The Mechanics of Human Trust
06-Jan-04
It may be illustrative to refer to another field in which trust was deemed necessary, and was built up from scratch. This other field had the advantage of being of obvious economic interest to corporations and governments. It succeeded effectively within just a few years, even before KM research formally acknowledged the trust issue. I'm talking of e-commerce.
Quick, dirty, and according to precedent
The people who wanted to make a business out of the Internet had to generate the requisite amount of trust so transactions could take place. They learnt quickly, they had to, and they didn't much care about theoretical explanations. They built bustling online emporiums which users trust without any face-to-face contact nor deep knowledge of the organisation behind them.
What we see today is that KM practitioners face challenges of the same type: how to get people to part with their knowledge and time, with the understanding that these will be managed properly and that the process will have beneficial consequences for them. All without face-to-face contact or a lot of explanations.
Trust is limited
The first lesson is that trust is limited: e-commerce customers only need to trust the merchants as far as their orders are concerned, nothing more. Merchants therefore have to make sure that customers know that their orders will be served on time and according to specification. This mutual understanding establishes the trust bond between merchants and customers.
Translated to our problem this means that, organisations need to inspire trust in their Knowledge Management, not in their full operations. They need to inspire the belief that their KM tools and programs will do that which they are supposed to do.
Practical ways to generate that trust are by making those results visible (publishing, usage stats) as often as possible; and, of course, making sure that the organisation really lives up to any promises made. If the system offers to cover expenses or reward knowledge object creation, it should never be caught out not doing it.
Familiar environment, familiar terms
In order to project the idea of normality, safety and trustworthiness e-commerce started out trying to reproduce the physical parts of a store (early virtual malls), its design, its distribution. All that proved nonsensical. Generally virtual customers don't walk down categories. They use search facilities. Their expectations are different. They want to make full use of the on-line environment to help them locate their needs. One of the best examples of what customers are entitled to expect from on-line transactions is Apple's iTunes Music Store.
What they do take into account are two things upon which commerce has been built for ages: the brand and the contract. The first one is the graphic incarnation of the corporation, which tells users who they are dealing with (aided by all sorts of certification mechanisms that are happily ignored by all).
The second is no less fundamental. The "contract" or the "terms of service" is the key building stone of trust. It is the legal and binding agreement which the customer knows will be honoured by the merchant, and that can be enforced by authority. It is clearly shown, easily found, rather intelligible, and states that things will be as they should be. That is what enables e-commerce.
Without exception, in a KM environment, the terms of use are also key to generating trust. They must state clearly who owns the contents of the system, what rights that gives them, what rights are retained by authors, who is behind the system and who is ultimately responsible for the use of the knowledge objects deposited in it.
Failure to do that can be survived but creates frictions and mistrust. Worst of all they might, unknowingly, hamper the normal flow of work, as we surely have all experienced in our various enterprises. An example of it, to a certain extent, could be found at the following URL: http://www.knowledgeboard.com/help/help_terms.html
Transparency
Trust has to be earned, and trust can only be given. It is therefore essential that customers, and users alike, know all they would like to know about the party they are to put their trust in.
In an e-business, this amounts to knowing which company or group is behind it, which laws it operates by (Bermuda, Delaware, UK?), and what is its business (you don't want to do business unknowingly with a potential rival).
In a knowledge-sharing environment, it is similarly important to know who is operating the system, what are their goals (what do they expect to get out of the system) and what is the nature of their business. In a multi-organisational environment, not knowing whether one of your rivals has access to the system data is quite enough reason for not feeding the system. Not knowing who profits by your work can make the system untrustworthy.
Plain old usefulness
The reason people ended up trusting e-commerce is because they wanted to. They wanted to profit from the services and prices and convenience the merchants provided.
The same should go for a KM system: it has to be useful and valuable for the members of the organisation. The presentation of the system has to be very plain, simple and clear so that the users will want to get involved with its success and be willing to take the risk of putting their own assets into it.
No amount of incentives does that. Evident usefulness does.
The proof is in the pudding
Ultimately, e-commerce only started succeeding when customers returned not just unscathed but satisfied, satisfied with the trust they gave to their merchants. No amount of planning and investment can substitute the slow build-up of trust through references and word-of-mouth.
Meanwhile, knowing who you deal with, knowing the terms of the deal, and knowing that they are being adhered to, will go a long way toward developing trust.
Miguel CORNEJO CASTRO
miguel@macuarium.com
Miguel Cornejo Castro © 2004 Macuarium Network SL.
Limited reproduction rights given to knowledgeBoard.com for publishing solely on its portal.
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- Miguel Cornejo
- Publisher:
- KnowledgeBoard
- Date:
- 06-Jan-04
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- Human and Social, Human Side of KM
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Working together in a multi-languages & country environment
Hi, I am reacting here to Raniera Gioacchini on 08 March 2004 who asked "Now, imagine having to coordinate and involve a multicultural team. Which meaning will every person give to the words used? How will each person interpret the aim of the team or organization, when facts and figures are not the only ones to count? "
Making a multi-cultural (15 European countries) & language (10) team work together has actually been my challenging job at least for the last 2 years for a multinational company. It was called Change management activities, but Trust Building would actually have been more appropriate. To start with, we spend a long time telling, discussing and retelling what the aim of the organisation was. After, most time has actually been spent
1) making sure all sides understood what each other truly meant, and then
2) making sure it was actually delivered (this is the fundament for building trust).
Because the end results needs to be obtained under an always-shrinking timeline, the following steps were undertaken.
- Organising face-to-face meetings: it tremendously facilitated it all as it allowed people to know each other a minimum.
- Holding regular (weekly) meetings (or phone conference): it is all about making sure communication channels remain open (both nominally (I reserve some time in my agenda to talk to you) and actually (we discuss the stuff which really matters to BOTH of us)
- Demonstrating the dominant group (and culture and language) was genuinely open to discussion. We did this by organising ad hoc “busting issues” session where everyone could come and present his arguments, on condition the group left with a consensus on the way forward (we were stung here once by culture & language, but it worked extremely well overall).
Actually the biggest obstacle we met were the people leaving the project: this whole exercise of trust building had to be restarted from scratch. It seems a single person is much more trustworthy than any organisation (and the bigger the organisation the less trust it gets to start with).
Hope this sheds some practical insights on this debate.
PYC
E-commerce and Life Ltd.
Yes, Mei-Yu,
‘clear instruction of merchandising and easy contact of customer services will be much more important in this business area’. But why do you say ‘will be’, what is the obstacle to have clear instruction now?
