How the TRUE Communication Method Helps Build Relationships at Work

It seems like we already know everything about how to communicate in a team: regular feedback, rituals, one-on-one meetings, team building. But for some reason, people still don’t hear each other, quarrel over nonsense and keep silent about problems. 

Why Communication Can Be Difficult 

Only once did we finish working on a client project without launching any training. Although it took a year to prepare, and so much effort was spent that it is impossible to describe in a fairy tale or with a pen. And at the end of this epic, our CEO Yulia jokingly said in the project team’s true chat: “Congratulations on closing the project! We can write an anti-case about how we screwed up the project.” 

One of her colleagues replied: “It was so unpleasant… We didn’t screw up!” After a little clarification of the situation, Yulia wrote: “Colleagues, it hurts me that there was a misunderstanding because of my careless words. Sorry.” But it took another series of conversations in private messages for everyone to understand that she really didn’t want to blame the team for the failure.

What happened? A simple thing – a misunderstanding. And then – an open dialogue in which the parties were honest with each other. Without accusations, with an admission of error and a reaction to feelings. Could it have been different? Yes. If the colleague had kept silent that the words addressed to the team sounded unfair. Or if she had not kept silent, but Yulia would not have reacted. 

We often avoid openly discussing what we are not happy with. The reasons are clear: we are afraid of conflict, afraid of seeming “problematic” or causing a negative reaction. But dissatisfaction does not disappear – it accumulates and turns into irritation, aggression and even burnout . For everyone’s productivity, this is a huge problem. As well as for the entire team.

At the same time, Amy Edmondson, a professor at Harvard Business School and an expert in psychological safety, says that teams with a high level of trust and openness work more effectively, make decisions faster, and cope with crises more easily. And Generation Z (Zoomers) views work communications exactly this way. They expect lively, emotionally open communication, with respect for feelings. 

And according to a Deloitte study (2022), zoomers are looking for employers who support emotional safety. The opportunity to be themselves, to be heard, support and constant feedback – that’s what’s important to them. This generation quickly detects toxicity in a team. It is not ready to put up with authoritarianism and a formal “do as you’re told” approach.

Well, we have something to offer both sensitive zoomers and other generations . A method that brings honesty, liveliness and warmth back into team communication comes to the rescue.

What is TRUE communication 

TRUE is a model of teamwork based on four simple principles: 

• Trust — to trust;
• Reset — reboot;
• Unite — to unite;
• Enjoy — to enjoy. 

We didn’t reinvent the wheel — we simply systematized the practices that have taken root in the team. They help us cope with problems and stay together, even if we are all single remote workers.

The TRUE approach is especially effective in remote teams, where it is easy to lose the sense of unity. We will show how it works in the practices of True. 

Trust: How to Build Trust with Colleagues 

Trust in a team is when you can be yourself. It can look different: 

• when you’re not afraid to admit that you’re tired or don’t have time;
• when you can talk about the difficulties in completing a task and know that you will receive support; 
• when you know what your colleague is working on, and he knows what you are working on; 
• when there is no annoying control at every step, because the independence and professionalism of each team member is recognized. 

Trust does not mean a lack of control and the message “you’ll manage somehow”. Its foundation is transparency of tasks and deadlines. When it is clear what a person is doing, when he plans to complete, what might hinder him and even how he feels. When you yourself do what helps others trust you: you make deadlines transparent, warn in time that you will not have time. This is about making it easy for others to work with you. 

Here are the practices we use:

• Transparency . It starts with admitting that something is wrong. Then we talk about it honestly: “Colleges, I feel tense, let’s talk about it.” Phrases like these help relieve the pressure, and it becomes easier to talk. 
• Retrospective. After each project, we gather to discuss what went wrong and what should be taken with us further. When the work is completed, it is important not just to exhale and put it in the piggy bank of cases. Retrospective helps to look back on the path taken, celebrate the achievement of the goal and appropriate both successes and failures. So as not to drag old mistakes into a new project, but to move on. 

Reset: How to Refresh Communications to Maintain Productive Relationships

There is a good principle: “if it works, don’t touch it.” But when it comes to team communications, regular rebooting is necessary. We get used to formats, calls , and stop noticing that we can’t hear each other anymore. The team starts working out of sync. 

Rebooting helps to synchronize. It is not enough to establish communications once, they need to be updated and “shaken up” in time. And to do such an update regularly and on three levels.

1. By time. For example, agree on schedules if the team lives in different time zones, or on a convenient time for calls.
2. By tasks. So, when there are changes in the project, immediately discuss what is now important and what we expect from each other.
3. By condition . Understand each other’s mood, offer support or ask for it yourself. 

The latter is often overlooked, which is why communication is watered down and lifeless. You can know when a person is online, what they are working on, what tasks they will do and when. But what if they are sick or emotionally at rock bottom?

And here are our True-practices:

• Check-in check-out. We usually start and end work calls with a quick question like “What kind of ice cream are you today?” or “What kind of snow are you today?” Metaphors like “I’m ice cream that fell out of a cup and got all over the pavement” help us honestly admit to being tired or lacking inspiration. 
• 1:1 meetings . One-on-one conversations encourage openness and honest dialogue. You can talk not only about how a person is coping with tasks, but also about well-being, burnout, motivation, support. 
• No-call day. We have a rule: Wednesday and Thursday are no-call days. This is the time for deep focus work, when you can concentrate on current tasks without jumping from one Zoom to another. 
• State measurement. Once a month we do a general measurement: what is your energy and resource level on a scale from 1 to 5. If the average figure for the team is close to 3, it means something is going wrong, you need to take action. 

