The Value of Trust
01-Nov-02
A crisis of trust
It’s hard to measure the value of trust in a relationship but most of us will know the cost of losing it. This can be seen in our personal lives – for instance, in the destructive consequences of an affair – or in the world of business where the value of a firm such as Andersen was virtually destroyed when trust was lost.
Trust in relationships is probably of greater economic value now, ironically at a time when cynicism and scepticism about marketers’ claims is at all-time high.
This is partly due to the major paradigm shift that has taken place in western economies. As automation takes over more and more routine manual tasks human beings increasingly specialise in what only humans can do – use their creative gifts to build knowledge and innovate. This ability is therefore at a greater premium than ever before.
Trust multiplies creativity
Trust is absolutely central to the creative process. If a human brain contains the potential for a bazillion permutations of connections between synapses, two human brains, fully connected, have a bazillion squared permutations. That’s a lot more than double the creative potential. But for that squaring to work, a really full connection between them is needed.
What makes a full connection possible is trust. I won’t share my half-formed thoughts, interests and concerns with just anybody. I need to feel confident they won’t run off with them without sharing the benefits with me, and – perhaps even more significant – I need to know that they won’t set out to ridicule or destroy them.
Trust saves energy
I’ve occasionally whiled away a bit of time with intellectual property lawyers. Charming and intelligent chaps they turned out to be. But the contracts they proposed we use to protect our ideas when discussing them with other people were a bit depressing. All those clauses, undertakings and injunctions. And of course, to get the agreement watertight, all that time and expense. All of which can be spared if we share with people we can trust.
Trust is generative
If trust is established at the core of an organisation, it is likely to spread, as trust begets trust.
Two people who have established trust can create more value in their relationship as each has more access to the other’s resources. One can compensate for the other’s weaknesses and each is more free to focus on the things they are personally best at. Two people who work together well will be more able to connect with a third person, and so on. Contagious trust can build fantastic creative communities.
(Similarly, once distrust is established between two people, their energy gets channelled into defensiveness. Which reduces openness, and further diminishes trust, in what can be a vicious circle.)
So trust is clearly a jolly useful thing. More so now than ever. Little to argue about there. But what do I do about it?
The question is: how do we create trust? I’d like to contrast two alternative ways humans attempt this feat.
Route One: Pleasing the other
In this model, I identify someone with whom I wish to establish trust. I aim to create trust with the other person by focusing on them. I observe them and attempt to figure out what they look for and what they will like. Then I try to become the sort of person I imagine they will like and by a variety of overt and covert means present myself as that kind of guy. Hopefully, they will like this and they will trust me. Job done. Hey, if I’m really good at it, they might even fall in love with me.
If we take this and apply in the world of business, what we find is a classic marketing approach. Many marketers dream of people falling in love with their brands. Find your customer. Research their needs. Adapt yourself to them. Invest energy in presentation and make artfully phrased promises. Collect money, advance to Go, acquire hotel on Mayfair and embark on relaxing career writing books on how to succeed in business.
Unfortunately in our personal and business lives we may find it doesn’t actually work like this. The sycophantic romancer can be a major turn-off – and if we don’t spot them early on, and do fall in love with them, we end up disappointed.
And as for marketing, I think it’s well established that we have all become deeply sceptical about advertising claims. We don’t trust marketers that try to tell us what we want to hear, and if we do but find they don’t live up to it, all hell breaks loose (just take a look at any internet hate site).
Route two: Pleasing myself
Now let’s look at a more humanistic way of creating trust between people.
Here, my attention if focused primarily on myself. At a personal level, as I grow older, I come to understand myself better. I learn more and more what works for me and what doesn’t. I get smarter at figuring out what I’m good and what I’m bad at. The better I know myself, the more I trust myself.
The more I trust myself, the easier I find it to reveal myself to other people, and the easier it is to figure out what promises I can make that I can actually keep. The more attention I pay to my own needs, the less I need to depend on others to make me happy, and the less dependent on others I become.
As others find me increasingly open and reliable, they feel more inclined to reveal themselves to me. The better I know them, the more I trust them. Especially at the point in the relationship where we can acknowledge our own weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
People who choose route two are what psychologists call internally-referenced. They behave more on the basis of their own thoughts and feelings and less on the basis of what they assume, rightly or wrongly, will please others. They are more likely to tell you what they think, what they believe in and what they don’t, and what they are and aren’t willing or able to do for you.
Now much of this is counter-intuitive to marketing folk. Yet there are examples of confident organisations that have chosen the second route to creating trust.
Imagine for a moment that you are running a very new business as a late entrant to a well-established market. A TV documentary maker says he wants to make a film about your company in action. Although you like this thought, he warns you that he does need to make good ratings. So, at least half of each episode will show the variety of ways in which your customers become frustrated with you. There will be extensive footage of them complaining volubly to your staff, other customers and anyone else who will listen and swearing never to patronise your company again.
How likely would you be, as an intelligent business person, to contemplate such an obviously disastrous exposure of your fledgeling business for what it really is?
Hmm thought so.
But let me complete the story. Your name is Stelios and your company is Easyjet. Here is a business whose warts are the consistent subject of a weekly ITV documentary – and is one of the most successful brand launches in recent years.
Distrust as a business model
Businesses like to talk about winning the trust of customers, but carry on a series of behaviours that show they can’t even generate trust internally.
For example. I met a salesman who used to work for an electrical retail chain in London. Each week, he and his colleagues would be advised of special bonus commissions to be earned by promoting specific products to customers. The customers, needless to say, would remain ignorant of these bonuses. Now today’s customer probably knows a salesman will not be objective about brands and products not stocked in the shop. We might even expect the salesperson to be biased in favour of selling us the more expensive item. But we probably would never know that there would be this totally concealed incentive to give us even less objective guidance in our choice.
Such a policy must have some short-term gain for the retailer, presumably as a device for shifting otherwise hard-to-sell stock. And there’s a short-term gain for the employee, who picks up a little more commission. But there is a loss for the customer, who is deceived.
And I think there’s a subtler but more profound loss for the organisation. Which is this: by creating this secret contract with employees, the employer gives a strong signal about their overall trustworthiness. They demonstrate that they operate a culture that supports collusion: and while today the collusion may at some level benefit the employee, who’s to say that another day they won't collude against the employee? The effect on the salesman I met was that his respect and trust for his employer was reduced. And that, inevitably, is a loss for both.
Trust is an action, not just a feeling
Trust doesn’t just happen. It arises from the way people choose to interact. Trust in complex organisations should not be left to chance. It helps to follow certain practices to maintain and grow trust.