Ran,
you say: ‘Belief as a textvirus…what is a text virus?’ and belief ‘is linked to cultural and personal system’. But who is the creator of the personal system? If person has personal system that is managed from outside (not by this person) and it works against this person making his/her life shorter - this person deals with textvirus problem. So life can be measured (time) by taking into account who and why uses your life. In other words if someone doesn’t check his/her understanding of wording of action he/she can catch a textvirus – a hidden meaning of wording of action. The cultural content gives knowledge for authors of textual viruses what meaning to use. Seems you faced the problem – as you said: ‘When I write “Personally I believe in people and in their actions, not in ads and words written on a website”, I mean results count more than intentions.’
‘Life Ltd.’ takes place when people are used as resources and the authors/managers of this ‘company’ have limited responsibility.
But I asked about how to overcome ‘the measurement monopoly’ in corporate accounting.
onion society
Han,
I’d like to see the slides too, please. I'm curios.
Ran
Life Ltd.??? Don’t know this organization… How many people there? :-)
Hi people,
Nik,
Belief as a textvirus…what is a text virus? (Chris, I read the link u gave, but didn't understand)
I agree ‘belief’ is “accepted as true, often without proof.” Or until next proof. I agree then we tend to see, notice and believe what we want to. It is linked to cultural and personal system.
When I write “Personally I believe in people and in their actions, not in ads and words written on a website”, I mean results count more than intentions.
What is the solution for ‘the measurement monopoly’?
I’ll tell you a story about what I just experienced during the presentation of a state statistical research on women occupation. The research was leading to not-representative image of what was declared in the “title” of the research itself. And I just experienced the people presenting the research (mostly institutional people), recognizing all its limits and evident errors (quantitative and especially qualitative) and, at the same time, getting so upset when I said “I have difficulties, I cannot interpret this research and use it for information. It is not relevant and not representative. I don’t know what to say, after all I heard here from you, if I understood well, we know nothing about women work occupation”. Some of them were really irritated. But at the end of the debate, the technician who had elaborated the data, concluded saying “yes, this research doesn’t make us understand women work and occupation”. Which I interpreted as a “nice and clear move”. Then two persons offered to compare other data and research to get more representative information and a more qualitative research. And that’s another “nice move”.
That’s a good game to play. Use their energy.
So what’s the solution for the “measurement monopoly”? The people themselves. I guess those people there in the debate were already realizing it, but it’s hard to say it and move on (and there’s groupthinking also). Especially because, as you also say, there’s no evident alternative, for the moment. I like to break groupthinking, when I recognize it. Don’t know if it’s a solution, I cannot measure it ;-) but it’s fun…how can you say life is limited? You measured it? ;-)
Ran
query
You almost prposed that the traditional commercial way is more trustworthy than new ways
If so, what do you mean?
As it happens I have at least as high a trust relationship with Amazon and with web-based low-cost air flights than theior more traditional competitors
Frankly I want to see innovation of the best of real and virtual worlds; and I mistrust business plans who make it an either, or
lets have some examples- maybe we are thinking very different contexts; yet it is sad if we are hypothesising that computers can never support better quality relationships than people alone could in days when they were without clued conversational access to customers?
The vitual trend of e-commerce
Due to the common usage and progressive development of telecommunication, e-commerce is getting more popular now. We can often hear that people admire many advantages of e-commerce, but we have to also admit that: we are also getting lazier then before. What we can’t ignore is: it is pretty hard to build trust in e-commerce because it is not the traditional commercial way of doing business. In fact, we are doing business through a piece of machine, a computer. Thus, clear instruction of merchandising and easy contact of customer services will be much more important in this business area. They will be the determinant factors if the company can catch the customer and if it can succeed.
thanks
Han - I'd love to see some slides
Nikolai - yes -on guilty - my apologies, I was using the word sloppily ; whilst adhering to your idea that we should take text virus out of formal communications,
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?maxhits=5&s=3007&dateformat=%25d-%25m-%25Y&d=1&sec=28
I insist its better we chat (even with my slop) than not converse
All- as it happens there's a deeply related thread on whether cultures live their values being conversed here http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=123793&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
Values and belief
Hi
your discussion on values and belief perked up my response mechanism again...
I have created a model of culture - based upon an pre-existing 'onion skin' model that shows the various aspects, but have added another dimension.
From outside to in, the model comprises:
Explicit cultural artefacts - e.g. language, fashion, architecture, etc.
Behaviour - i.e. actions and reactions
Norms - group or team standards.
Values - personal or team shared beliefs (& goals).
Assumptions - basic beliefs we rarely question and alter.
Core Beliefs - the most basic beliefs that we almost never question.
Each of these in my model has different depths of personal association and resistance to change. Obviously (I hope), the depth increases as we progress inwards (otherwise my model fails to be relevant). The model depicts the various aspects as a set on concentric cylinders with increasing height as you progress inward. The idea is that people willingly and easily change the outer layers, but less easily change the layers heading towards core beliefs.
In reality the change in association is more progressive and somewhat irregular. In simple terms the strength of belief varies per person for each aspect.
Hence Raniera, what might be written as an organisation's values is adopted to varying degrees by different people. This is one reason why written values (BTW, I had someone show me an organisation's Core Beliefs recently?!?) often have less meaning than personal values. Each person interprets them a bit differently and has greater or less strength of association with them.
If you want a couple of slides of the model, I can email it separately.
cheers. Han
What is the solution?
Chris,
I did not say ‘guilty’, I said ‘it looks like ... principle’. Now your thought is clear for me. Let’s smile and go ahead. I agree, we need ‘KM as different from old M’ and we discussed a variant at http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=124049&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y.
Raniera,
when I say ‘values don't work’ I mean a problem with ‘belief’- accepted as true, often without proof. Very often people use the word ‘to believe’ and perhaps that means they don’t understand what they deal with … and others can abuse their ‘belief’.
You prove it when say: ‘Personally I believe in people and in their actions, not in ads and words written on a website’.
From my practice I can say that written and real actions have the same content. This content exists in many variants of its understanding but usually people can see only one variant that corresponds with their belief. Unfortunately it turns out illusion and an unexpected variant really acts as textvirus (belief could be a textvirus too). That is why I prefer ‘understanding of variants’ and personal KM first of all – organizations are people.
OK. Values come from people (or values are people) and we face as Chris said: ‘the measurement monopoly’.
