When I speak of "trust", I'm speaking of the connections formed between the units. Returning to the futbol analogy, you have a midfielder and his striker, let's say on the left side. The two players work together as one entity, each knowing what the other will do, how they'll do it, and when. They are synchronized into working as a two-part unit.

You can see that this is the important facet of the team vs. the individual by looking at a Ranger fireteam. When one member charges or flanks or whatever else it is that they do, they do so knowing that every other member of the team is in sync with their movements. They move as one unit. It's not coincedence that the military uses the term "unit" as the name for the smallest group of soldiers. Those soldiers are supposed to work together in such a way that it seems like there is one brain controlling 6 bodies. They are, in theory, supposed to be able to anticipate each others' moves and do things that six individuals wouldn't be able to do.

I was calling that trust, and trust is the key to it, but I should have used the word synchronization. Between 6 people, there are hundreds of connections that are formed, both between the individuals as well as between the groups the individuals form. When a fireteam splits into pairs or a pair and a group of four, each group knows how the other group(s) will act, how they'll act, and when they'll act.

While I'm not suggesting that the degree of cooperation in a Ranger fireteam should be the model for a OSS development team, I am suggesting that we could learn a lot about the kind of cooperation that's necessary to truly accomplish something in a cooperative fashion.