One of the stronger principles of humanistic psychotherapy is the observation that love is a verb, not a noun. It is an action, or rather a series of actions, that we do – it is not some magic feeling that we have. This also applies to trust.
Trust is created – or destroyed – by our actions. The simplest and most important of these is our ability to keep the promises we make.
Another vital process in building trust is how we manage the inevitable conflicts that arise in any relationship. What’s needed is a willingness to acknowledge conflict and engage constructively, rather than pretending it’s not there.
The Bay of Pigs
The definitive study of conflict avoidance, and its consequences, was Irving Janis’ famous analysis of the Bay of Pigs disaster. John F Kennedy presided over a cabinet made up of people with formidable and robust intelligence. Yet these great minds managed to persuade themselves of the efficacy of invading Cuba – a decision that with hindsight was absurdly dangerous. Janis studied how the group managed, subtly, to suppress doubts and concerns – creating the illusion of unanimous enthusiasm for a project where really there was no consensus. They had the illusion of trust, but not the reality.
Marketing departments are traditionally full of miniature Bays of Pigs, happening now or waiting to happen. There is imperfect understanding between executives and among the various consultants they work with. Small wonder, then, that there are failures of understanding and trust with the poor consumer.
Groupthink rules. It is often a subtle process as Janis comments:
“The leader does not deliberately try to get the group to tell him what he wants to hear but is quite sincere in asking for honest opinions. The group members are not transformed into sycophants. They are not afraid to speak their minds. Nevertheless, subtle constraints, which the leader may reinforce inadvertently, prevent a member from fully exercising his critical powers and from openly expressing doubts when most others in the group appear to have reached consensus” (Irving Janis, quoted by Daniel Goleman in “Vital Lies, Simple Truths”)
This subtle sycophancy then extends outwards to colour agency relationships with the client. I have sat fascinated at meetings where a client sits with an agency, has an amiable conversation and agrees an outcome. The agency then leaves the room, and then – only then – the client people roll their eyes and express their frustrations, and their low expectations of what will result. I have also sat in agencies where their people return from similar meetings, bewailing the failings of the client. Amazingly, none of this supposedly “negative” stuff gets dealt with; it just festers quietly.
Just my anecdote. But bear in mind that professional services guru David Maister (http://www.fastcompany.com/online/58/shortcourse.html ) reckons that only about 20% of consultants actually like their clients or like their work – and these are the guys you hope will build your business?
What they need are much more honest conversations with each other, and with all stakeholders. There should be fewer promises made and a greater willingness to challenge and be challenged. Needless to say the output of such relationships are the off-target, over-promising, insincere ads which clutter our daily lives.
Gold – or Fool’s Gold
Iron Sulphide – Fool’s Gold – is easily mistaken for the real thing. But the difference in value is huge.
How can marketers avoid Fool’s trust, and generate the real thing?
Here are some pointers:
1 Trust starts at home. A company where people trust each other is more likely to generate trust with its stakeholders. Far more attention needs to paid to creating respectful human relationships as a foundation for marketing success.
2 Conflict should be celebrated, not shunned. No, I’m not suggesting you take your staff on a boxing course. But arguments and disagreements can be the hallmark of an honest relationship – the key is to have them in a civilised way and make sure they are processed, not suppressed. Start today by listing the five most significant people in your working life. Make an honest list of what you like about them and what you dislike about them. Then ask yourself – have you constructively communicated both to them recently?
3 Take a day off from being customer-focussed. Better still, take a month or a year off. The idea of customer-as-king is a ludicrous untrueism of modern marketing. Many claim, and few deliver. In fact, many commentators are starting to say you need to make the employees king. Find out what they want, what turns them on, and harness their energy before engaging with customers. Gallup’s research (based on 1.5 million interviews) suggests that only 20 per cent of employees feel they regularly get a chance to use their greatest strengths (http://www.gallup.com/publications/strengths.asp ).
That is a shocking indictment of a culture that claims to put customers first. I am deeply distrustful of people who don’t take care of themselves. It’s about time companies recognised the value of putting their people first.
4 Take a leaf (well a whole chapter actually) out of Adam Morgan’s book, Eating the Big Fish. The chapter is called “Build a Lighthouse Identity”. Morgan observes that some of the most successful brands have “self-referential identities: “The predominant purpose of Challenger brands’ every marketing action is to tell us where they stand. They don’t attempt to tell us something about ourselves – and they certainly don’t attempt to navigate themselves with reference to us.” This goes directly back to the humanistic model of trust building which emphasises being true to yourself, not smarming up to would be lovers or customers. As Morgan continues, “… Fox, Diesel, Swatch, Orange, Oakley and Goldfish… are all brands that in their own way evince an enormous self-confidence, a sense of who they are, without any permission from or reference to the world around them.”
5 Engage in real conversation. Do that by responding to this article: email me what you think at johnm@roundourhouse.com
John Moore
July 2002
Ourhouse 0.1 Ltd – Brand Knowledge with integrity for businesses and their people
47 St Peter’s Street
London N1 8JP
+44 (0)20 7359 5061
http://www.roundourhouse.com
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Sveiby at KBoard (27 Kb)How trust flows through Sveiby's construction of what KM does20-Apr-03 -
trustkm (48 Kb)Notes from excellent-sounding book on trust, KM and systemisation by Maija-Leena Huotari University of Oulu, Finland Mirja Iivonen University of Tampere, Finland18-Dec-03
- Author:
- Chris Macrae
- Publisher:
- KnowledgeBoard
- Date:
- 01-Nov-02
- Categories:
- Emotional Intelligence, Human and Social, Human Side of KM
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NIMH on the Trust Hormone
As a chronic and incurable muser, the sort who just sits and puzzles and pronounces his pontificates, it's always wonderful to find myself vindicated completely by those who slog through the fundraising and late-night datasifting of real world real research. Here today, courtesy of NIMH, that wonderful piece of the puzzle that clearly says that our notion of 'trust' is neurophysiological ... and not something you can simply reason out from a resume. The key is what they call the Trust Potion, a neuro-inhibitor called Oxytocin, and it's action on trimming the propagation of fear and distrust through to the other cognitive centers.
[ How the trust hormone works ]
Boldly going where humanity needs to be
Hi everybody, here are some terms of reference as a basis to build with an itinirary that stretches from self-destruction to self-control to community self-government and can therefore encompasse to serve everything in between from personal to local to global.
Core: Faculty of living. We can all learn to live; we can not teach each other to live; such is the mistery of the Faculty of living. Hunger to learn is from being alive. We can experience, feed and spread life but we cannot explain life into being. The organic opening to the spiritual sourcee restores and maintains our being alive: that is the essence of KM at the purest level. So for the core to develop, we need the Curriculum of humanity's Recovery Road!