What is the solution:
1) to spend time convincing monopolists to lose the monopoly (I agree life is limited)
OR
2) maybe you (and other people) can see another solution?
values are people
values come from people.
e.g. yesterday I was reading the values of a large organization and they were: innovation, creativity, sustainable development, sustainable ecological impact, economic growth linked to social evolution, etc.
Who's the author of these values, you ask.
I guess it's the people. Of course, the people have a cost. And this cost must also be sustainable.
Then you say- who is personally responsible when values don't work?
People are personally responsible for LIVING the values they say to believe in.
If they don't live them they get no credit from other people, no matter how much money the organization spends in advertizing.
Personally I believe in people and in their actions, not in ads and words written on a website.
But what do you mean exactly when you say "when values don't work"?
Groucho Marx once said: "These are my values, if you don't like them, I have others"
;-)
ran
PS: values can be learnt
not guilty nikolai
The goal is to get organisations to understand both:
- what value muliplies because it is governed systemically through trust connections of human relationships
-and what value adds because it can be modelled by seprating the counting the transactions of lifeless things (the Edvinnson metaphor for tangible accounting)
Unfortunately, the measurement monopoly that rules corporations hasnt changed in 100 years in enforcing separability/extraction and treating all people (knowledge) as costs. While you live in a world where big decisions are made by people who only know how to add and subtract bottom lines, (and have no respect for the value multipliers that people bring) it is necessary to champion multiplcation - especially as most of the future's value, must human learning and most purpsoe is a copounding and non-zero sum game. If it wasn't we would need KM as different from old M - would we?
Let’s make the problem clear
Hi Raniera,
Tell me please where do values come from (?) if, as you say, ‘You cannot create and consume a “value”, you can only share it and spread it (or keep it and lose it)’.
If values are static/was defined in the past:
- who is their author,
- how can we change things or KM is only a sort of fiction,
- who is personally responsible when values don’t work?
Chris,
why do you divide money and other things about knowledge issue? It looks like ‘divide and rule’ principle. Let’s integrate things!
a lateral inquiry
Ran
Your post (and some other stuff in my inbox) stimulated a lateral idea- why dont we survey what are THE CONTEXTS of the most important work in world and primary KM to practice in each context ?
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=125277&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
My idea for the next month at this thread is to see if anyone posts, and I'll edit the scoreboard of what contexts people vote as biggest
Let's see which of these 2 opposite cases members believe in:
-all knowledge sharing revolves round money and commercial products
-knowledge sharing has as much to do with multiplying human education and wider ways of judging the lot of our human race at every locality of the globe
who has interest in sharing?
Hi Nikolai,
we can share ideas and values, without having interest in them, e.g. I can share the idea of better salaries for cleaners, even if I’m not a cleaner and none of my friends/relatives are. We cannot create and consume ideas and values: they are not in the mainstream business logic of creator vs consumer. This logic is apparently dualistic: from one side people who create (and their right to get something in exchange), on the other side people who consume, and their duty to give something in exchange of what they are consuming. I agree money is a common means of exchange (even if not the only one; access, visibility are others). In any case, things creators and things consumers are on the same level, whatever means they chose to use for their exchanges: they are linked to one another, they are peers. But I wonder who else is in the system? Who is living only on interest, without creating or consuming? Whose interest are you really working for? Those people are not peers. Therefore, why should I do their interest?
I’ll tell you more. Lots of people are reducing consume because of economical recession; lots of people are creating less, for the same reason. Some are moving to other potential “markets”, where to create again the system creator vs consumer vs ??? Some are trying to “sell” ideas and values as if they were things (bound to fail!). Some are trying to create a new system.
I agree with you “the current loan-credit financial system based on the interest of the elite is out of date and generates inequality (the value of one quantity or expression is not equal to another)”. Interest, as you say is something that grows on money. What grows on ideas?
Now we’re talking about values, intangibles, ethics…ok, these are in people, not in goods. So, how can we apply the same system with these? You cannot create and consume a “value”, you can only share it and spread it (or keep it and lose it). Who has interest in this? I still cannot answer…but I’m letting words dance in my mind.
Ran
Business without interest?
Raniera,
you are saying: ‘I'm trying to delete the word "interest/interested" from my vocabulary. Where we usually would say "I'm interested in it", I want to say "I share it". Reprogramming the language we speak is very effective on our behavior (NLP was right). And it's contagoius...you read Mind Virus by Richard Brodie?'
Could you explain how to run business without the word ‘interest’ – for example if to understand:
- ‘interest’ as ‘money paid for the use of credit or borrowed money’;
- ‘credit’ as ‘reputation for trustworthiness in paying debts’ or ‘a sum of money or equivalent purchasing power, available for a person's use’.
What is the EQUAL (having identical rights) if to understand ‘to share’ as ‘to join with another or others in the use of something’ – i.e. what those who create ‘something’ can get in exchange when others consume (use) this ‘something’?
I think money is about communication too, also I think that the current loan-credit financial system based on the interest of the elite is out of date and generates inequality (the value of one quantity or expression is not equal to another).
But what is your suggestion for business if to delete the word ‘interest’?
Thanks.
condivisione
by the way, to share in Italian is condividere, that means to divide with (dividere con) and comes from Latin communicare (to communicate).
ciao
Alfa Generation
Ciao people of the earth, hi Chris.
At first I didn't understand well, then I took time and "let words dance" in my mind. Now it's clear and I basically share your vision of "a chain of trust".
I couldn't enter http://www.enetrpriseforall.info
If I understood well, I think I'm already facilitating some people here to organize similar events. I'll try to enter the site again to get more inspiration. The word REGENERATION is exactly what we want. In the radio I'm now we are the ALFA GENERATION, or second generation of Rete Alfa (the name of our radio, it means Alfa Net). One of our program is called New Generation. I think Regeneration conveys the idea of circularity and no fracture (different from old vs new, first vs second, life vs death, man vs woman that are a dualistic system).
I also share http://www.simpol.org
I'm taking my time to "let words dance" before deciding. Meanwhile, I'll talk about it here.
I'm trying to delete the word "interest/interested" from my vocabulary. Where we usually would say "I'm interested in it", I want to say "I share it". Reprogramming the language we speak is very effective on our behavior (NLP was right). And it's contagoius...you read Mind Virus by Richard Brodie?
ciao
ho!
Intriguing as this is, what really opened my eyes was a briefing 50 youth gave me last saturday week as to how they are trialling a community in London using logics very similar to these - way to go youth!
