Thank you to all those who contributed online and offline to the post on Trust. While responses varied in their illustrations, the underlying sub tone is extremely consistent.
We are a people that desire and need to trust. Even when that trust is violated and sometimes when we have the feeling it will be violated, we still desire to trust on some level and hope for the best. This desire explains why we attempt to surround ourselves with people we trust. We attempt to befriend those that we interact with on a day in, day out basis. This friendly touch increases our sense of trust and confidence in the choices we make. We desire to follow leaders who we feel are trustworthy. Integrity is consistently one of the top traits desired in our leaders. When those that we do hold to high standards of trust make mistakes, it is imperative for them to take action immediately. Some prime recent examples are Michael Phelps and Tom Daschle. Both are/were respected professionals in their own genre. Both made a mistake recently that put a spotlight on their fallibility. They both chose to do the right thing and admit their mistakes. While Phelps has faired better than Daschle so far post admission, they can both teach us something important about the frailty of broken trust. Amazon on the other hand may not fair as well. It is still early so the jury is still out, but the recent #amazonfail on twitter may cost them some serious trust points. So far, the only word from Amazon is that it was a ‘glitch’ which has not appeased the angry masses. Perhaps they will reverse course in the next day or so, but they would have been much better suited to come out and admit they made a mistake with a new, poorly thought out policy. That would regain trust.
It seems we are always willing to take a chance on something or someone that inspires us with hope or seeming integrity. When they fall short, we may forgive them, or cross them off our list depending on their integrity during the fall from grace. No matter though, it seems that there are always new faces and opportunities we are willing to reinvest our trust in around the next corner.
What does this say about our long term viability as all cultures shift from local, domestic, close circle of trust settings to distant, global, highly connected networks of geographically diverse entities?
It is clear what our choice has been, we will take a chance. How will we fare?
