You could write something like this:
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 ...
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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Notes from excellent-sounding book on trust, KM and systemisation by Maija-Leena Huotari University of Oulu, Finland Mirja Iivonen University of Tampere, Finland
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Chris Macrae
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Benoit Couture
Benoit Couture, 12-Dec-05 @ 10:06AM
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.
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 11-Dec-05 @ 01:12AM
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 ]
Benoit Couture
Benoit Couture, 02-Jul-05 @ 15:29PM
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
Gillian Bush
Gillian Bush, 01-Jul-05 @ 20:37PM
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
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 28-May-05 @ 15:55PM
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
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 31-May-04 @ 11:30AM
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 Emotional Intelligence Macrae
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 18-May-04 @ 16:07PM
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
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 02-Apr-04 @ 16:10PM
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
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 20-Mar-04 @ 09:43AM
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.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 20-Mar-04 @ 09:28AM
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
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 20-Mar-04 @ 09:21AM
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
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 18-Mar-04 @ 11:19AM
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
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 06-Feb-04 @ 15:01PM
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
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 31-Jan-04 @ 17:43PM
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!
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 19-Jan-04 @ 12:12PM
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
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 19-Jan-04 @ 02:19AM
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,...
48%
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, ...
48%
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.
48%
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 ...
46%
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
40%
12 Jan 04
The Art of Value Creation
The definations and responses by Karl-Eric Sveiby
John Moore
John Moore, 12-Jan-04 @ 13:48PM
More on trust
For a continuing and lively debate on trust, cross to Miguel Cornejo's article in the Human Side of KM SIG
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 18-Dec-03 @ 08:56AM
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.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 04-Oct-03 @ 15:35PM
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
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 23-Sep-03 @ 16:36PM
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."
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 11-Sep-03 @ 12:34PM
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
John Moore
John Moore, 04-Sep-03 @ 09:26AM
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.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 02-Aug-03 @ 19:16PM
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
John Moore
John Moore, 28-Jul-03 @ 20:44PM
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.
Nick Kings
Nick Kings, 28-Jul-03 @ 13:16PM
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).
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 26-Jul-03 @ 17:30PM
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.
Helen Baxter
Helen Baxter, 16-Jul-03 @ 10:11AM
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.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 12-Jul-03 @ 13:11PM
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
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 10-Jul-03 @ 15:10PM
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
Cindy Lemcke-Hoong
Cindy Lemcke-Hoong, 10-Jul-03 @ 15:06PM
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
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 10-Jul-03 @ 14:58PM
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 ;)
John Moore
John Moore, 10-Jul-03 @ 14:30PM
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.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 10-Jul-03 @ 12:43PM
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)
Paul Hearn
Paul Hearn, 09-Jul-03 @ 17:30PM
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
John Moore
John Moore, 09-Jul-03 @ 16:26PM
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.
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 09-Jul-03 @ 15:56PM
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.
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 09-Jul-03 @ 15:33PM
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.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 09-Jul-03 @ 15:22PM
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
Paul Hearn
Paul Hearn, 08-Jul-03 @ 19:11PM
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
Nick Kings
Nick Kings, 20-Jun-03 @ 15:53PM
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
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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.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 16-Jun-03 @ 09:16AM
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.
David Bartholomew
David Bartholomew, 30-Apr-03 @ 11:54AM
Trust & society
For anyone interested in a broad perspective on trust, I can recommend Francis Fukuyama's 'Trust: the social virtues and the creation of prosperity' as a fascinating discussion of its role in shaping society and the structures of industry & commerce. (For anyone who hasn't come across him, Fukuyama is probably best known as the author of 'The end of history'; he's an analyst at RAND and a former deputy director of the State Department's policy planning staff.)
Apologies if someone's mentioned this before - I haven't read all the contributions!
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 20-Apr-03 @ 14:15PM
Trust as Navigated by Sveiby
Trust played a pivotal role in a recent K'board chat hosted by Karl Sveiby as can be seen from these extracts:
KM is an oxymoron. K cannot be managed, but we are stuck with the term
Trust is a huge issue, actually not a KM issue per se, but crucial because trust determines the level of
knowledge sharing. Trust has to start from the Top by giving trust and empowering people. Then Trust has to be built from bottom up… in times such as these, trust is tested and those that have built trust can now "cash in" by experiencing less customer loss, less motivational loss, etc
KM definition is a perspective a way of "seeing" the organisation as a value creating system only consisting of intangibles, K being the most important intangible. Within the perspective we then define the activities. The foundation in my thinking is that value is created in the "flows", i.e. when K is converted from one form to another or transferred or created. The KM activities are then based on how to improve the flows. Intangibles are: brand, customer relationships, employee relationships, systems, processes, individual competence, attitudes, collaborative climate, etc
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I see this pattern in the way Sveiby Navigates KM. He has helped position the term intellectual capital in the management lexicon so that those who want to facilitate trust-flow have more permission and that those that want to argue that any unique organisation needs to prioritise some context specific metrics if the company's value and human flows are not to be over-trumped by one-fit all global-accounting numbers can make that case. Through these modes KM may perhaps transform/integrate organisations to be the kind we knowledge (and human discipline) producers and customers would like around us
This is also to invite those who are passionate about trust to join the Angels thread on Intellectual Capital (the nearest RTD I could openly grab in the Angel lexicon) - we are rehearsing how to train up all angels in trust-flow systems at http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=108240&d=1&h=417&f=418&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
Meanwhile I have loaded up a bit more of what Sveiby said here at John Moore's article thread on The Value of Trust -
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/download/2228/gp151.ppt
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 16-Apr-03 @ 13:54PM
Language is a virus
That subject line is pretty much the life's work thesis of William S Burroughs, and what it tells us is that Group Think is the wrong word. The correct word is just Think -- we don't like to admit it, but what passes for thought among people is not a rational construction of syllogisms and deduction, but most often a reflex viral contageon, a transmission of a pattern.