Assessments of others
(here (x) is a variable, as in mathematics)
Each member of the network can make statements about people he (or she) knows (and should at least make one such positive statement, in order to allow transmission of his capabilities, as will become clear) - he may choose the members of this list freely. About each member "x" on the list, he will indicate whether he considers (x) honest or not and whether he trusts (x) or not, not only personally, but most of all in terms of (x)'s respect for others and the commonwealth; and whether he considers (x) reliable and responsible in (x)'s activities. He will also indicate if he trusts (x)'s assessments of others (positively, negatively, or neutrally - neutrally signifying an absence of opinion in order to avoid conflict). Everyone is responsible for his own statements, and if he doesn't have a clear and certain opinion about someone of interest to the community (of use to the commonwealth), he should abstain from any assessment rather than risking a mistake.
Consequently, the list given by a member can usually be reduced to two or three people of whom he has a definite opinion. This opinion can comprise standard options (multiple nuances and possible additional information within a list), processable by computer, but also containing comments intended for specialists (or maybe lay people) who will undertake the human aspects of data processing.
The logic is this:
- If x is honest and x says that y is honest then probably y is honest
- If x is honest and x says that y is dishonest then probably y is dishonest
Discrediting
One can expect that any two honest individuals in such a world will be connected to each other by chains of trust, i.e. that one declares one's trust in A, who declares his trust in B, who declares his trust in C, who (...) who declares his trust in the other. It will be said that an individual is discredited if no chain of trust reaches from honest people to him, and if at least one honest person has declared
him dishonest
more theory http://spoirier.lautre.net/trick.html
han what do you mean?
Of course honesty can be clarified
all the leading religions of the world write up great stories on what has been called the golden rule (relationship reciprocity) - do unto other what you would like them to do unto you- where you meet in communities know (action learn) faith, hope and love and why love is the greatest of these 3. I am sure everyone has a similar text albeit often worded to associate with a different bible of stories.
The contexts of translating that into systems over time may be complex, the idea of honesty is simple to define. Anyone who acts as a parent has to believe so.
ideas
Raniera, your post provokes various ideas in my mind; if you see one that you would like more detail on say
1) in the uk there is a term regeneration (eg I participated at one regenration event of http://www.enetrpriseforall.info which involves an interesting mix of the people's views, a leading bank's views, and the UK government (Treasury) listening!);
generally the idea regeneration means in cities or other regions where all sorts of different racial groups have mixed together and the area has a poor infrastructure, how do we get these people to see common grassroots interest in getting along and improving the whole place; over and over people say they need spaces where they can meet each other, have time to understand; sometimes these spaces are created by food festivals or something humanly experiential where the diversity actually brings the enjoyment which opens space for relationships of trust across different peoples; over and over we find that modern life (supermarkets, big businesses etc) in cities has destroyed a lot of these social capital communion centres for starting to respect each other
2) the more difficult 1) is the more finding a group eg youth who will take on convening open space is the only solution I know to work; that's because open space has now been used 50000 times in the last 25 years and is based on the communing respects of hope, faith, love of each other as well as giving everyone who particuipates equality of raising issues
3) Experimenting in every simple conversational way, I believe we need to socially network emerging hubs for new action locally and internationally; by new action I mean grouops who are asembling an idea that can change the usual types of organsiations; I do not believe that all solutions of the kind of problems you mention are going to come from the estanblished typologies of government, corporate , NGO- so who are these new groups; locally I am sure you can make your own list; globally I would love to hear people's views but for example http://www.simpol.org is one and if anyone wants to start a dialogue as to how to start simpol in Italy- let me put in you direct contact with the open human source of Simpol; ditto if anyone is coming from a similar perspective to Rianiera in another country. chris wcbn007@easynet.co.uk
trust reinforce trust
Hi people of the earth :-)
Ok, let’s start from integrity and equity.
I agree with Han when u say, it is related to cultural conventions, which are so different moving from country to country (even from region to region) – and to the clarity of the event (and to the language u speak).
I live in North-Eastern Italy, we are receiving lots of people coming fron southern Italy and lots of Non-European citizens and we’re learning to merge different ethics and languages. It’s so difficult sometimes. Visiting a country and noticing that they have “different values” is one thing (it’s recognizing we and them/others); having to share the same place day after day and to co-evolve with different values is another thing (it’s recognizing there’s no “other”, there’s only “us” and no more place to “expand our world or vision of the world”).
Then Equity. It has to do with expectations. That are often tacit or given for granted.
Not trusting each other was a common attitude in my country, at the point that those who chose trust were said to be “stupid” (at least “naïf”) and not trusted, consequently. Those who chose trust then, in the long run, were expecting nothing more from others, thus being demotivated. Or changing their vision and making a different choice for the future (to survive). We, younger generations are obliged to make different choices if we want to survive.
“Value is perception subjective, influenced by culture. But even though, there is core part where every body agree at all point of time”, sorry Vrajlal, I can’t agree with that: everybody who?
Honesty and trust are convenient conventions for “tribe” or "species" survival.
So, that’s how I came to think that no-one can define honesty, when we speak different languages and (consequently) experience different realities. But then I’m still here talking about it and trying to live it ;-)
Trust in full..
I do not agree that trust is limited to product, in fact it should be in full operation. creating trust consumes resources and hence it has a cost, trust in product and operation pays to organisation. Builded trust, reputation require less marketing expenses. Some one defined honesty and trust in its dictionery meaning. It is more than that. Even as some one rightly mentioned that it is subjective and differs spatial and in time, even in person. Value is perception subjective, influenced by culture. But even though, there is core part where every body agree at all point of time. Radford considered this part of honesty as STATIC HONESTY. Honesty can be viewed as EQUITY. What I expect from others, I have to give same, nothing less. Trust building is not merely required to earn more, but to preserve and improve cultural value too. It is social responsibility of any organisation to upheld trust and honesty.
Honesty
Hi Raniera
you don't honestly think anyone can define honesty do you? Sorry ;-)
In Dictionary.com, it provides:
# The quality or condition of being honest; integrity.
# Truthfulness; sincerity: in all honesty.
# Archaic. Chastity.
# Botany. A European plant (Lunaria annua) cultivated for its fragrant purplish flowers and round, flat, papery, silver-white seedpods.
Ignoring the archaic and botanic definitions, I still have problems....
The problem is that it is related to ethics and cultural norms and values. This varies by nation/region/organizations etc..
It also depends upon the clarity of the event/matter that requires human judgement - what happens when there are many possible interpretations?
The integrity and sincerity values mentioned in the dictionary are very culturally dependent - in some countries if your friend is in trouble, being sincere means supporting your friend, even if his/her perceived version of events is different to all other observers of that event. The more trouble they are in, the more you should support them.
