way?
- What might we be missing about their pressures?
- Where have they helped us more than we usually acknowledge?
These are not soft questions. They are practical ones.
They help teams see each other as partners rather than obstacles, which is essential if collaboration is going to last.
What this can look like in practice
In one university setting, work was reorganised into cross-functional workstreams focused on different parts of the student journey. The intention was sensible. More joined-up working, clearer responsibilities, and better coordination across planning, delivery and communication.
But once the workstreams were in place, new tensions surfaced.
People were not always clear where ownership sat.
Some teams felt their pressures were not fully understood by others.
Managers were trying to keep delivery moving while navigating ambiguity across functions.
What helped was not more meetings.
It was creating space for teams to reflect on how they worked best, where overlaps were creating friction, and what strengths were already helping the work move forward. Those conversations uncovered hidden confusion, but also hidden value. People began to see each other's contribution more clearly, which made collaboration feel less forced and more purposeful.
That is often the turning point. Trust grows when teams are given the chance to make sense of each other, not just work around each other.
Four ways to build trust across teams at work
1. Create shared check-ins, not just status updates
When cross-team meetings focus only on progress reports, they often miss the real issues.
Make space for questions like:
- What is helping us work well together right now?
- Where is the handover between teams feeling unclear?
- What is creating drag that we have not named yet?
- What do we need more of from each other?
These questions surface the working relationship, not just the workload.
2. Use peer recognition across team boundaries
One of the quickest ways to strengthen trust is to help teams notice each other's value.
This might sound like:
- “That input helped us avoid a bigger problem later.”
- “The clarity from your team made the next step much easier.”
- “Your follow-up helped us keep momentum when things were getting stuck.”
Recognition across teams shifts the tone from transactional to relational. It helps people feel seen beyond their own immediate group.
There is more on this in: How to Use Recognition to Boost Resilience at Work
3. Build reflection into cross-team work
When projects become busy, reflection is often the first thing to disappear. But without it, teams repeat the same misunderstandings.
Simple prompts can help:
- What has worked well between us so far?
- What has been harder than expected?
- What strengths have helped us keep moving?
- What should we carry forward into the next phase?
This is where appreciative inquiry can be especially useful because it helps teams explore what is working without ignoring what is hard.
Explore more here: Appreciative Inquiry Workshops
And in this blog: Strengths and Struggles: Talking About What’s Hard at Work
4. Support managers to model trust across boundaries
Cross-team trust is shaped by the behaviour of managers.
If managers:
- speak respectfully about other teams
- stay curious rather than defensive
- encourage honest questions
- acknowledge different pressures
- share ownership instead of escalating blame
their teams are more likely to do the same.
Trust does not spread through instructions. It spreads through modelling.
This is one reason our Team Development Workshops are so effective. They help managers and teams create a shared language for collaboration, empathy and contribution that can be carried back into everyday work.
Why this matters now
In many public sector organisations, teams are being asked to collaborate more closely while also dealing with rising demand, tighter resources and growing complexity.
That means trust can no longer be treated as a nice extra. It is part of the infrastructure that helps teams adapt, deliver and stay connected when the pressure is high.
When trust is strong across teams:
- work moves more smoothly
- friction is addressed earlier
- teams are more open about what is not working
- people feel less isolated in shared challenges
- collaboration becomes more sustainable
And that is what makes cross-team working more than a structure on paper.
It becomes something people can actually do well together.
How Strengthify helps build trust across teams
At Strengthify, we help organisations strengthen collaboration by focusing on the human side of cross-team working.
Our work helps teams:
- understand each other’s strengths
- build trust through better conversations
- surface friction early and productively
- create habits that support real collaboration rather than just formal coordination
Useful places to start include:
Final thought
If trust between teams feels weaker than it should, the answer is rarely just another structure or another meeting.
More often, it starts with helping teams understand each other better.
Because when people can see what other teams bring, speak more honestly about what is hard, and reflect together on what works, collaboration becomes easier to sustain.
And that is how trust grows across teams at work.