The whole purpose of KM, the 'M' in KM is our effort to impose constraints and provide nutrients to manage our natural penchant to want to believe every line of the National Enquirer (the world's largest circulation weekly newspaper ;)
ICT KB is not unique, it is not even distinguished. There was no ICT during the Tarantellism plague, none during the Bay of Pigs, and there's very little difference between these instances of meme-infection than between the instant spread of SARS hysteria (rooted in an SMS message intended to sell pharmaceuticals) and the attack on Iraq.
That is why, classically, we have two subjects in the study of debate. We have dialectic, and we have rhetoric. A quick glance at any newspaper editorial section will instantly show which of the two is more prevalent ;)
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 15-Apr-03 @ 17:40PM
great points Nick...
...and I would say this is why any conversation worth people's time or emotions or impacting their lives needs moderating, chairing of one of these human faciliation words
That in my view is why pure ICT KM is so dangerous. However many features are built in the technology is never going to help the community get through the dangerous corners.
Now what are these dangerous corners is something I'd like to see a list of. You have just given an example when the content turned frightening, as indeed was merited but needed constructive resolving ways forward
Perhaps indirectly this also points to why we kid ourselves at K'board because however risky the conversation we have in these threads , its largely academic. Its not as far as I know going to directly impact people's safety decisions. Still it can be quite warying. Over at this thread http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=98621&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
I am making a heck of a mess of a row that is brewing between several people
Its the subject that always end up in rows innovation - but then innovation is I believe the final shackle between being accounted for as usual and revolting against the governance system you are in, so that's (at least my self-justification) for never succeeding in moderating a non-messy conversation on innovation
Nick Kings
Nick Kings, 15-Apr-03 @ 15:46PM
Propogation of "groupthink" ?
All,
A colleague just told me about an interesting situation that recently happened in his apartment block. They had setup a real community system, to help the people (who would never normally talk) keep in touch.
Someone posted an article there had been some attacks on the street nearby, which then meant that quite a few people start discussing the whole problem of the fear of being attacked, etc, etc. This, then, escalated the level of paranoia within the whole community, so much so that many people actually stopped using the community software (because it was making them so scared).
OK.
My question is: has anyone looked at the problem of the propogation of rumours (or bad information) with community software? Has anyone investigated the problem of accelerated groupthink?
My concern with trust/ community/ on-line/ sharing is that there is an implicit "oh this is alright feeling". My concern is that a group can easily become blinded and too trusting of internal member ideas, and easily make bad decisions faster.
Just wondering :-) You can tell when I need to go raid the chocolate machine, can't you?
Nick
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 07-Apr-03 @ 15:11PM
Nonlinear Trust
Having been in my share of both, I don't think I could weigh one against the other. I've been in orgs with no cohesive vision and seen them succeed feeding off the frictions of the counter viewpoints because they found a way to use it. The older I get, the more I find "time and chance happeneth to them all".
Another strong counter example is the military. Having been in the armed forces, I know the enlisted levels have great distrust of the middle layers above them, yet will do whatever is asked to the best of their ability -- the common vision is irrelevent in terms of the task, although there is the common vision of the military acceptance of duty.
Another observation: Is trust in these levels of interactions non-linear? We like to trust ourselves completely (too much so as gestalt and neuropsychology points out) we trust our close group sometimes even more, we then start to trust less as we move out into clusters of groups (garden club doesn't trust the community hall who manage their space) and by the time we get to us vs Exxon, there's almost zero, but then we get to the level of state, religion etc and we return to an almost tacit trust, we're back to Christmas being victorian.
I think it has to do with same-information and same-consensus due to viral transmission. Small clusters re-inforce their membership, but nothing comes in the back door and influences other the group consensus, and because of corporate NDAs and firewalls, the banning of information flow between companies almost guarantees one not being infected by the same consensus memes as the other. Then at the top level of religion and state, everyone you meet is constantly bombarded with memes to conform their consensus, and that global agreement makes us identify with our fellows and 'trust' them.