In some countries, one would avoid commenting, while in other countries you would give your version of events which may create problems for the (former?) friend. One could see this as an example of 'tribal' behaviour - you support members of your tribe.
As I have travelled around the world (as limited as that is), I have observed many different interpretations of honest behaviour.
So sorry - my answer is that there is no (consistent) answer :-)
best regards
Han
Re
Raniera,
the same problem takes place in mono cultural teams too (when people use native language) because words usually have various meanings. But the quantity of meanings is limited and gives opportunity to ask people what meaning they really use when communicate. This approach works at my Laboratory of textual viruses http://www.tvl.ton.net.ru
for finding risks in textual documents and their normalization, but I work with Russian texts.
When you translate texts and can not ask authors what the meaning they use the choice of the meaning is yours. I think this is the reason for author of the translation to take out a copyright on the translation.
please define honesty
I just scanned all the comments (didn't have time to read all of them). So, maybe I'm going to say something already said before. Or maybe this is not the right thread...anyway, I've been working on trust all of my life, so...
I don't usually trust large organizations.
I have the feeling that it is difficult for people to really share the same aim there.
I also have doubts on the meaning of honesty.
Think about point of views that change with time, age, and the rest of people' identity.
Someone define honesty please.
I sometimes work in translation and have learned a lot from this work. When we deal with different cultures (especially non-Western), translators really have difficulties in being "honest". The translated word loses its original meaning and change. In Italian language, traduttore (translator) sounds similar to traditore (betrayer), and this really gives the strong feeling to how difficult is to be faithful to original meaning.
Now, imagine having to coordinate and involve a multicultural team. Which meaning will every person give to the words used? How will each person interpret the aim of the team or organization, when facts and figures are not the only ones to count?
My point is not ethical, but purely linguistic and cultural.
Shall we need to learn to communicate beyond (or despite) words to create a base for trust?
That's all.
and please, define honesty, I really need that.
Raniera
looking deeper
I was intereted in what the Time article didnt say about who or what has been the cause of social decay of trust
Three I would include in this background are:
the management culture of big business
the culture and double loop non-transparencies of big governments - do the Europan people understand how their name is being used to ruin the poor world in GATTS negotiations?
and especially in the US the big mass media
doubtless there are others; but if you want to turn The System round that is causing inhuman ways of relating to each other then why not assume each of these types of organisation is currently guilty of compounding distrust unless it can transparently show us how its context is trustworthy
Is this not a big challenge for knwoledge management to intervene in. Where do we find discussions of how to intervene:
NEW KM http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=122546&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
OPEN SPACE http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?forum=1&topic=66&comment=2029
Critical Therapy http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=122949&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
Separating doing & knowing http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=123353&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
and where else
Trust: the more we talk about it, the less I see it... What a strange world!!!
I had thought of posting the following in the "Quotes" thread of the H-SIG. However it could be useful to archive it in this thread about "trust".
Trust is the bedrock upon which social and economic exchange is built. Where trust is absent, suspicion rules; you deal only with those you know firsthand, which atomizes society and diminishes the range of human experience.
The Uses of Civility
How to deconstruct the strange case of Janet Jackson's breast
by Michael Eliott
TIME columnist
Monday, Feb. 09, 2004
http://www.time.com/time/columnist/elliott/article/0,9565,589086,00.html?cnn=yes
It could also inspire a few other comments from our readers!
Hi-Lo Trust
Hi Chris
my tuppennies worth....
Hi-trust organisations where people share values, norms, power, knowledge, they value purposeful behaviours (positive politics) and act/react positively to internal and external environment changes.
VERSUS
Low-trust organisations where lots of negative politics (destructive, obstructive and defensive power games/activities) are played between people, or there is a lack of required actions/sharing.
----------------------
Crucially when an error is made or the environment changes, nobody has the courage to pass this knowledge up the organisation, nor would such messengers be rewarded.
Hi-Trust organisations allow people to contribute or aks others to contribute without a need to constantly check that other are 'doing the right thing'.
SME agol
Hi Jacques
I can't find my comments about SMEs in the thread (you can't trust anyone these days.... LOL!) but from memory I was referring to the EU FP6 project proposal in which negotiating in dynamic networks was one research theme.
There are several aspects that we were interested in researching between SMEs and including micro-enterprises [mMEs] (which I think of as less than 5 people) when trying to establish cooperation with other enterprises.
1. Large enterprises tend to dictate terms, SMEs and mMEs are rarely so lucky.
2. Large enterprises use contract/legal specialists to make ageements, SMEs and mMEs don't have these resources.
3. mMEs and to a lesser extent SMEs are resource bound for many tasks and cannot research alternative arrangements and partners.
4. mMEs and SMEs have little power to change the terms of an agreement with more powerful and larger (potential) partners.
Internally, SMEs and mMEs often do not have formal structures and detailed roles for the people (defined pattern of power sharing), so senior managers/owners can more easily over-rule or change decisions (for better, for worse..). If communications are good, then this may not a problem, if communications are bad, this causes a lot of stress to the 'downtrodden' (those without the power to take decisions and implement them).
In SMEs such as consulting firms when the staff are dispersed to client sites (so limited opportunity to engage in informal communication) people tend not to interact and communicate enough to build trust (and lots of other KM issues). So co-location (or the opposite) is an important factor for opportunities to build trust.
Relying upon contractural basis for trust does not work within an organisation, it is a substitute for trust between organisations (as our thread initiator mentions).
Opposite side of this argument:
A. When power sharing is really implemented within a team then trust can become a powerful motivator. In a previous firm I implemented a rotating departmental chairmanship amongst my staff for our monthly meetings. The chair could direct anyone to do tasks for the next meeting, so of course I was given several tasks to do. The cynics expected the idea of rotating chairmanship to fail, but when I did what was asked they realised I was serious and their level of trust increased dramatically as they realised they had real power. When I moved to Sweden, the team were given (by the CEO) a new department head who did not believe in these meetings. The team made a decision to continue the meetings without their boss, who gave in after 6 months and joined the meetings!!
My point here is that trust and power have to balance in some manner, if there is no balance then trust can evaporate quickly.
Communication can act as a moderator when there is unequal/inconsistent power sharing but not as a substitute for trust.
Hmmm, enough rambling from smeagol.....
organisational typologies
We are developing the conversational idea that:
-we all spend our lifetimes serving and being served by organisations
-perhaps we need to make a typology of the stark contrasts we can choose between in organisations, and only then clarify which knowledge method works for which typology
would anyone passionate about trust like to help me re-word the trust-typology? Provisional wording :
Hi-trust organisations where people share the most vital news and value purposeful behaviours
VERSUS
Low-trust organisations where lots of politics is played between people. Crucially when an error is made or the environment changes, nobody has the courage to pass this knowledge up the organisation, nor would such messengers be rewarded.