Unite: How to Unite While Working Remotely 

Such work often creates a feeling of isolation from the team. In the office, this is easier: people see each other in person, are among their own, and feel part of a common cause. Therefore, when working remotely, it is important to create the same unified workspace and convey the overall picture of what is happening in the team.

Here are some practices that help us with this:

• Weekly planning. We call each other to discuss projects: what the difficulties are, what we are taking on, what the team’s workload is now. The goal is to understand where there may be bottlenecks. During general planning, we do not discuss projects where everything is going according to plan – there are pins for them for that.
• Syncs . These are short project calls lasting 15–30 minutes. We usually discuss difficult moments and urgent issues. Syncs help to quickly resolve everything in order to move the project forward. 
• Demo . Every Friday, team members prepare slides and share what happened during the week: what worked, what didn’t, what they learned. The demo helps to gather the overall picture of the week and get inspired by the results of colleagues. 

Enjoy: How to “glue” a team together through informal communication

Without pleasure and joy, the team seems to shrink. People are silent in chats or write only on business. Therefore, a place is needed where a person could open up and freely communicate on any topic.

Here are our options for such a place:

• Informal chat . Here we communicate with each other as with close friends: we send memes , playlists, vacation photos, finds with books and films, share happy or not so happy events. This is our space, free for self-expression. 
• Switch off-call . Friday’s demo is over, but the chat is not. Now it’s time for a call-chat. It has no specific agenda: we discuss everything from cocktail recipes to bruises from falling off a skateboard. The goal is to just be there, albeit online. 

What is good about TRUE communication?

What changes when open and honest communications are established.

People talk about difficulties directly

When there is trust in the team , you don’t have to pretend that everything is fine when you really need help. You can ask for help, say, “I can’t handle it,” and it won’t be perceived as weakness. 

Team story: designer Dasha admitted at a 1:1 meeting that the most unbearable part of her job is the lonely brainstorming of the visual concept. And we immediately came up with a solution – to call the team at this stage and not leave Dasha alone. This is a story about how frank conversations are beneficial to the overall work. 

The level of tension and unspokenness is reduced

Often, conflicts are based on accumulated irritation. Discontent is not voiced, and the situation escalates into a conflict. If the team accepts to discuss even unpleasant things and do so with care for the feelings of colleagues, this creates an atmosphere of safety. 

Team story: the very same case with the “screwed up” project. The colleague honestly said that she was not ok with such an assessment, and the situation was resolved immediately. 

Processes become more transparent

When colleagues see who is working on what and at what stage the task is currently being completed, it adds peace of mind. Without such transparency, it is impossible to organize work on a project. Perhaps a colleague is not on time for some objective reasons, but does not say so for fear of receiving a negative reaction. 

Team history: one of the projects had very tight deadlines from the very beginning. One author started working on it, but the team did not wait for the tasks to accumulate to a critical amount. Some of the tasks were distributed among other authors and everything was completed on time. No one was overwhelmed with unbearable work.

The practices we use are flexible. For example, the planning and demo format has been changed several times, and once it was cancelled altogether. If we see that the practice can be simplified, made better or more convenient, we do so. And each time we collect feedback from the team. 

How to Implement TRUE in Your Team 

Most likely, you already use some of these principles – somewhere there is trust, somewhere – communication in an informal chat, somewhere there are one-on-one meetings. But until they are put together into a system – there is no holistic approach to communication. Now that there is an understanding of how it should work, you can make the TRUE approach the basis of communication in the team.

Start small: choose one principle that is most relevant now. For example, if the team is remote and feels disconnected, start with Unite, if there is a lack of transparency, start with Trust. Tell the team what the principle is. It is better to do this with specific examples, to show how the principle works in practice. 

By the way, practices can close several goals at once. For example, weekly planning works on trust, because it “transparents” the plans for the week and the workload, and on unification — because the team starts the week with joint work. 

How to know if the TRUE approach works 

Unfortunately, we won’t offer any numerical metrics here. But the changes will be noticeable even without them, even if not right away. Here are the signs that the TRUE model is taking hold: 

• People talk calmly about difficulties, and are not afraid of looking weak or not professional enough.
• Emotions and expectations are openly expressed, and there are no surprises like “I was unhappy, but didn’t want to talk, and now my patience has snapped.”
• People are open about sharing their opinions and not just saying safe things because criticism can backfire.
• It becomes easier to ask uncomfortable questions and do so not with accusations, but with a desire to understand and solve the problem together. 
• Colleagues are not afraid to ask for help. When they understand that they cannot carry a task alone, they seek the support of the team. 
• The guys on the team are happy to see each other after the weekend , and the phrase “Oh, we haven’t crossed paths on calls this week” can be heard more and more often.

All this makes communication in the team more humane and easier. And most importantly, work processes become more efficient. Tasks do not stall, they are completed faster and with less effort. Because there is clarity and support from colleagues. And the team gets through difficult periods only on the basis of team culture, mutual assistance and support. Communication becomes a powerful resourc