John Moore
John Moore, 07-Apr-03 @ 14:49PM
Trust as context for strategy
Chris M has written "In those days we concluded something comes before any company having a strategy. That is communal passion for the context. I think its a pity that leadership temas have so many expert advisers who seem to short-cut the fundamental human climates that are needed before all the plans etc are worth more than the bits of paper they typed on"
I 100% agree with that. I think it's a powerful insight into why so much empty conceptual nonsense that passes for strategy is doomed to fail. I believe that good human relationships must be created if good strategies are going to be made.
Mark Cole
Mark Cole, 07-Apr-03 @ 11:57AM
Seminar on Trust
I've had this in my diary for some time but only today, in recognising that a trip to Cardiff is going to mean that I can't get to it, have I thought to mention it in this forum.
The Centre for Public Policy Research (CPPR) at Kings College London is running a seminar this evening, with two speakers, on the question of trust. More details at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/education/CPPR/seminars.html
Previous events in this series have been excellent.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 05-Apr-03 @ 12:42PM
5 interfaces
In trying to navighate what KM is, I find 5 levels (which also interact) useful to look through. I expect the same applies to trust which after all can be argued to be the fundamental currency of open knowledge sharing as well as choosing when to act on knowledge.
level 1 = individual
level 2 = groups around individual
level 3 = company or formal accounted identity of organisation
level 4 = networks of organisations - eg the fundamental web in any locally and globally networked marketplace
level 5 = policy infrastructures such as country
So some of the remarks in this thread seem to be assessing one on one judgements of trust; others interact at many of the 5 levels
Level 2 interests me particularly in various ways. For example, I have long argued that trust-building is as vital to teamwork (especially virtual teamwork) as technical competences. Equally I argue that much of the value of a space like knowledgeboard is trust in expected permissions etc so that people connect below the surface of what actually gets written up at the web.
Level 3 interacts interstingly with 1 and 2. I would argue that most large organsiations are (accidentally) governed numerically as high mistrust cultures. Ask for some slides if you want me to develop that (wcbn007@easynet.co.uk). If my argument is correct, this means we people have to work all the harder at levels 1, 2 just to redress the distrust flows caused by over command and control organisation and too little self-organising structures
Level 4, 5 also add their own impacts on our abilities or disabilities to multiply knowledge productivities.
All of this would point to something coming before knowledge strategy, that is whether trust-flow issufficiently developed. Back in the early 1990s I had a similar discussion with Gary Hamel. In those days we concluded something comes before any company having a strategy. That is communal passion for the context. I think its a pity that leadership temas have so many expert advisers who seem to short-cut the fundamental human climates that are needed before all the plans etc are worth more than the bits of paper they typed on.
Mark Cole
Mark Cole, 04-Apr-03 @ 15:39PM
On trust and faith
This extended discussion, to which I contributed earlier, has once again captured my interest.
Gary's scenario of a computer science class intimates that trust needs to be based on evidence and rationalism. But that isn't, strictly speaking, trust. Indeed, to seek out sources other than the nominally trusted source is to operate without trust.
Interestingly, in the course of this, we get caught up in a conundrum where we are expected to extend trust to others whose past performance would appear to merit it. This sits on a somewhat faulty premise, one which has been critically interrogated when it is applied to the question of "competence".
In regard to the latter, it begs the question: Is someone's past performance a reasonable and accurate predictor of how they might perform in the future? This might also be applied to the question of the allocation of trust on the basis of apparent past trustworthiness.
You see, I suspect that trust is conceptually something akin to faith. (The best piece that I have read in regard to the latter is Kierkegaard's "Fear & Trembling" - http://www.mindspring.com/~telos/etext/fear.htm
- wherein the author explores the biblical story of Abraham being ordered by God to sacrifice his son Isaac.) To trust someone is to put faith in their expertise and integrity.
This pulls us back to the exchange in the thread about the term 'professional'. In the modern age, this has a vaguely pejorative feel...which is a great shame because it has relevance to our discussions here.
To be professional is to be worthy of trust - and vice versa. To be actively professional should mean that, as an individual, you: strive to be honest and to act with integrity; that you have extensive expertise - yet are happy to acknowledge the limits of that expertise; and that you yourself are happy to trust others by merely having faith in them.
All of which leaves us where, exactly? Some way away from standard business practice, I suspect. But maybe a little closer to having a view about the dangers and risks of placing our trust in someone - and a greater willingness, perhaps, so to do.
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 03-Apr-03 @ 16:28PM
Sheilds down, Sensors on High
This is all very sociable, but trust is a slippery business.
Let's say you're in a senior computer science class. Your respected and very competent and accredited, level headed high-school computer science teacher walks into the computer room and tells you all there's a virus spreading through the school, and you must check for and delete a certain file. You check, and you have that file. What do you do?