Dynamics: Healing the meaning, acquisition of the taste for health, the ministry of reconciliation
Product: Coreectional family curcuiting, Real community of moderate people, Permanent People Summit
MISSION To restore personal integrity with the application of the curriculum "to be-to have-to do" instead of the poverty production curriculum of having to do until we have so that we can then be someone within the fittings of a civilization that does not know how to belong any more. Restorative justice and community mental health need to have us all learn how to care with dignity, living and growing in the personal discipline of sanctity. Benoit Couture
To view a campaign aiming this way, fit to hook up with Live8, please see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ican/A4235195
From the web around Clinton and globalization
July Calendar of Trust
Extract below seems timely if you watch Live8 or anticipate G8 this weekend
President Clinton: I expect that we’ll deal mostly with the need for both openness, honesty and transparency in the developing world, But if you look at the great business scandals in America in the last few years, it’s obvious that you’ve got to have good strict accounting practices and if someone can play with the numbers, you can have problems everywhere. But in other countries the need for openness and transparency are very important and beyond that I would say it is not just a question for integrity, it’s also a question of capacity. A lot of countries are incapable of growing rapidly or solving problems, not so much because of corruption but because of incapacity both in government and in the private sector. So I hope that we can deal with this question of integrity with the question of capacity and I think by in large the two will go hand in hand.
Stephen Evans: A huge range of different political philosophies about the heaviness of the hand of government on the economy. Capitalism is a marvelous system that grows very fast but it is driven by greed. And where you get greed you get lapses, how do you marry those two, what do you say to somebody in India or Africa who is wondering how you marry that greedy system, which also delivers the goods?
President Clinton: Well Lord Canes has understood a long time ago that unless there is some governmental intervention the system would destroy itself by its own excesses, both its cycles and its greed. The great genius in the United States of the New Deal and everything that my party, I think has stood for since, and very often Republican Presidents as well, is that we realize that in order to save the market economy there had to be some leavening of it, some intermediate institution, some attempt to equalize opportunity, some attempt to help those that through no fault of their own couldn’t help themselves. Now that is still the case today, and I think the real issue is that if you live in a global economy, if your economy is more services, relatively speaking more information technology oriented. What is the role of government and how do you fulfill its historic mission in a capital society, which is to promote both economic growth and social justice.
GB
inquiry into fear & trust
It's happening over here and your inputs would be welcome
It is beginning to look as if a thriving living system's resonating hi-trust relationships turns vicious when fear is injected in from the top. Or how would you see the way tehse 2 flows multiply
ibm paper
I see IBM has a peper on trust & games
http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/423/keser.pdf
anyone else reading it?
Chris 
Macrae
Last Calls for KM & Trust?
A debate stirred by wcbn007 and Jerry
at the 1300 subscriber community of the Association of Knowledge Workers http://www.kwork.org
is raging this week and next on gaps between the promises of KM and its delivery for knowledge workers and 2010 knowledge society ; and the gaps between the organisation as is and as could be
Hope some ambassadors of trust will enter a post or more. After that John and I plan to represent the sigs of trust and emotional intellignecs at the Lisbon meeting of sig editors - so I guess if there's any topic you would like us to open into the conversation, you will tell us.
I'm also acting as roving ambassador at a 300 change leader coach conference that takes oplace in London for a full 3 days starting tomorrow. I guess if anyone wants to be introduced to some of that network of people, they'll tell me or John
cheers
chris macrae
latest unforgetable quotations on why trust matters
I've started a thread, one of whose missions is to collate views on Trust, particularly by people with conversational influence in KM and network theory/practice
eg A leading Knowledge Management view.
Dave Pollard' discussion on the importance of trust included "there is less trust up and down the hierarchy in today's businesses than there has been since the 'Robber Baron' era of the late 19th century which gave rise to the union movement," and asked to what extent the failings of KM to date are actually failings of trust. Source AOK March 2004
Your help in collating great quotes on Trust much appreciated at
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=124989&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
why I'm passionate about pattern rules
People who have taken the time to know me will know that I have a few obsessions -eg open space so anyone can question anyone (keeping knowledge open rather than closed and official)
Perhaps my most controversial obsession is the pattern rules of trust. I have conversed about if for 65 years, especially wherever I do a jourhnalist interview with someone in a high place
The pattern rule I begin trust flow with is the story of the speed of sound barrier; pilots crashed losing all until one dared turn the controls inside out as ghe went through the barrier; all the world's biggest conflict barriers need that story linked to them, if we seek the trust to resolve them (of course if you want to compound conflict you will try to suppress that story like mad)
It is a good precaution next to have an anti pattern rule. Those expert in spiral dynamics (thank the lord I'm not- prefering, as mathematicians who want to avoid getting trapped in logic, to hover just above every great system theory I can link my mind to). Spiral Dynamics Rule 1 - we teach you to spend lots of time understyanding 12? hieracrhies of civil cultures so that you can then know that anyone who is above level 6? will hate the uncivilised mores of those in 1-5. Well yes that does explain a lot of moral crusades, but its not the whole story. It is demonstrated almsot everywhere on this board if ypu care to dig deep that those who are passionate about community but havent experienced all its archotectural levels hate thos who are trying to practice the next highest level of integration that is still messily emerging. I have bumped along those wary architectural crossroads of how internet shapes community since 1983 with various expert circles who have fed back as readers of our 1984 book far more than we knew then. In fact I can promise you the only known reason to me of writing a book is to learn from its most passionate readers, that may be an anti-pattern rule of KM, but then Trust you see is always a way of questioning when is learning more openly valuable than knowledge
If you agree consider joining our Black Swan Society http://www.valuetrue.com/home/glossary.cfm?letter=f
PS a few people (but really dont start here unless you know why) get excited by the pattern rule
- most organsiational value in networked markets depends on the quality of your trust-flow governnace system - have to speak to a big bank on that monday, may your gods help me.
cross-posters explanation
If you have noticed the last post in one or two other crossroads, here's an explanation
I am inviting a few of the 10000 people I most trust to land in this alien space at selected threads
added to this, over the last month whenever I introduce someone with deep knowledge , anold guard heckles them or me or both; its taken an inordinate amount of my time to repair the goodwill with the newly landed expert; so now a few orientation sundials for trust is my experiment to see if hi trust people will also cluster thread some of the greatest conversations they have seen in KB over the last 3 years, or otherwise maybe we are all wasting our time in the narrow tunnel architecture that sift has been asked to reform for 2 years but seems someone less able to re-architect than those public service contractors who blighted the UK's council housing with tower blocks back in the 50s; am I being harsh on Sift- dunno? would love to see some pattern rules openly catewlogued and conversed on virtual communications platform but tell you truth - there are much more caring spaces with 20 years heritage of careful thought on that one where I prefer to learn until or unless some people start multiplying open sundiqals fast around here
Orientation Sundial of trust - where's your greatest cluster of trust threads
Did you just land in this space or been away? Need some orientation, or some anadin (sorry when 5000 people speak at the same time, there's always a tiny risk of noise)?
