Introduction
Like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy or the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, most Americans who were alive when these events happened remember what they were doing and where they were when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986, killing all seven crew members aboard including the first civilian schoolteacher in space. Following this national disaster, some observers suggested that a lack of mutual trust and collaboration among the mission team contributed to this fatal outcome. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the tools that leaders can use to build trust and relationships, explain how leaders use storytelling to build trust and relationships, and to provide a representative example of a story that could be used to achieve these desirable outcomes with the Space Shuttle Challenger team.

Promoting collaboration and trust

According to Goman (2014), organizational leaders can use a variety of tools to promote trust and strengthen relationships, foster collaboration and employee engagement with their work. Although every organizational setting is unique and will require different combinations of these tools, all of the following can help achieve these goals in the general manner described below:

· Recognizing and countering silo mentalities: This tool can be used to promote greater information-sharing practices among team members to reduce power struggles and improve productivity and mutual trust.

· Creating an organizational culture that places a high priority on the “human element” in communications and knowledge sharing; Although various technologies play a fundamental role in facilitating communications, successful collaboration typically requires changes in the organizational culture.

· Effect meaningful organizational change using collaboration: Achieving meaningful changes in organizations requires the talents, expertise and knowledge of more than just a single individual, so it is vitally important to use coloration as a strategy for organizational change initiatives.

· Develop a shared purpose and vision among team members: This tool is perhaps one of the most important for promoting trust and strengthening relationships because it provides the overarching objective for a team supported by a shared view of this outcome that can motivate team members to greater efforts.

· Draw on the respective strengths that a diverse group provides: While the adage “think outside the box” has become cliché, the improved problem-solving that can...…too tend to put my plans on paper first. Not surprisingly, the Wright brothers were scrupulous in recoding their thoughts on paper after that advice, and their meticulous record-keeping helped them design their first aircraft prototypes.

One of the more interesting outcomes of their mother’s guidance was the fact that the Wright brothers carefully calculated how much weight their prototype aircraft could carry and then actually designed a motor and built it that was within the weight parameters. When I read this, I was amazed. Here were two young men who not only designed an aircraft, they built the entire thing themselves – including the motor! This was truly remarkable to me. At the time, my friends and I could barely fix a broken roller skate and here were two young Americans taking matters into their own hands by following their dreams and their mother’s advice to achieve historic greatness. This outcome would not have been possible, of course, if the Wright brothers had distrusted each other or refused to share valuable knowledge about their project, a fact that underscores the need for building trust and collaborative practices among team members..…