If you delete the file, you fail the test. Your computer will never boot again. The teacher fell for (or baited you with) one of those Microsoft Alert Hoaxes. No one tells a lie with such grace as he who believes it.
If you understood trust as "proximity to consensus but within reason" you'd ask Google, find the Symantic page on the hoax, and then you need to decide who's more an authority on this particular subject? I'd take Symantic's word for it in a flash, but I'd trust the HS teacher on issues of whether or not the school has been closed due to winter weather.
There's a Gestalt here. It's not that I trust Ms.B, but that, situation by situation, given the whole environment of histories and what I know about capabilities and, yes, the consensus of others I might ask (the grapevine or via Google) I can build a probability of trust for one single transaction. The next may be a totally different picture.
Nick Kings
Nick Kings, 02-Apr-03 @ 16:45PM
Letting the guard down...
John, I agree (yet again).
My simplistic understanding of trust is one where "if I trust you, I will short circuit all the normal safety checks, and be more accepting of your position".
A few examples.
Now, you could "trust" a computer, where you now assume that an email WILL be delivered, whereas a few years ago it would have been more reliable to send a pigeon AND a FAX.
With a person, you trust of them has to be earned, ie. "based on past experiences how reliable is this person"? So... my feeling is that trust has to be tied with reputation and a sense of history.
Regards
Nick
John Moore
John Moore, 02-Apr-03 @ 12:04PM
Trust and vulnerability
At a recent debate on trust, I became troubled at a tendency for delegates to present trust as something for other people to do, and to bemoan the cost of others' untrustworthiness.
Since getting involved in this debate, I have noticed that some people seem to think if other people were more trustworthy, their lives would be less scary.
But maybe we need to turn this around. In order to create trust, I have to experience vulnerability. My vulnerability is not a consequence of a wicked world so much as the price I choose to pay to foster a trusting relationship.
A very simple example has cropped up in the Iraq war (though I know I risk spawning a whole other debate here). In a few parts of southern Iraq the British soldiers have chosen to trade their helmets for berets, in the belief that this will increase the population's trust in them.
This gesture represents a real risk to them, and clearly makes them a little more vulnerable.
As I try to build my own business on the basis of integrity, I have come to realise that there is a price to be paid for being open and not hiding behind a mask, not telling clients what they want to hear, not being unduly "charming". It's not easy; but I have a choice here: to feel a victim or to determine that this is the best way to create trusting relationships in which both I and my clients (etc) can live with our masks off.
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 23-Feb-03 @ 22:40PM
Institutions of Trust
Paul: Which institutions are building the trust?
I'd turn that around: Which institutions are building doubt.
In Web Facts and Other Myths I've indirectly written about this trust in the context of which information (online or in print) can be trusted. The conclusion I've presented is "none of them". More precisely, in light of the UCLA Centre for Communications Policy Report (cited in that blog post) finding 53% trust what they read online, I propose that the solution is to change our education (and KM) strategies away from the myth of the individual super-source and instead foster a general Great Doubt over all sources. I propose instead that our goal should not be to find Trusted Advisors but to develop means to quickly discern consensus.
In this respect, to answer your question, the institution most critical to consensus-mining is currently Google; I try my best never to relay any 'fact' unless I have scanned a consensus bubbled up from the abyss by PageRank.
That said, I believe, long term, our real tools of consensus will be more like DayPop or (if they ever get it working) NewsMonster, opinion aggregators informed by a PageRank that is also tuned to the semantics of what it finds.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 23-Feb-03 @ 11:20AM
High Risk Survey
I have started a high risk survey - YOU - what are your greatest learning need now. Clearly we need high trust people to lead the way in opening survey responses up. Please come play.
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=103981&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
Currently my sample of one action learning need revolves round: how do people tell the stories needed to dare to change the system at times of revolution such as moving up from industrial age to knwowledge age? I expect that open Angels need storytellers now more than ever.http://www.knowledgeboard.com/community/zones/sig/angels.html
We meet in Luxembourg March 6/7 to reherase them and to tenderise and anyone passing through is more than welcome
Paul Hearn
Paul Hearn, 22-Feb-03 @ 13:26PM
Who is responsible for building trust?
Hi all,
This is a great thread! Trust is at the heart of knowledge sharing and KM, and is a central pillar necessary for the development of the knowledge economy.
So, in our opinions:
- Which institutions should be responsible for building trust in the 21st century?
- Do they currently exist, do we have to create them, and if so, what might such institutions look like or do?
With best regards,
Paul Hearn
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 21-Feb-03 @ 17:24PM
Confidence and Trust
I thought you might enjoy that :)
And I agree we still must remain true to our communal/cooperative roots whereby this frail animal dominates an entire planet. As a consultant, I'm painfully aware of expert-conjobbing; Enron was no surprise, and I'd even accept the advisors believed what they were dishing out. "No one tells a lie with such grace as they who believe it."
