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One of the most effective tools for building a culture of trust is simply saying, “I trust you to do the right thing.” Backing those words with action shows people that you’re serious. Larry once had about 40 people reporting to him in a research unit of a major consulting firm. As a manager, he was expected to read and approve all travel and expense forms. Since many of these consultants traveled extensively, this would have meant spending a half-day or more on paperwork each week. This struck him as a tremendous waste of time and energy that did not add any value to his unit. At a group meeting, he told the team that he trusted them to stay at a Marriott rather than a Four Seasons hotel, and that he wasn’t going to dive into their expense reports. He realized that the cost of not trusting the group would be far greater than an infrequent upgrade from coach to business class. This not only gave Larry time to do more worthwhile work, but it added to the group’s social capital.11 They knew they were trusted and proved to be trustworthy over the years.
The Smart Mission
Edward J. Hoffman, Matthew Kohut, and Laurence Prusak
The Golden Rule Doesn't Account for Other's Preferences and Interests
The Golden Rule fails to consider individual differences, particularly in power dynamics. It assumes treating others as we want to be treated is ethical, but ignores the possibility that they may have different preferences based on their unique characteristics and circumstances.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
The golden rule does not adequately take into account these differences, especially of power. People commonly say, why is it ethical to treat others as we would want to be treated? They may be different than us and may want to be treated differently.
The Golden Rule
In Good We Trust
The Self-Reinforcing Stigmatization of Public Spaces (Like Libraries)
Transcript:
Speaker 1
One of the problems we have now is most cities, suburbs, towns in America have public libraries there. There's neighborhood libraries. The building is there. The buildings are generally not updated. They need to have new HVACs. They need new bathrooms. They need new furniture, but a lot of new books. Stomachs still not accessible to people in wheelchairs. There's all kinds of problems with libraries, just physically because we've under-invested in them. Libraries, unfortunately, have become the place of last resort for everyone who falls through the safety net. If you wake up in the morning in the American city and you don't have a home, you're told to go to a library. If you wake up in the morning and you're suffering from an addiction problem, you need a warm place. They'll send you to a library. If you need to use a bathroom, you'll go to a library. If you don't have child care for your kid, you might send your kid to a library. If you're old and you're alone, you might go to the library. We've used the library to try to solve all these problems that deserve actual treatment. How many times have you talked to someone who said it's basically a homeless shelter? What's happened is we've stigmatized our public spaces because we've done so little to address core problems that we've turned them into spaces of last resort for people who need a Hand. As we do that, we send another message to affluent middle-class Americans, and that is if you want a gathering place, build your own in the private sector.
The Infrastructure of Community
How to Know What's Real
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