Few orientation links:
-what's the space's history as part of the Information Communications Technology directorate (time machine warning: whomever dreamt up ICT terminology didnt know how simpler human stories inspire)
-what's the space's most popular virtual conversation topic
-where EU leadership team openly promise the people of Europe's 25 countries and responsibilities to a wide-world needs to collaboratively be by 2010?
or ask me at wcbn007@easynet.co.uk - SAY what you most urgently need to know; if its not here; AND its decent and humanitarian we can always start a thread asking where to link worldwide becasue that's the simplest form of knowledge management any of the founders of the term hoped human KM will always revolve round. Latest examples include:
- UK lady deeply concerned about people in National Health Services
-
Russian who is fanatical about Text Virus, in my lingo: letting people know the BIGprint as an equal opportunity to professionals writing rules to govern us with SMALLprint
example of 25 linked country boards all asking questions on whether we people can co-create the world we want, or is it already lost to higher powers than we the people can ever question with love faith and hope. As these self-organising conversations are done wholly by volunteers, gardening is needed: ie help us link one country's greatest conversation with another- would you believe our greatest discussion on microfinance in the poorworld is in "Community of India" "Community of India" -started by a US bank sending a posh briefing to former chief host Helen who knew which sig editors play with which hot potatoes- here are twin conversations which lead to how touse emailand
use meetings up to 5000 people to "connect the disconnected"- in any of the most desparate ways you or I can imagine knowing
sisterly conversation threads -opening or closing trust of KB/KM forever
we've just had a conversation over here
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=122546&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
where
Ted, after reviewing the whole of Tacit KM and works such as Nonaka's classic ended up saying:
we don't have to 'do away with' corporations, ... but we do have to restore tacit knowing based nested inclusion to it natural primacy as the navigational guidance system in the constituents of community. the individual must be, first of all, an open, honest, authentic tacit-knowing guided inclusion within the dynamically nesting collective. his loyalty to (and his paternalist love for) absolutizing organizations based on explicit knowing such as 'the nation', 'the corporation', 'the (explicit) family', must defer to the primacy of his open, honest, authentic tacit knowing couched in universal love.
and I replied
Thank you
I think you have explained why my gut or my tacit believes that Open space is a higher order evolutionary method than the chimpanzee that I believe the world cafe to be
I know I am being objectionably provocative if you happen to love the café more than open space
If you happen to be such a person I would love to hear why you love the café; maybe it does something that open space cannot do, but I just don’t believe its in the same species or high level of evolution; and in places I have recently been a minority in, the café seems to have a sales pitch that is smashing the very subtleties that I love about open space
chris
so 1 I guess if there's anyone here who loves cafe more than open space, speak up or forever hold you peace
so 2 since the management of KB is veering towards using cafes and not open space as the real events if funds, people of trust also need to make their mark here please http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=123793&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
20 greatest writers (or conversationalists) on trust?
I received this mail
As well as being interested in the questions it raises, I was wondering whether anyone has the will to join in assembling a top 20 writers on TRUST. It doesnt have to be correct to start with. We could post it and encourage worldiwde re-editing. If anyone's up for that, please confirm either in this thread or by email wcbn007@easynet.co.uk
Chris Macrae
@Emotional Intelligence
@valuetrue transparency maps
@Networks of Excellence or Curiosity
I will be asking around in another 10 open spaces I populate- so if we get momentum we can either do a pure Kboard version or a diverse version or both
My excellent monthly mailing from http://www.meansbusiness.com led me to Brint's top 58 KM listing - do you feel they left out anyone and if so from what criteria?
-eg overall seminal influence on what KM does next?
-diversity of national views of KM?
-most wonderful influence on networks for human progress?
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=122764&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
I believe this question is vital in the context meansbusiness linked it to KM's being everyone's metadiscipline. I'd also love to hear who you feel are the most open facilitators of KM's connectivity with other professions impacting what kinds of 21st C ofrganisations we- and our children - live with http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=122616&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
special meta-disciplinary reserarch & new trust thread
I am convening a new thread:http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=122460&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
It asks questions in a particular order:
1)do you want to subscribe?- as the people who have longest discussed trust I hope you do and this takes 20 seconds if you click above
2) do you want to tell us about your deepest passions of working on KM in 2004?
3) Do you want to recommend contexts of trust that can multiply the value of KM and vice versa?
I am doing similar discipline*trust debates in other professional spaces and hope to cross-fertilise those who want to take the moat active part over time- some clues on how we are already opening this up at the grassroots in 83 countries are also provided by my first post at the above link
May I wish us all bon voyage and a lot of trust!
unusual questions advance trust understanding
We at http://www.quicktopic.com/12/D/tfrfXSANMSxP_1.html are finding an unusual question can advance apprecation of trust: which foreign country do you love most. Here is where just one answer leads to.
One of the things I love most about the people of the Netherlands is their communal disapproval of any leader who develops a power complex. This is one of the vital characteristics of any community or country that wants to make the most of the diversity of its people. In a networking world where people are also more and more interdependent on connections that are not geography-confined, this characteristic is also a crucial one for nations to be productive neighbours for one another and for us all to celebrate racial diversity.
These traits become all the more important if you accept new research that indicates that most people are born more equal than has been supposed but with different natural talents. According to this model the crucial variable explaining the difference between those who live the most productive and fulfilling lives and those who don’t is an opportunity variable defined as: what per cent of your lifetime did you spend doing stuff that your greatest talents could learn from and focus greatest valuable depth around. It becomes a most valuable exercise to try to list what factors influence this opportunity variable. Before the net these may have included:
-early patterns of care by family and school,
-people who became your mentors or whom strengthened your network of friends
- luck with what early work organisations you had access to – did the culture of the organisation try to bring each person and each job-holder along
-how you selected past-times and other things you bought (crucially here it is necessary to analyse the impact of mass media- so much today is sold to gratify immediate sensation or image, so little helps the individual to choose the deeper joy of real accomplishment).