I've been thinking about Shirky's powerlaws and general relativity. These go together in that information can only travel so fast (c) and as organizations grow in size, they approach a limit where a con may be known, but it is no longer possible to convey that truth across the power-law barrier. They can no longer shift the course of the decision making. One problem in cosmology is how our Universe can be so similar when, even if each half split at 60% c, the relative speed is 120% c and thus information could not be exchanged to keep them in sync.
Here's an example: Famous content-owners almost universally end up with conjob websites. Why? Perhaps they have developed a trust in a consultant who now has that powerlaw connectivity to the rolodexes. When someone unknown steps in with a new idea, in small orgs it is an instantaneous adoption, in larger there is lethargy, but over a certain size it becomes nearly impossible.
Why do cultures become "stuck in time"? The Amish choose the 18th century ... why the 18th and not the 15th? Was it their numbers in the 18th that stepped over this relativistic threshold where propagation of change was slower than peer pressure to resist. Christmas is celebrated with Victorian symbolism. Why Victorian and not Elizabethan?
Canadians say "Zed" while Americans to the south, who saturate our mass media, children's books, educational materials and pop culture, they all say "Zee" (see The Story of Zed) ... children start saying Zee at pop-culture age, but by highschool, they say "Zed"; the diffusion of the change cannot change the popular habit because feedback from the old confidence if you will, puts in more inputs to conform.
Similarly, the celebrities are surrounded by their corporate empire and the conjobbers who infiltrate become entrenched as "trusted" even (as in the case with Elvis Presley) long after there is any evidence to support this.
Even more interesting than "getting stuck" is "getting unstuck". Rare giant innovators like the BBC can (thanks to Matt Jones) break out of old-molds and cut new ground. That pivot point, how it's effected, that moment of change in mass trust is very interesting.
John Moore
John Moore, 21-Feb-03 @ 11:38AM
False memory et al
Thanks Gary... funny, you were the second person in an hour to point me to the UCI material, which is fascinating.
As with so much in our complex world, it suggests the dangers of being too certain of anything. Somehow, to navigate life we must find some balance between being true to ourselves and upholding our beliefs, with some element of humility and acceptance that even when we feel certain, we can be wrong.
One of the areas of trust that continues to interest me is that some of the most skilled trust builders are expert conmen. This warns us that trusting behaviour is not proof of trustworthy identity.
But to manage our daily lives, my own view is that we have to do our best to take the risk of being open, sharing what we know and feel and looking for reciprocity in others.
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 20-Feb-03 @ 19:19PM
Remember this (if you can)
Back in the thread of how much of our trust is placed in interior neuro-realities vs how much is founded in objective fact, there's some interesting new memory research I've blogged today from the UCI website.
The article describes recent experiments by UCI's Prof. Beth Loftus, a long-time thorn in the side of the talking-cure establishment (along with fellow therapy-debunker the late Nick Spanos) I had the great honour and pleasure of e-meeting both way back when, and it's both good and it's comforting to see their work continue, even in the face of often aggressive opposition; it's not just here on KB where there's an instant reaction to questioning our very thought processes! :)
Anyway, back to Beth's work and this whole issue of "Who can we really trust?" it turns out we cannot even trust ourselves, not with any assurance of accuracy: In her latest report she's been having fun installing vivid but absurd and even improbable memories into her test subjects' minds
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 19-Feb-03 @ 17:05PM
The Roses
Funny you should mention Stellarc, and good to see he's still around: Behind me, on my wall proudly displayed, is the photo of my stage with the Event for Third Arm and Laser Eyes going on in the middle of my dome, and the words "Gary, Many thanks -- Stellarc '87"
Back to the rose and ideas, and yes, to Stellarc too because it occurs to me reading that line about ideas being the force rather than the people who carry their little thread of it, it occurs to me that this is more true than we might care to admit.
I am deeply involved in traditional music; I'm the moderator of the Grey Bruce Celtic Newsletter and I run a celtic session every Groundhog Day during our mega-festival, and in that world the ego is intentionally sidelined, it's unimportant beyond the tune. Players can be stellar, they can be outrageous and dazzling, but next year, who remembers anything more than the idea. You will remember Stellarc's ideas long after you've forgotten his real name ;)
In knowledge management, there's a certain force in us Judeo-Christian or maybe wholly European ethic that attaches importance to the ego. We organize docs by author, forums by the people or brandnames they discuss, yet look what happens: Forums take on a life of their own -- this trust discussion goes way beyond the thread that started it, and even if we were to all leave today and never come back, others would find our work, weave in their own narrative, and the idea would continue to evolve.
William S Burroughs called language "a virus" and felt that ideas were worse than heroin as an addictive and destructive force on the brain. There's some truth in that.
Nick Kings
Nick Kings, 19-Feb-03 @ 16:42PM
Self and meaning
I attended a conference on "ubiquitous computing" and the organisers arranged for Stellarc, a rather stange performance artiste, as an end of the day entertainment.
