The 4 Stages of Trust Every Team Must Cross (video)

Silent ‘us vs. them’ divides between sales and marketing, engineering and manufacturing, or headquarters and the field quietly drain revenue, slow deadlines, and kill collaboration. Laura Kriska spent 30 years watching these invisible fault lines harm Fortune 500 companies across four continents.

In this conversation, Laura shares her We-Building framework, explains why hybrid work has made trust harder to build, and shows leaders how to turn fragmented teams into a united ‘we’ culture that measurably improves sales, delivery, and retention.

Key Insights

1. Here is what you need to know about invisible us-vs-them divides.

Cultural barriers feel obvious when language and nationality differ, but Laura argues the most damaging divides inside companies are invisible. Sales distrusts marketing. Engineering blames manufacturing. White collar dismisses blue collar. Employees inherit these legacy rifts, accept them as permanent, and stop questioning the cost. Leaders who surface and name these silent divides recover productivity that competitors assume they cannot reclaim.

2. Here is what you need to know about the four stages of trust.

Laura’s framework maps every working relationship across four stages: stranger, acquaintance, colleague, and trusted colleague. Most professionals move easily from stranger to colleague, then stall. Real business value — fast decisions, shared information, met deadlines — lives at the trusted-colleague stage. Leaders who identify where each pairing sits on the continuum know exactly which relationships to accelerate first to achieve the biggest performance gains.

3. Here is what you need to know about the superordinate goal.

A superordinate goal overrides departmental targets and forces people to collaborate, as no single team can achieve it alone. Laura points to Japanese workplaces, where employees answer any ringing phone and share any desk because the company goal outranks personal turf. American leaders can import the principle without importing the culture — they simply name a goal so big that demarcation becomes a liability, then reward crossing lines.

4. Here is what you need to know about hybrid work and trust.

Hybrid and distributed models have quietly stalled trust-building across every industry. Colleagues who never share a meal, a hallway, or a whiteboard remain stuck at the level of acquaintances. Laura urges leaders to treat in-person time as a strategic asset, not a social bonus. Bowling nights feel friendly but rarely move relationships forward. Structured in-person exercises that force self-disclosure and collaboration accelerate trust far faster than casual gatherings.

5. Here is what you need to know about leadership consistency.

Trust compounds through consistency. Leaders who answer questions directly, admit what they don’t know, and flag what they cannot share build credibility faster than those who hedge or spin. Laura stresses that leaders set the ceiling for trust inside an organization — teams will not invest in trusted-colleague relationships if the people above them refuse to model the behavior. Consistency, not charisma, makes a we-culture stick.

Pull Quotes

“Us versus them dynamics, the big ones, are usually invisible.”
— Laura Kriska

“These divides are very harmful, right? That they’re not just uncomfortable, they’re costly.”
— Laura Kriska

“In-person time is golden, and it needs to be utilized in a strategic manner.”
— Laura Kriska

“I help people bridge the us-versus-them gaps to create safer, more welcoming, and productive workplaces.”
— Laura Kriska

We-Building Framework: Key Statistics from We Building Solutions

Related Resources

• Book a free consultation: Laura Kriska
• Sales POP! Podcast: Sales POP! Podcast

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Coevera, formerly Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.