Thread discussing further typologies is http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=122616&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
Thanks Han van Loon
Thanks Han van Loon for the message you posted 18 January.
Your contribution is quite refreshing and realistic, in particular since it is the perspective of someone in charge of KM in the private sector. So it means you bring more to the subject than theoretical speculations.
The thing one might not perfectly understand is why trust would be more difficult to establish in a small or medium enterprise than in a big or gigantic multinational company. It looks counter-intuitive. Could you enlarge on the theme, please?
But then are you talking of the trust "you" and the CEOs place in the work-force, or are you talking of the trust the workers are ready to put in the "boss" and the board of directors?
It could be that you have arisen a rich question here.
Jacques
time & trust
yes researchers have been finding lots of connections between t&T
at http://www.simplerwork.com, Bill Jensen has found that all knowledge workers are getting twice as much information passing through them every 3 years; unless the organisation can help them select what matters (or permit them more time to self-organise), trust me we'll drown in info
at claremont, professors have found that joy of accomplishment is the number 1 sustainer of human capital - organising this properly is more important than monetary rewards; this goes to time as the one finite resource we all have
I wonder what your definition of slavery is; perhaps never having any free time nor access to organisations with transparent purposes to make the most of your unique talents; as the net develops this also goes to the transparency of agents and the communal connections they search for you
trust and time are very close bedfelows in the systemic way of life and nature of organisation-yet managers are not accountable for burning people's time relative to money; this is very odd as the intangible age increasingly makes time capital at least as vital as finacial capital- do you want to work in an organisation where everyone is left to reinvent the wheel over and over? or one where great practical ideas are shared systemically and people are rewarded when they save someone else's time?
Late to the table again!
I love knowledgeboard sometimes. You stop lurking for a bit and then all of a sudden you find a topic like this that really gets the fires burning! In fact I think the last thread I posted in dealt with the nature of human (and therefore organisational) trust. In some ways I'm quite "Ho Hum" about the whole thing. Let me qualify that. If you speak to anyone in any management position today and ask them "is trust important?" they'll nod their head officiously and agree whole heartedly. When you ask them "why?" you'll get lots of different answers centered around some key themes. Notably, that trust bonds the manager and employee together almost symbiotically.
Trust is a feeling. Hard to quantify at the best of times and extremely tough to qualify because *STOP PRESS* people think and feel differently. There are some very academically minded individuals on these boards and I'm sure that the complex analysis of what human trust is and how it develops has been and is being done.
In the work place I'd make one very basic observation. Organisational trust is difficult to engender in small to medium enterprises simply because people do not spend enough time with one another. Whist the rise in collaborative technology and email is unsuprising and incredibly useful, human beings need to spend time with other human beings in order to evaluate them properly. I raised the issue at a recent easyJet away day. I don't have accountability for organisational workplace culture but, both as knowledge manager and as a rower of the boat, I have an input. For me it's the most important thing. Fortunately our work place culture is excellent and supports learning, development and awareness. So I don't have to shout and stamp my feet very much. At our away day I knew three people very well, three people less well and three people hardly at all. For me to trust someone, I need to know some basic things about them. I need to feel that they know what they're talking about. I need to know that they are open to other ways of thinking. I need to know that they can deliver what they say they can deliver. Let's not mistake trust for leadership or a system of belief - I'd say trust was an integral part of those concepts. For me to trust them, I need to be with them, to hear them speak, to read their body langauge. I want to KNOW them.
The old addage is that Trust is earned. If it is earned then it can also be lost or broken and then rebuilt.
Not just B2C
Hi, Han,
thanks. I agree with your precison, if I understand your use of acronyms :-). When using B2C I only refer to e-business between companies and consumers (online retailing). It is small by comparison with normal retailing, and by comparison with online wholesaling (B2B).
This is not only due to a matter of trust :-), since online access, online offer, convenience and habit do affect e-sales.
As an online-intermediated exchange of valuable assets, done (on one side at least) by individuals, B2C has a strong parallel with KM. Still e-business is not just about B2C :-), but mostly about B2B. This raises a couple of specific parallels:
- Trust-building through familiar measures. Companies are even more dependent than individuals on clear, well-crafted terms and contracts before trading online: the effects and obligatios created from posting a price in an exchange need to be very clear; the binding effect of an email needs to have legal backing.
- Inter-company or virtual-company KM needs to take that into account. Think of the difficulties of sharing sensitive information within an industry collaboration initiative (for instance), or any partnership, unless the ownership and allowed usage of the exchanged information is well established and agreed upon: it's not just enough to satisfy participants, you need to satisfy the companies they work for. In virtual companies the problem is the same: the roles and rights of every participant need to be very clear, or the component companies won't allow knowledge exchange.
It happens even within organizations, across divisions, that managers won't allow knowledge exchange when they don't trust that it will be used in ways they approve of. And that can only be assured by the equivalent to contracts: company rules, regulations and (clear, consistent) policy.
Best regards,
Miguel
Landscape of Trust isnt truly about quick, dirty or precedent
I was editing this extract for another space, when the "euro dropped". Anyone talking about trust in a specialist area of execution is likely to be talking across purposes with the widest concerns on how trust changes the valuation of everything human, unless we can conversationally discuss the big picture until most of the landscape of trust is at least recogised as existing, however you construe its immediate import. So some may find this extract valuable since it reports on well over 500 experts' views from our transparency networks of excellence at http://www.valuetrue.com.
Trustworthy owners help an organisation’s proactive investment in the next big social change that is ‘compounding all’ around it. To achieve this the system dynamics of compound change and the big change diffusing its way through every element of society needs to be iteratively identified. Future trend experts have been suggesting for 2 decades that a once in several centuries change is evolving – the transparency dynamics of networking will turn out to have more revolutionary impacts on society and hence its big organisations as institutions of society than any previous invention including the steam engine which caused society’s industrial age revolution. To understand why transparency of networking is compounding as a change of unparalleled human experience it is necessary to connect many subsidiary aspects, such as:
-The medium of digital is different from writing on paper or talking in the ether
(nothing’s wholly private – don’t criticise unless you are happy for that to be published everywhere; don’t destroy another's passion unless you are happy for that to be known everywhere- (which are your favourite references? Mine include Boone’s managing interactively; Gates- make sure bad news travels up faster than it travels anywhere else!)