Stellarc always refered to himself as "the body" and never used "I", "me" or "myself". I'm trying to remember what he said, but it went something like "I have no meaning, unless I interact with other in a group. There is no self, apart from interactions between the group and this body".
A rather extreme point of view, but it does bring the social context of meaning into focus.
Nick
John Moore
John Moore, 19-Feb-03 @ 14:49PM
The meaning of the Rose
Thanks Gary for that metaphor. I expect everyone will have interpreted in a different way.
I think you make a telling point about words, which is that their meaning is contextual.
I wonder if its really the energy of ideas that drives conversations, rather than humans who drive them with their attempts to support their own limited world view?
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 18-Feb-03 @ 01:49AM
Piercing the Rose
In the Tarot, words are given the symbol of the double-edged sword, and they are: Our ancestors knew and we know too if we stop to think, we know that all words have both meanings, all antonyms can be reversed, all political parties can be their rivals. It perhaps has to do with every convex thing being also concave, all that changes is the figure-ground, the gestalt is the same, but the attention shifts.
I can praise you all for being unprofessional, I can condemn you all for being meticulous, it's not the words that have meaning, it's not the connections between words that have the meaning, it is the sequence over time of the shifting connections -- in the news of Google acquiring Blogger, that's what occured to me: GoogleRank measures not the relationships between websites, but the dynamics of those relationships, and those dynamics are the heart and soul of blogging. Thus, the match makes sense. Google is after what Google always seeks: Metadata, but not in the shallow RDF sense, but in the living, breathing momentary pivot of it.
It's that pivot. That crossing point, that out of balance, that's where the skill comes in, that's the difference between the child that plays with the tail of a tiger and the professional who also 'plays' but with an intent to become more 'professional' (making themselves more valuable in the marketplace); the child also learns, but ad-hoc -- it's the same mechanism (which is why we say the child is a Scientist) but wasteful and inefficient, and the dot-bomb is testament to how confusing these two playtimes is a recipe for financial ruin.
There's another image of words in the Tarot. In the Tarot, the final word, the idea that actually reaches the heart of the rose, shatters that rose. I believe the seasoned professional, by which I mean They Most Valuable in their Marketplace, at their feet, I will wager, are more scattered broken rose pedals than most.
As to what that really means, I'll leave as an exercise for the reader :)
John Moore
John Moore, 17-Feb-03 @ 12:07PM
Fun at work
I totally agree with Nick about professionalism often being a code word for a series of limiting injunctions about how to behave. Having fun is one of the things some think is unprofessional, but they fail to understand a difference between seriousness and mere solemnity.
Another "unprofessional" action is to vigorously challenges another's thinking.
Come to think of it, professionalism is sometimes an excuse to close off all human emotion.
I think it's a word to avoid, so contaminated is it by such attitudes!
And thanks for the polar bear link, intriguing!
John
Nick Kings
Nick Kings, 14-Feb-03 @ 16:44PM
Hmmm...
Hi all,
I think I have a problem with the term "professional", as it has been used in quite negative fashion, ie "you can't do that as it is not professional", and no-one could then give the positive usage.
An example being it is not professional to "have fun" at work, etc etc (which I feel is crucial)
Nick
ps. I'd recommend that you all zip over to http://www.polarbearpirates.com A suprisingly serious, yet fun "self-improvement" book.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 14-Feb-03 @ 14:43PM
what definition of professional do you trust?
I was asked this question rather impolitely today so would value alternative answers. My loops of thinking such as they are:
the professional tries to provide all those involved with as much warning of any change event as possible so that they can explore all information and consider how to adapt etc
its true that if you are paid to be in what might be called an old managerial context, there may be some caveats- how do you know what will be best for the organisational system and its people? I believe this becomes wholly easier to resolve if either the organisation has a total open management policy or a clear one on the very few limited knowledge loops which it asserts temporary closure rights to while its top people heal it
I also believe that not too far in the distant futures all organisations that survive will largely be open as this is surely the only way that Drucker's knowledge workers will be able to self-organise and take co-reposnsibility, and the opnly ways through sveiby's 17 paradoxes of progressing to manamgement fit for a knowledge age
What this doesnt help us understand is how to get over today's tipping point - or does it? any trustworthy ideas anyone?
Sally Bean
Sally Bean, 06-Dec-02 @ 14:22PM
Technique for engendering constructive criticism in groups.
A technique that I have used with great success is to take a cuddly toy (in my case a Dogbert) into a group situation and announce that he will facilitate the meeting and waggle his ears if people start to stray off-topic, repeat themselves, or infringe ground rules. Then you can say things like 'I can see Dogbert's ears starting to move' when people begin to do something of this sort, so it's a way of depersonalising the hint. You can also give people permission to throw the toy at people who are really irritating.
I don't know how well this would work outside the UK context.