When one adds in the advent of the net in the widest sense of us all having virtual life learning and doing opportunities to select as well as geographical ones, we see that huge new variables that can impact a person’s value multiplying capability include:
-knowing what one needs to learn next to further one’s own focus as well as match this with the organisational purposes currently contracted to
-using email to find your world’s best 10 personal mentors for you -http://www.valuetrue.com/home/glossary.cfm?letter=n
-if technology of the net media develops healthily, openness of agency so that we all are helped to find the practice and interest communities that mattered most to us; this requires new understanding of trust-flows in almost every system designed by humankind and what I believe people call open and transparent architecture
search of trust
When I put trust into KB's top right search box I got the following. In other words this thread, and much of this sig doesnt appear in the first search screen. Would you expect that? and do you think it matters that newer KB browsers interested in trust are unlikely to build on any of our communal learning?
KnowledgeBoard: the European Knowledge Management (KM) Community - Home
KnowledgeBoard.com is the portal for the European Knowledge Management Community. Contains industry news, events,...
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15 Jan 04
The Mechanics of Human Trust
In this article, Miguel Cornejo suggests that trust can be based on well-worn, everyday, commonplace things such as formal contracts and clear rules. Looking at the trust-building efforts of e-business, he advocates that trust requires transparency, ...
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06 Jan 04
'Too many organisations want trust without honesty!' says John Moore
This transcript is from the live Trust debate hosted by John Moore of the KM and Trust SIG on Friday September 26th 2003.
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03 Oct 03
Tell us which contexts of trust matter to you
In our new book THE MAP of trust-flow governance and value multiplication we look at how over 80% of value built or destroyed - in service, knowledge and networking economies - depends on the metrics of trust (and human relationship intangibles. 48%
28 Jul 03
Newswire archive
Read the archives of our fortnightly email newswire. 32%
15 Jan 04
KnowledgeBoard: the European Knowledge Management (KM) Community - Who's Who
Who's Who in European KM 44%
22 Jul 03
The Trust Company of New Jersey
Datamonitors The Trust Company of New Jersey Company Profile provides top-level company information on The Trust Company of New Jersey, including details of the companys business background, history, locations and subsidiaries, products and services ...
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13 May 03
Wilmington Trust Corporation
Datamonitors Wilmington Trust Corporation Company Profile provides top-level company information on Wilmington Trust Corporation, including details of the companys business background, history, locations and subsidiaries, products and services and key ...
46%
13 May 03
AMRESCO Capital Trust
Datamonitors AMRESCO Capital Trust Company Profile provides top-level company information on AMRESCO Capital Trust, including details of the companys business background, history, locations and subsidiaries, products and services and key employees.
46%
13 May 03
3i European Technology Trust plc
Datamonitors 3i European Technology Trust plc Company Profile provides top-level company information on 3i European Technology Trust plc, including details of the companys business background, history, locations and subsidiaries, products and services ...
46%
13 May 03
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12 Jan 04
The Art of Value Creation
The definations and responses by Karl-Eric Sveiby
More on trust
For a continuing and lively debate on trust, cross to Miguel Cornejo's article in the Human Side of KM SIG
Trust in KM taken to higher level in Finland
I loaded this file of notes from an excellent sounding but expensive book edited out of Finland and published in US http://www.knowledgeboard.com/download/3213/trustkm.doc
Managing Knowledge-
Based Organizations
Through Trust
Maija-Leena Huotari
University of Oulu, Finland
Mirja Iivonen
University of Tampere, Finland
All part of a pattern on how Finland leads the world on KM governance unless you have other sightings http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=111774&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y.
I'm talking at McMaster on trust in corporate governance http://worldcongress.mcmaster.ca/pdf/CG_presenters.pdf so if you think I'm geographically out of date, your views would be most welcomed at wcbn007@easynet.co.uk
I would also like to raise a challenge for kboard. At this stage of evolution, a journal a quarter the size of kboard would get review copies of all relevant books posted to it and through to the corresponding role of sig editor. Can anyone explain to me why books like this Finnish one - so core to this thread and sig - depend on one or two of us volunteers keeping an eye out for them. It seems to be that kboard has no map of how anything connects together, but if you know of one, I would of course like to be privy to this basic facet of kb's own transparent systemisation.
trsut-flow IQ test and a lot more
Here is an IQ test format of whether an organisation is governing the kinds of knowledge conversations needed to systemise trust-flow over time.
More organisational exercises and a lot of other goodies at the aftermath thread to knowledgeboard's great trust debate held 8 days ago , now replaying at http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=118204&d=1&h=417&f=418&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
Is the world reaching a precipice of distrust?
I feel so
Thursday through Sunday at 2 different events, a debrief on Cancun organised by http://www.wdm.org.uk and 40 experts talking on divides between people around the world http://www.collapsingworld.org , and how on earth to reconcile them - trust or its loss was terrifyingly present
Take for example a professor of nuclear phsyics at a university in Pakistan; he sees his students getting more polarised by the week towards Muslim fundamentalism and when you can read this at a web site compiled by part of the US army : you may conclude (or I for one do) that all of our biggest organisations are not going to save the world from a crisis of distrust, if anything they are witlessly spinning it:
:"We are entering a new American Century in which we will become still wealthier, culturally more lethal and increasingly powerful. We will excite hatreds without precedent. There will be no peace at any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes. There will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe...To keep the world safe for our economy...we will have to do a fair amount of killing."
In my view it is only people networks who have a chance of turning this round. It would be nice to think that in this KM community we had 2 much needed talents:
1) trust-building
2) multiplying connections between humanitarian networks to every corner of our globe
I guess two contact points beyond this thread itself are: me at wcbn007@easynet.co.uk if you want more details on some of the 300 humanitarian associations already signed up to collapsingworld (not that I think any of us yet understand how to multiply that communal power) or John Moore's asynchronous great deabte at KB, 3.00 uk time Friday entering at the usual link http://www.knowledgeboard.com/workshop/index.html
Let me leave you with a quote from Professor Lown, one of the 3 Nobel peace laureates, on the board of patrons of CW :the United States that had an image of really a free country, empowering the individual and being fair-minded and concerned for the underdog - this country has changed. And the world for the first time understands that.
Many things in history accumulate like boiling water - you boil it and boil it and nothing happens, and then suddenly the steam pours forth. I believe we are coming to a steaming phase. When that happens, things will transpire much more rapidly. But when it will happen, how it will happen, I do not know. But I do know that we must be engaged to make it happen. For if we are not we are delinquent - morally delinquent - as human beings."
trust & triple collaboration
I'm surprised this thread isnt pre-rehearsing what to discuss at the great trust debate of Sept 26
I would like to discuss how trust depends on whether you're being systemised to collaborate or the very opposite
some intial links on how to see what sort of collaboration sysem of systems you're spending your (or other people's) time in follow:
Sample of current discussion of Human KM at
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=117257&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
------------------------
Collaborative innovation is in its infancy in spite of the fathers of the internet (Vint Cerf) and the worldwide web (Berners-Lee) insisting that they were openly designing technology so that worldwide innovation opportunities would bring whole new value multipliers to organsiations and people's productivity.
