Trust is extremely important for the efficient work and interaction between people. In the contemporary business environment, trust can affect consistently the organizational culture and stimulate the development of positive interpersonal relationships between people within an organization. In such a way, trust can be a very efficient tool with the help of which modern organization can improve consistently their organizational performance. However, the problem of trust and its use within organizations is under-researched. Moreover, trust is not assumed but it is earned in the course of the interaction and interpersonal relations between people. In this respect, it is important to lay emphasis on the fact that the development of positive interpersonal relationships is possible when people trust each other that is an essential condition of the efficient team work.

In actuality, team work is very popular in the contemporary business environment. This is why the development of the trust is very important for the development of the efficient team work. In this respect, it should be said that the trust is not assumed but it is rather earned. To put it more precisely, people can expect the existence of trust before they start working, but, in actuality, they do not trust each other until they start working together within a team. Team members need to have some experience of mutual work through which they can learn whether they can rely on each other and whether trust is possible within a team. It proves beyond a doubt that people heavily rely on their experience and their interpersonal relationships define the development of trust between team members.
In fact, people can assume trust but it does not necessarily meant that they will trust each other when they start working in a team. This is why it is impossible to estimate that trust is assumed because such assumptions are not backed up with empirical knowledge, which acquired only when people interact with each other. The development of positive interpersonal relationships is based on trust of people which is acquired in the course of the team work as team members learn each others’ characters and earn trust.
At the same time, trust does not exist permanently since it depends on the actions, behavior and relationships between team members. To put it more precisely, people working within a team constantly interact with each other. They assess behavior of each team member and any manifestations of deception can undermine the trust between team members. In actuality, it is possible to develop the positive interpersonal relationships and earn trust, but when conflicts begin, team members can easily lose their trust toward each other.
In such a situation, it is extremely important to maintain trust within a team in order to maximize the efficiency of the work of the team. However, the maintenance of trust evokes a number of challenges. First of all, trust can be undermined by conflicts within a team. This means that in order to maintain trust, it is necessary to avoid conflicts and apply efficient methods of conflict management and prevention. The latter means that the team work should be oriented on the prevention of conflicts. Otherwise, it will be impossible to avoid conflicts which eventually lead to the loss of trust between team members.
Furthermore, trust implies the maintenance of positive relationships. In fact, trust and positive interpersonal relationships are closely intertwined and they cannot exist without each other. Therefore, the organizational culture should contribute to the formation of a positive atmosphere within the team which helps to maintain positive interpersonal relationships and, thus, maintain trust. At the same time, it is important to focus on the psychological characteristics of team members because they have to be similar and meet each other.
In this respect, specialists (Atkinson and Butcher) point out that competence-based trust should be backed up by motivation of team members. What is meant here is the fact that team members have a common goals and work to do. Therefore, they have competence-based trust which imply that each team member trust that other team members can perform their professional duties. However, such trust should be backed by motivation since if team members are kept motivated they keep working and trusting each other because they have the motivation to work together to achieve positive results that makes them trust each other.
Thus, trust is essential condition of the efficient team work, but it is extremely difficult to maintain trust between team members. In such a situation, the development of positive interpersonal relations, psychological characteristics and motivation of team members are crucial for the maintenance of trust.

References:
Atkinson, S and D. Butcher. (2003). “Trust in Managerial Relationships.” SAM Advanced Management Journal, 68(4), p.24-32.