-Networking connects every dynamic and challenge associated with globalisation and worldwide local responsibilities (no company can now be sustained as an island without partners both business and social)
-Valuation of the majority of most big companies assets has changed from being tangible to overwhelmingly intangible. Intangible was better understood when the word goodwill was more common because its system dynamic is primarily about how the whole future relationships are compounding not how the past can be scored and balanced in separate transactional parts. See http:/www.euintangibles.net
-A company can be brought down by wholly losing trust of any one stakeholder. None of these trust interactions are wholly command and control any more. Think first of business partners- they need your openness on key truths to survive and vice versa so do you. Swissair was bankrupted by a non-transparent partner
Trust and eCommerce
Hi Miguel
I like your article but one little point - the amount of eCommerce for B2C (last time I checked) was less than 1% of the total B2C commerce in the US (probably the leading country in B2C). So there is still a long way to go before the trust issue is solved for the majority of people.
Han
How to organise the triangle of distrust
The Dynamic Organisational Triangle of Distrust
Imagine this: a triangle of organisational architecture whose apexes are labelled:
1.Hierarchy
2.Self-Organise
3.Network Open (with organisational partners)
Lemma 1: Unless open proof is available to the contrary most organisations today are governed in such a way as to spin and compound distrust between these apexes. This wasn’t knowingly planned this way; it’s just –as reported by Eu intangibles research http://www.euintangibles.net that the service, knowledge and networked economy have creeped up for a few decades on all measurable aspects of organisational systems and the mathematicians (ie accountants, economists, rational strategists) haven’t moved much from the industrial management age neatly summarised in the BSI standards document on KM and culture http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=121482&d=1&h=417&f=418&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y by the following sentence: When you're managing subordinates who know how to do what they're doing better than you, you don't manage what they do, but manage the way they interact".
Trust Triangle Community Exercise 1:
What is that each apex must transparently understand and measurably act on to start spinning trust instead of distrust
My first responses are (would love to hear yours)
1. If we value having knowledge workers we must increase the self-organising systems organised for them. If we value partners, we need to understand how to blend open collaboration with closed competition starting from the top then all the way down then all the way round in terms of knowledge-sharing and behavioural loops.
3 Before we enter partnerships, part of our due diligence should test how open the knowledge practices of a candidate partner are. There must be an openness or transparency IQ test that enables us to rule out partnering an organisation that might appear perfect in every other business criteria but not on open networking
2 If our hierarchy is to make investments that value knowledge work and network partners then there must be a way of appraising whether they lead this. Why wouldn’t they want to join in the same trust or emotional IQ test that we would gladly take in open response mode if they would too. We also need to which measures come first in this organisation’s system and have a fearless and continuing open communal discussion on this since all other cultural aspects of Km gravitate here.
awesome
I could spend a whole day posting why this bookmark is awesome, and all about the architecture of human hope for virtual community and winning back lost trust spaces-but may the bookmark an extract suffice for those who will...Jan 16 blog at http://smartpei.typepad.com/robert_patersons_weblog/
The Death of the "Third Place" and the Birth of Vitual Community
Why is virtual community becoming so important? Maybe this piece talking about Ray Oldenburg gives us a clue.
"Ray Oldenburg believes that the demise of community can be blamed upon the loss of what he calls the "Great Good Place ." Oldenburg's Great Good Place is the third place which is important to us in our everyday lives
after home and work. In this third place, we meet members of our community on neutral ground, leaving possible divisions such as class or industrial rank at the door in the spirit of inclusion rather than exclusivity.
These third places are described by Oldenburg as "the core settings of informal public life". (Oldenburg, 16) As the pub, church, and other free or inexpensive local
third places have disappeared, for many of us the feeling that community is lacking has increased. Third places, according to Oldenburg, are necessary for
community to arise. They are places where members of a community interact with others and come to know the ties which they have in common. (Oldenburg, xxiii & 72)
Looking at the definition of community used in this paper, it is clear that the existence of the third place is necessary for the building of community.
Oldenburg notes that cities of the Western world have seen a decline of such third places. This is especially true in America, where most of the population lives in
suburbs, far from within walking distance to a shops and businesses, a local pub or coffee shop, or other community centres which bring populations together. In the words of Oldenburg, "Houses alone do not a community
make, and the typical subdivision proved hostile to the emergence of any structure or space utilisation beyond
the uniform houses and streets that characterised it.
(Oldenburg, 4) Or, as Richard Goodwin complained, in the suburbs "there is virtual no place where neighbours can
anticipate unplanned meetings - no pub or corner store or park." ( Richard N. Goodwin, "The American
Condition," The New Yorker (28 January, 1974), 38 ) In
fact, it has been demonstrated that even the
architecture of our cities discourages free association amongst members of the community ( Davis, Harvey ).
Because of the lack of third places ...the educated are flocking to new social formation called the virtual community. Howard Rheingold argues that the development
of virtual communities is "in part a response to the hunger for community that has followed the disintegration of traditional communities around the world." (418)
platinum rule
Thanks for your vitalsmarts reference Chris. I especially liked this quote:
"So here’s the take-away. When it comes to offering rewards, we need to follow the “platinum rule” (or actually understand the golden rule). That is, we need to give unto others what they would have us give unto themselves. So, when you’re looking to select something special to honor a person for his or her excellence, start with what he or she might enjoy."
light relief anyone?
Do com e and share in the marshmallow massacre
http://www.vitalsmarts.com/KerryingOn/Article.php
- a sort of rights of passage to any full frontal trust community
Thought of the Month:
4) FAST GUIDE: THE AGE OF THE INDIVIDUAL
“Demand is merely a reflection of millions and millions of individual decisions. And market forces are the most powerful faith of our times…Choices that once converged in the age of collectivism are now diverging.
Preferences are also increasingly personal. The compromise is on the verge of extinction. Average customers or normal colleagues are on the list of endangered species. From freedom follows fragmentation…
Companies are getting the message. The new top-of-the-line Volkswagen Phaeton comes with individualised climate zones. The driver may be in the desert, while the passengers are in Patagonia. You decide.
Unit-linked savings enable us to be our own personal investment managers. Soon we may have ‘personalized medicine’ where each patient will receive individualized treatment based on genetically-determined drug responses.
At Spanish conglomerate Mondragon, individual employees have a say in everything from how work is conducted to the selection of the CEO.
Today, everything is individualized. An open world requires open systems and an open architecture.
