I just finished reading Seal Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy Seal Sniper by Howard E. Wasdin and Stephen Templin. Among the many things that struck me about the book was that, although SEALS have to work as an incredibly well integrated team (and trust one another), they don’t do team-building or trust exercises. At least, they don’t do it the way the rest of us do. They learn team-building and trust by being put into situations in which their success is dependent on those things. That’s enough. Team-building, trust, and communication are not topics or concepts that somehow exist outside of their work. They are the foundation of their work.

About the time I was reading the book, I received a request to lead a team-building workshop for the leadership team of a mid-sized organization. I asked what problem they were trying to solve with the workshop. They said they needed to work better as a team. I asked why. Were they not hitting their targets, unable to deliver to their customers, or getting into some type of trouble? No, everything was working. They just thought it was important for their leadership team to work together more effectively (they were a leadership TEAM after all, why would I even question that they needed team building training?)

I run into this problem a lot. Leaders want their people to work together as a team even though, when you look under the surface, their jobs really don’t require it.

So why is it that the groups needing the most team-building and trust appear to focus on it less (at least explicitly)?

I think it comes down to work. SEALS need teamwork and trust otherwise they die. Most of us don’t. Maybe we’ll suffer some inefficiencies, but in the grand scheme, most organizations aren’t structured in a way that requires or encourages team-building and trust. Many organizations even create environments that discourage it.

Before scheduling your next off-site meeting on team-building or trust, take a step back. Is lack of trust a problem or is it merely a symptom of an organization whose goals, processes, structure, and rewards, don’t require it.

If it’s just a symptom of the environment, you have to first change that environment. Ironically once you increase the level of shared goals and interdependency between your people, you’ll probably see a decrease in the amount of time people spend talking about teamwork and trust as external, discrete topics and instead just start making it happen.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.