John Moore
John Moore, 06-Dec-02 @ 11:44AM
Constructive
My personal definition of constructive criticism would include saying what are sometimes labelled negative things. Sometimes pointing out the errors in a proposal or pointing out the nakedness of an emperor is the most powerful and constructive thing one can do. In groups I have experienced, the person who says "I find this discussion boring" will often spark a huge amount of energy!
Sometimes criticising people can be constructive. Some people need to be told they are repeating themselves or they need to be told the consequences of their behaviour.
So I would not want to use "constructive" as a constraint that limits people's expression of passions and doubts.
The one sort of criticism that I think is generally not constructive is where the critic is venting their spleen about a whole range of frustrations in their live on the person who is unfortuate enough to be the one tipping the critic over the edge. I call that dumping, the anger being disproportionate to the offence.
Thanks to all for keeping the debate full of strongly held views.
John Moore
John Moore, 05-Dec-02 @ 17:23PM
Trust and Openness
I want to support the value of transparency as defined here by Chris... a spirit of openness and debate rather than some simplistic measurement system.
I also share Chris' criticism of "blind trust". I think it is worth clarifying the nature of the trust implicit in an open system. It is that the owner of the knowledge is trusting his colleagues/clients/community with his knowledge and opinions, rather than keeping them close.
In this context, Lauri's emphasis on the value of criticism fits well. The (constructive) critic is the one who trusts the other to hear his criticism without taking personal offence.
Gary's comments about certainty highlight an important if slightly intellectual point about trust: it is not based on certainty; trust might be 'measured' by the amount of the uncertainty we are willing to risk by our action. To trust someone may make you vulnerable to some degree; its the risk you take to support an open system.
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 03-Dec-02 @ 15:46PM
Limbic Thinking
It must be a day for thinking about trust and thinking: Our local AM radio station is carrying a lengthy interview with Nicholas Boothman, author of How to Connect in Business in 90 Seconds or Less, which, while it's being positioned by the publishers as a pure business-guide like a Dale Carnegie, Nicholas backs up his arguments about Limbic (Neural) reasoning in business communications with some very clever and often amusing experiments such as walking into a business situation intentionally armed with mixed signals (such as being dressed conservatively only from the waist up).
"If 85% of your social life depends on trust, this [limbic thinking] is the single most vital component in building that trust"
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 03-Dec-02 @ 15:08PM
Blind Gut
I think Chris has some valid observations on the dual nature of the theoretical 'trust' accruing from empirical knowledge consciously collected about the object of the relationship and logically assessed, vs the practical 'trust' accruing from the implicit knowledge autonomously collected about the same object through our senses and associatively assessed by the wet-ware in our heads. Thus, it's not "bad" vs "good" except when we express that frustration for not really owning our own thoughts (which is the first and stubbornly tenacious observation one gets practicing Sazen sitting meditation).
100% certainty is a definate warning sign, but the flip-side of the observation is what we call "following our instincts" and that latter has a positive connotation, but it is the same mechanism. It is nothing more than the humility to admit that we just don't know the process of our decision logic because it is largely neural and associative, not computational and deductive.
I've been in candidate evaluation meetings to assess potential employees, and I have been the target of tele-trust for 22 years; in all cases, the final decision is always one of neural and associative conclusions, following a hunch, taking the instinctive choice. In every case, because of the rich diversity in the real world, we amass detail after detail, one in the pro column, one in the con column, and it becomes quickly evident this exercise can go on forever! At some point, we all get tired of the process and someone of authority calls a halt to it and forces a decision.
Most recently I have taken a hiatus from my usual freelance world (something I'm forced to do when markets turn hostile) and had to join a VC funded startup. While this startup is progressive enough to allow me to stay here in Sauble Beach, my first assignment was to meet with them in person because "we cannot go to our investors with someone we have never seen." They are not to be faulted for that conclusion: They are doing nothing more than admitting that the neural-associative impression of their blind trust in their gut instincts is in fact more important than all the didactic discourse we might deploy.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 03-Dec-02 @ 11:02AM
good and bad
I have begun to realise that it can be useful in the case of any powerful word whose integrity matters to you - to head off others who may start using it in ways that we might not have guessed
To take two examples before we get to trust. Sometimes when I start talking about community being good, I get heckled by people who say the other side is the community which becomes too strongly introverted perpetrates inhuman things over time. So some countries say that they have some small regional communities where moral rights etc get abused
To take another word, that I am keen on : transparency. By transparency I dont mean you have to prove everything you do with a number yet that is what some accountants have started requiring in the UK National Health Service so I'm told. Why you do need transparency is to use your intuition at times of pressure etc but you should then be open to asking other people afterwards what they would have done, you shouldnt be encouraged by measurements to cover up, and authenticity of care for what you are doing probably begets transparency as well as demand for a knowledge system that enables you to learn transparency. Systemised Transparency builds knowledge sharing between people at work just as open source builds knowledge-sharing by people who do not share an organsiation except in the value they are co-creating through a shared practice or program
When it comes to trust-flow in an organsisation, we won't get to this unless we make some fundamental system changes in governance. In other words traditional management by numbers is mismanaging knowledge workers like there is no tomorrow.