Pick up a piece of paper and write down the words ‘open’ and ‘transparent’. Put it right next to your bed and look at these words every evening and each morning. Engrave them on your mind. Work against openness at your own peril.”
- Jonas Ridderstrale & Kjell Nordstrom, from their new book, Karaoke Capitalism- via http://www.ecustomerserviceworld.com/newsletter.asp
what is trustworthy web conversation?
Reminded of a theme have had to rehearse (with quite hostile managers) over 50 times the first 10 years of practicising virtual communications and community and networking
You can make the most of virtual correspondence if you openly ask what is the best of talking and writing?. You will make the least if you rush in assuming you know where this miracle conversation form leads. email is not writing and it is not talking it is -and compounds - an entirely different world of human communion. One which my friend at The Economist in 1984 forecast would progressively make the invention of the printing press look like small change economically and socially. And no globalisation would really be happening without email and its digital friends. see ICN's biggest winners http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=121706&d=1&h=417&f=418&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
Sample some startling realisations that come from this motion after iterative debate
1) Some people impose on reading this here text what they historically expect of the written word: tidied up, linear, thought boxed into exact subject areas. They will miss a lot. After all, most people who contribute here are doing it spontaneously (I doubt if anyone has spent an hour composing a post to a 2000 character web box); non-linearly - previous click may have been very lateral, previous real moment before interacting virtually situated in very different contexts; in different time zones; someone reading this thread now will be doing so for the first time all in one, others may have seen it post by post. To assume linearity of any contributor in such an open membership forum as KB and on such a big theme as: what are the basic emotions/actions of human trust? is contra-indicative to what the founders of this space told me they have intended in multiple face to face conversations in Brussels and further afield.
2) Look at something another way. If you had a transcript of every talking conversation you had during the day, a lot of it in retrospect would look very low on content. It is extremely prejudicial to wine that 6 emails in your inbox this day have taken up a lot of your time versus how much real time waste of talk you have done today. At another level, much of your real-talk wasn't a waste but it wasnt content either - it was all part of the socialisation of community or network of people around you- working out who you trust on what to go back to, your tacit way of doing SNA maps and multiplying emotional intelligence flows. If you deny equal rights to parsing what you learn in virtual correspondence then I would suggest that you are not an open user of virtual community and will never enjoy of it what you could. At this point, if you want to imagine what I might mean by that I suggest you have a click to the 12 grades of email usgae at http://www.knowledgeboard.com/community/zones/sig/kmei.html
Patents and copyright
The discussion has moved on since Cindy’s comment about patents and copy right - and, it seems to me, away from the initial issue of trust.
Patents differ from copyright – they are granted to protect the inventor’s idea or process, but the main purpose of a patent is to prevent others from making, using or offering for sale the idea or process. The patent can be freely distributed without requiring permission from the inventor.
As far as copyright issues are concerned, the matter is much more complex. The British Patent office (www.patent.gov.uk) offers the following information:
“Under UK law (the position in other countries may differ) copyright material sent over the Internet or stored on web servers will generally be protected in the same way as material in other media. So anyone wishing to put copyright material on the Internet, or further distribute or download such material that others have placed on the Internet, should ensure that they have the permission of the owners of rights in the material.
Generally, when you put your work on a web site, it is probably a good idea to mark each page of the web site with the international © mark followed by the name of the copyright owner and year of publication. In addition, you could include information on your web site about the extent to which you are content for others to use your copyright material without permission. Although material on a web site is protected by copyright in the same way as material in other media, you should bear in mind that web sites are accessible from all over the world and, if material on your web site is used without your permission, you would generally need to take action for copyright infringement where this use occurs.”
Helen
important clues beyond matters of controling where to say what
I believe this parallel conversation
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=121320&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
raises a very important clue- essentially how can we trust each other if we haven't agreed the term KM?
co-creation with a verbal identity
yes, yes vitaly
What we find today is a repeated pattern: someone coins a new term because they want to scope some area of practice that isnt (at that time) transparently known or done; the first few people who are passionate about that idea put huge efforts into clarifying why the topic has huge human gravity and often needs the coming togheher of interdisciplinary common sense that hasn't previously existed. Then if the term resonates with lots of people, some big business interest then tries to take over the word both claiming its human common sense but perverting its function at least as far as the co-creators of the term , and all their community of interest (often the 100 people that think most like them and are known to them and in a networked age many other hundreds of hundreds)
This seem to be what happened to KM. I am not completely sure who the main co-creators were but why don't people reply to this thread. My understanding is that 3 of the co-creators were:
Peter Drucker, whose spent 80 years on the management link to everything and most of the last 30 on the management link to the knowledge worker which includes many self-organising system terms relevant to service and learning and net economies my family has helped to popularise including entrepreneur (The Coming Entrepreneurial Revolution once translated into Italian by Romano Prodi) , Intrepreneurial now- Karl Wiig and the E100 net
- Nonaka and the Japanese school of KM which has always been transparently embedded in people to people relationship systemisation and unique identity of the organsiation's gravity as having an almost religious honor and grabvity for all leaders to respect
It is clear too that almost all the people who passionately connected their practice beliefs with this people-up systemisation or organisation (and economic and social policies) regard IT industries as having tried to hijack the term KM, aided and abetted by big management consultancies whose only business interest is in hierarchical models of organisation. This is the transparent back-stage on which every KM conversation revolves before it spins; in other words you read anyone's comments in any threads in this space work out whether they are coming from the KM co-creation school or some other side. That is probably also the fundamental first skill of Tacit KM at least from conversations I had when working in Tokyo for a year during the late eighties
Chris, are you with us :-D ?
Hi again,
this matter needs addressing.
It is a basic point of netiquette when using forums (and usually in mail lists too) to open a different thread when shifting the conversation on a different topic.
As Anne suggested, discussing matters that exceed the scope of the article is just the type of thing that merits its own thread. As this KB page says, these are supposed to be "comments" about the article and the ideas in it. Flooding it with general trust subjects, proclamations and links does not fit the bill.
And I regard "attention-grabbing" by climbing on other subject's shoulders as very bad netiquette, or worse.
Chris, I would personally appreciate your opening a new thread wherever you see fit, editing out your last messages here and copying and pasting them over there, so our conversation on basic trust-building mechanisms can continue, if desired.
Also, I have already asked for admin authorisation to do it myself if needed. It is part of a moderator's role in every smooth-working forum, as this should be.
Best regards,
Miguel
Cultural models
Hi
to all of you who asked, I have loaded the cultural models to my website:
www.starswebworx.ch/starsweb
Follow the balls to Improvement Books page.