Tell me your favourite bookmarks on collaborative innovation to register here:
1 2 3
Transparent branding's 4-multiplying ways to value collaboration imply that organisational systems must be changed inside-out to collaborate with:
A) Governments
B) Businesses
C) People as individual (knowledge) workers
D) Coworker groups such as teams, personal netorks and practice communities
Inside-out collaboration with government means no more furtive lobbying for protectionsism or rights to ruin local environments. Instead only get together with government where you can openly do something so wonderful locally that its a win-win-win for the company, government and humans in the local democracy.
Similarly, each of A-D has an inside out change leadership issue to systemise; for example companies will never learn to collaborate with their best knowledge workers whilst booking them as costs (unlike machines which tangible accounting compounds -as its meanest cuts of all - by arbitrarily framing as an investment)
PS I also have a personal colaboration project- outlining a future affairs 12 year olds curriculum to prepare for a transparent networked world - please tell me your bookmarks 1 2
Join the Debate
We'll be holding a live, online debate on trust here at Knoweldgeboard, with the title: How can we move interpersonal trust to the top of the agenda for organisations?
This will take place on Friday 26th September at 3pm (London) 4pm (Western Europe). I'll add more details here soon - but please make a note in your diaries.
trust-flow and network mapping
I was playing around with a presentation I am giving in Barcelona on the simplest systematic way to govern trust-flow of brand (or the whole leadership identity of an organisation).
It then occurred to me as I practised on knowledgeboard itself that the patterns of analysis I was looking at correspond in large measure to those that SNA maps look at. Which is cool, I guess...
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/download/2737/btr2.ppt
Interconnectivity
Nick, thanks for a v interesting link. It seems to me that creating the bridge between communities is a key way to create huge potential value to society.
The point about creating links based on people's passions, rather than how they spend money, is of profound importance. The fixation chasing money, over short time horizons, blinds marketing people to the areas where real value (and long term wealth, in a big sense) may lie.
Connecting passions relates to Chris Macraes posting about learning emotions. Building interesting bridges between passions creates engagement and stimulation.
Augmented Social Networks
I just was told about this whitepaper. Interesting view on how the the facilities provided to online communities MUST evolve to be more socially aware, in the wider sense (ie, non profit making, federated identity, etc).
http://collaboratory.planetwork.net/linktank_whitepaper
Crucial , the Augmented Social Network requires four facilities:
- A persistent identity, though a person may assume different roles in different communities
- Interoperability between communities, with ability to mediate information across areas
- Brokered Relationships
- Public Interest Matching Technologies, matching skills and interests, rather than treating a person a purley economic entity (what has she bought before).
learning's emotions
I cribbed this from a superb piece by Michael Kelleher ; seems like there's a lot of similarity between the emotions of learning and those of trust. http://www.know-2.org/index.cfm?PID=162
There is a growing recognition that emotions play an important part in learning. We experience some emotion every moment of our lives. Our emotional centre is located at the centre of our brain. Our emotions are, therefore always a part of our thinking processes. For every waking moment of our life we are in some emotional state or other. How we are able to learn something is heavily influenced by our emotions. Our learning, therefore, is heavily dependent upon the emotional state we are in.
Emotions that inhibit learning are:
fear (perhaps of being judged by others or of having to get it right)
persistent confusion
moods of resentment and resignation
continual self-doubt and lack of confidence
excessive seriousness and solemnest
boredom and frivolousness.
Emotions more likely to facilitate learning are:
feeling comfortable
humour and a sense of fun and enjoyment
balanced with the feeling of a challenge and persistence
moods of acceptance, ambition, mystery and suspense and
curiosity.
I agree with Gary...
that Open Source models are the future and am seeing more and more business models based on collaboration, sharing of IP and Open Source systems. Just look at all the 'shop in a box vendors' that sprung up during the late 90s. Now many of the larger online shops are using OS commerce as their online ordering platform. No company (even multinationals) can compete with a worldwide network of programmers who are continually honing and improving Open Source code bases.
a cross-link to lateral mentoring
Over at http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=113314&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
we are discussing lateral mentoring experiences like these:
This interaction has expanded to sharing our ideas and epiphanies with other colleagues and drawing more people into our ongoing conversation. The relationship of two colleagues has transformed into more of a
web of individuals sharing ideas.
If we had not had a personal relationship before, we could not be challenging, supporting, and assisting each other now. This could not happen in an environment exemplified by distrust, fear, and prejudice.
This relationship also did not happen over night and without effort. If Juanita had not made an effort to stop by my room and see how the new teacher was doing, I wouldn’t have learned to trust her as someone who cares about my welfare. If trust is not present, honest exchange is not possible.
When approaching mentoring within a community (whether you are having a one-on-one dialogue or a round table discussion), you should keep in mind how the attitudes and preconceptions that are held by the community at large and by the individuals within the community will affect their acceptance of you as a
mentor. Spend some time taking stock of the assumptions held by your community. When you find some common ground upon which to build a relationship, you can begin to build some trust. Listen to what others are trying to share with you; when they feel valued as a participant who has something to offer, they
will be more open to what you have to offer."
If the topic chimes with you, come join in
oh no, not another definition of KM- but don't we need a trust-systemising one?
This is a behavioural definition of KM I learnt form the Japanese in the 1980s and I still see it as the simplest. An organisation cannot leverage KM as its primary future advantage unless its top person believes in connecting human productivities systematically.
This definition leads to quite intriguing training consequences such as:
-the CEO should lead the (e)learning organisation curriculum or the corporate university’s understanding of how emotional intelligence applies to learning, doing and communicating
-the CEO knows the ways in which the measurable priorities of governing human systems are different from tangible accountancy – eg measurement transparency is vital as are designing in above all else some metrics that are contextually unique to the company’s purpose; only the leader can systemise these relentlessly so that operate with more power than one-fit all metric standards that external advisers may specialise in. (You can extend these links to what I refer systemically as open governance of trust-flow, and why this is the big agendas wherever people talk intellectual capital or intangibles)
At one degree of separation, it also leads to understanding that open system of system collaboration is the great untapped innovation and strategy advantage http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=109847&d=1&h=417&f=418&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
I regard nobody as clearer on this than Debra Amidon and her network, and I still implore you Paul to find some way they can moderate an open collaboration sig. Its true that the Nanadian net led in KM terms by Allee may another great frontrunner in this vital aspect of how KM expands human productivity and socially desirable outcomes
Equally we need more testimonies like Gary's clearly themed in a hall of non-collaborational shame industry by industry
In what way does this definition reinforce or conflict with what you hold to be the pivotal practices of KM
Trust or Blind Faith??
Trust - I think is a simple word that have many faces.
We always trust someone. Some more and some less. But what if the trust is based on personal gain rather the good of the masses??
I am sure Saddam Hussien has his 'trusted' followers. I am sure some of these people 'trusted' Saddam Hussien would be good for their personal advancement. Same as George Bush. How often we heard...I don't trust George Bush?? How about in the military? What if you do not trust the decision of your commander and not obey?
So where trust goes? I am a very open person. I 'try' to trust as many people as I can. And sometime I have to 'trust' someone because I am not given an option. Such as when I step into a plane. I have to trust the pilot(s) that he knows the way to San Jose!
But I have a few occassions during my short career path with one company, I just could not 'trust' some of my managers. Because I know whatever decision taken that concerned me, were not based on my best interests, but his/hers. So, trust goes out the window. So I built a wall around me. I could not be as open as I wished because of his/her behaviour rather than mine. Was my feelings about him/her justified? Hard to say. That was my personal opionion based on my 'own set of trust values'. And of course they were not too smart to cover their tracks.
Chinese saying : One can use the same grain of rice to feed, but there are millions of different type of human being out there.
Trust is something that cannot be measured. And anything that cannot be measured is not something that we can teach or manage efficiently nor effectively. We can only teach, preach and hope.
In life I go by this rule: I trust until proven that that person cannot be trusted. BUT, that same person cannot be trusted on something, not necessary all things. If I want to be fair. Because trust can be very much affected by outside influce. On a weak moment we might spill the beans. Happened many times in spy movies.
This is a very interesting topic. Could go on and on.
Cindy
Learning to see
The notion of attention is still important and it's frustrating for all those reasons Chris cited -- I've seen companies where employees routinely received pink slips for questioning policies, and one employee was actually sued for libel for being openly critical of management's decisions. That sure put a damper on open discussions.
I've had a similar problem promoting open source software, and this may sound odd to those of you who are not in the software business, but I've been doing this job for 23 years, and every last one of my employers who thought they could create a new multimillion-dollar proprietary software solution either went bankrupt, abandoned the project, or were bought out and squashed. Every last one. By comparison, most of those I know who are actively part of the open sharing of opensource systems are still working on those same systems, and still basing their livelihood on services based on those systems. Companies are highly resistant (I wouldn't say pathological, just resistant ;) to the concept of sharing, but it's for their own good that I recommend it, and it's also for my own good because, as a contractor, the health of my clients is critically important to me ;)
Bucky Fuller once wrote, back in the early 70's, that he expected the world to change to an open and co-operative model. He reasoned that the rise of the computer would enable some bright young executive to crunch the numbers without MIS approval, and clearly demonstrate how co-operation was the more profitable path.
If you ask me, looks like Bucky left the job to us ;)
One conversation at a time
Tongue-in-cheek or not, Paul, you got us talking, well done.
To answer your question, I try to avoid making predictions because I don't see much value in them. What I do know (with at least a measure of certainty) is this: I have no idea what will get organisations to properly value openness; on the other hand, I can at least influence the amount of openness I personally demonstrate, in each conversation that I have. That - to me - is the area to focus on.
time to go
Paul, my best guess hasn't changed since our 1984 book (The 2024 Report) on future of networking civilisation - its the next 5 years or systemically we'll never make it in my lifetime or beyond
More certain than timing the window of opportunity, it will only happen if a nucleus of people within a network like this adopt it as one of their top 3 projects and go out and discover every other networked community that wants to make it happen. Putting humanity back into organisation seems to chime with many professional associations I talk to. KM needs to lead organisations (and academia!) beyond rival disciplines as well as reducing the value of people (and the systems of human relationhsips the connect through trust-flows) to yesterday's numbers.
Its a pity K'board part 1 couldn't end with voting on what the community's 3 biggest projects are going forward (not to imply that my hobby horse of transparency/open goverance of intangibles would be one, but I would like to know what the 5000 of us rank as the 3 biggest things our community wants to make a difference with from 2004 on)
Pathological inability to being open
Hi all,
There was more than a little tongue-in-cheekiness about my earlier comment. Chris, how long do you think it will take before we get where you propose we go? And John, do you think Chris´s approach will be quicker than trying to persuade the world´s organisations one megalomaniac at a time that openness is an attractive proposition?
And in the meantime, what will the pathological non-open be doing to our organisations?
Without wishing to reduce the intellectual tone of the conversation, I think it was Woody Allen who once said something like "I´ve been with the same psychoanalyst for 15 years now. I´ll give him another year, and if it still doesn´t work, I´m off to Lourdes". :-)
See you
Paul
Attitude and behaviour
Stimulating stuff Paul/Chris/Gary.
I agree that attempts at figuring out cause and effect are likely to be unproductive. I'd add that as a caveat to the idea of behaviour always leading feelings. I suspect even there we'll never know for sure - though I do see attitudes following behaviour a lot of the time.
My own hunch is that the best thing for those who want more open trusting systems is to carry on bearing the standard for openness; and being willing to get used from time to time by those who play the system. What I have found is that openness in me often attracts openness in others.
I often see organsiations which are chronically underperforming through insidious fear; it's not glaringly obvious and conversations appear polite, but thinking is coloured by all forms of placation. Disturbing such systems is not going to be popular, but I hope more people will do it.
Sick buildings
There is also Morita-based precident for what Chris says about people living under sick conditions. His most drastic therapy, the Japanese equivalent to electro-shock, was to remove the person from their environment, to isolate them completely from everyone. In his worst case, it took 5 months before the patient (which he called "the pupil") recovered themselves and gained some perspective.
Here in the west we have "problem students" but we don't have "problem teachers", we treat the victims of urbanization as if it was them that was broken, we incarcerate the victims of the Taliban school textbooks that were written in Virginia to foster anti-Soviet sentiment. The Morita approach implicitly believes "There but for fortune go you or I" and while reframing therapies such as NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP) excell at convincing patients that "all is well" and return them to madness fully "adjusted", Morita instead asks them to stop, full stop, and examine their reality in detail, understand it from the outside, grasp the whole ecology of forces around them, and then return or not return.
Now firewood, now ashes
Paul, I wouldn't go there if I were you. It's a flamefest fodder for all sorts of unfounded foolishness. No one can know such correlations, because no one can tell if it's a cause from symptom.
Few people know that not all great thinkers in Psychology were white european men. Some were Asian and among them, Morita Shoma. Why don't we know Morita? This is good exercise in global trust :)
Morita Shoma (or Masataki) was contemporary to Freud and outspoken against rummaging about in closets looking for supposed clues and excuses. Doubly disturbing to the western status quo, Morita's method gave measurable results.
Anyway, to answer your question: We can invent reasons to excuse behaviour, childhood, menstrual cycles, migranes, bad brain chemistry (which is always a possibility!) but we can get fast results by simply changing our behaviour; in Zen they say "Firewood does not become ashes; now firewood, now ashes."
Only the Judeo-Christian traditions believe one's past weighs immutably on one's soul. In the east, you just do differently and keep doing until emotions and rambling thoughts catch up with our behaviour.
Talk-therapy fails because it tries the opposite, to control thoughts and emotions in hopes behaviour will follow. If you have ever tried Sazen (sitting meditation) you will see you have about as much control over your own train of thought as you do over a 2-month-old puppy (you can reign them in, over and over and over, but they still wander away) and the simple journal prescribed by Yoshimoto Ishi shows we have less control or even influence over our emotions; we have about as much control as we do over the clouds in the sky.
What can this person do? They can behave in a co-operative way even if, in their head, they are scheming ways to cheat. Who cares what's in their head if their behaviour is sociable?
How do they learn this? In Morita's way, it's all attention, paying attention to how they profit personally in the two situations -- when they learn to pay attention, they see we are asking their co-operation for their own good and not just to bully them into submission.
pathological systemisation
I am not sure if any people are born as relationship destroyers in the way you describe, but whichever far more are conditioned to become so.
There is now plenty of totally independent research which shows that current governance of big organisations is perfectly designed to condition the rise of as many pathologically non-open people as possible. I will give two examples of such research though I could give many.
David Lines has done a phd using the grounded theory approach to find out what people actually do to be promoted to executive level in organisations. All you need to know about grounded theory is that it is a research method that makes no pre-existing assumptions (avoiding all previous literature). His finding: what promotes people to executive level is managing visibility. The practices of this include:
-avoid risky projects
-come into projects as they are becoming successful with the primary purpose of taking credit or becoming branded as an expert in the future outcomes the project will lead to
-play the politics the way the organsiational culture does
-essentialy trust nobody and take advantage of people who trust you but are lower in the hierarchy
of course there are contextual variations in the CoP of managing visibility but we could list 100 non-open and distrustful behaviural traits which are more likely to promote than demote
Research 2: this is how life will be until we wake up to the living system transparency challenge also known as the measurement crisis of intangibles or intellectual. The truth if your organsiation's success depends on knowledge is that over three quarters of what will happen next to value is systemicaly connected by human relationships and the infrastructures which flow them with trust being a gravity for all human flows : courage, fun, self-confidence, openness etc. The truth is also that mega-accounting's current goverance and mega-consultants' performance measurement systems directly conflict with the open integrity of all this value. The only reason why leaders moan that organisations are so complex and environments so chaotic is that they are blindly governing in ways that promote the pathological no-open and devalue every productive and human possibility that the network age could be fostering.
more at http:/www.valuetrue.com or ask me at wcbn007@easynet.co.uk for a copy of our smaple chapter from our forthcoming book on mapping transparency as the missing goverance system of organisation
Pathological inability to being open
Hi all,
In our work we all sometimes come across characters with a seemingly pathological inability to share anything, show any trust let alone openness, or promote anything but their personal agendas (which basically involve escalating themselves ever higher in the organisation and destroying anyone who gets in the way).
I wonder if there are any studies linking such behaviour, for example, with, say, happiness as a child, relationship with one´s mother, or any other such standard themes psychotherapists would normally deal with?
Can anyone shed light on this?
Thanks
Paul Hearn
Paper just in...
All,
I just found this abstract, and have ordered a paper copy. It might be worth a look, if you can get a copy yourself.
Regards
Nick
ps.
I'm going to the HCII conference, in Crete. If you are there, track me down!
Knowledge management sans frontieres
Author: Edwards, J S; Kidd, J B
Journal of the Operational Research Society, vol. 54 no. 2, pp. 130-139, Feb 2003
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Knowledge management is a topic that crosses borders of various kinds, such as those between departments, between organizations or between countries. In this paper we will consider various issues relating to knowledge management, in the context where more than one department/organisation/country is involved. To do this, we place an emphasis on knowledge management as a process, rather than as an organisational system or, worse, as a piece of technology. This process involves trust, negotiation - and indeed some technological support. In this paper we wish to introduce the concept of 'triangles of trust', and to focus on where 'the top meets the bottom' in terms of knowledge management and organisational learning. Partial examples will be offered in support of our views, but no full and complete examples - knowledge management simply is not well enough understood or documented for that yet. Our overall conclusion is that there is no one best way to "do" knowledge management, but there are principles that ought to be applied.
I have a dream
I have a dream that you will help me bring the term shareholder value out into the open.
Why should anyone trustworthy want to do any such thing?
Because everyone has a right to shareholder value if they save for it as a pensioner to be, and nobody has a right to speculator value of the kind that wantonly destroys all the rest of the organisation's integrity for everyone else
I propose a competition. Can we log up some one-paragraphs on this issue until you find one you are happy to converse about anywhere you can make a difference? Here's one for starters; I'm sure you can edit something simpler and more humanly vibrant
There is good shareholder value and bad shareholder value. Good shareholder value leads to multiplying growth for everyone who relevantly trusts an organisation. Bad shareholder value destroys human worth for everyone who openly trusts the organisation. The timescale which leaders transparently demand of core investors is the root cause of whether the organisation’s system of value is living in a virtuous life spiral or a vicious death spiral.
Confirmation abounds
Gary,
If you or anyone wish to see a graphic confirmation regarding the "trust potion", there are certain scientsts who got together and made the movie called "What the bleep do we know". It explains with some virtual reality graphics, how the neurons are created and connect to each other in the brain. The movie tends to confirm that the line between trust and addiction can be quite confused for many of us, which explains why so much of our resources are applied to keep everything in check. For many, our neurons have collectively developed from centuries of frightening memeories that have conditioned our infrastructures from home to war and keeps us alerted to the price of deceit and confusion when trust fails. Systematically, trust seems to have value only when it is an expensive business to keep up. Trust is the end product and like the flowers in bloom, we can enjoy them while they are present, but it cannot be counted on without constant attention and prudence to keep it in the culture of caring.