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=98044&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y
So too much trust in the old certainties must be selectively removed. When someone believes anything is 100% certain that is blind trust; together with power that blocks other people's right to question and above all stops conflict resolution. What every knowledge worker needs to know is that particpating all the time in resolving conflicts (at their first emergence) is the most vital way that measurement process can facilitate learning
Ivo Snijders
Ivo Snijders, 03-Dec-02 @ 08:37AM
bad rust = distrust/fear
Chris,
I can see the attraction of trying to distinguish in good and bad. However I do not belive that is a good path to go down on in exploring trust. I think that 'Bad trust' is Distrust and/ or fear, both I think not very instrumental in KM.
Your "good trust" is then not a term that adds at the moment.
I do believe that there are different kinds or maybe levels of trust that you can be given or give your self.
I.E. You trust your partner more then your manager, or your colleague more then your manager. You trust your doctor, and your banker, but in the same way??
Remember always that trust is something you either give or receive. It can never be demanded or ordered.
Regards
Ivo
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 03-Dec-02 @ 07:05AM
the trust I love and the trust I hate
I have been thinking that we may need to differentiate between two kinds of trust: of a bad and good kind. Provisionally, I call these blind trust and open trust.
For me, I see blind trust between two people or a person and a discipline when one is prepared to believe in the absolute certainty of the other. I suspect that this encourages the little Hitlers in all of us, and I am sure that it breeds exclusivity of the kind that becomes an apartheid of one human race (or discipline) to another.
Paradoxically, open trust begins in a totally different relationship place. It seems to me to be founded where two people trust each other by admitting that there is something that each doesn’t not know and would like help. And where each one who has more knowledge provides help without taking advantage of the other’s lack. From such relationships, open trust of the most valuable kinds to all involved may flow.
If you think there may be something in this idea but not how I have expressed it, I would love to read how you would edit what I am trying to grope towards.
Incidentally, this is not disconnected from the vision that has been proposed for knowledgeboard to be: a global movement for knowledge sharing and discovery, a Linux-type movement for everyone involved in KM
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 01-Dec-02 @ 13:46PM
active components of trust
I found the extract below interesting http://www.sustainability.com/news/articles/core-team-and-network/geoff-lye-trust.asp
perhaps its the active components that compose authenticity? incidentally these ideas all seem to emanate from 2002 Reith Lecture 3 of question of trust where Onara O'Neill exposed the disasters of herculean micromanagement -and you can find links to this and more at my member's page of the General Trust Network http://www.valuetrue.com/home/glossary.cfm?letter=G
What then are key elements of trust? We would identify honesty, respect and responsibility as the touchstones. In our experience, most businesses claim - and believe - that they behave honestly, responsibly and respectfully. We need, however, to distinguish between active and passive commitments in each of these areas.
There is a gulf of difference between active and passive honesty. Passive honesty is not to tell lies.
Active honesty is to tell the whole truth: without spin, without gloss, without ducking the difficult issues. Similarly, passive responsibility reflects legal compliance, liability management and adherence to the letter of voluntary codes and principles. Active responsibility is not limited by - but begins with - compliance and liability. It takes the spirit rather than the letter as the guiding principle. And thirdly, active respect requires a genuinely inclusive approach to business management and decision making - acknowledging the rights and the powers of stakeholders who would have had no legitimacy in most of corporate history. Passive respect limits itself to complying with labour and human rights and adapting to new social norms.
Building a high trust brand or corporate reputation needs a shift to the active model. For many businesses this will require a fundamental re-wiring of the corporate brain.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 10-Nov-02 @ 13:05PM
telling it as it is - even more important in virtual conversation?
Extract from a great thread at
http://engaged.well.com/engaged/engaged.cgi?c=inkwell.vue&f=0&t=165&q=0-
What conditions enable organization to engage in these "fierce"
conversations? What hallmarks did you find in companies who were
successfull in their move to use online conversation in a tolerant and
truthful manner? Are these hallmarks common in organizations? Rare?
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 04-Nov-02 @ 15:16PM
First International Conference on Trust Management
Info relayed from George Por with thanks
There's a call for papers to the First International Conference on Trust Management
which will take place near Heraklion, Crete, Greece, on May 28-30 2003, at:
http://www.eBusinessCity.org/
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 01-Nov-02 @ 15:49PM
social capital texts that inspire you as knowledgeable and trustworthy
phew, The Decalaration of Independence may be hard to emulate... yet maybe many of today's crises need some sort of inspiring leadership charter so that we all identify and understand how our roles participate in a knowledge-networking society- after all virtual plus real states of being are arguably far harder to communally care for from everyone's diverse perspectives, than those real ones of a past age when the fastest people could communicate was by horse...
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. more at
http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html
Do we have sufficient shared identity to bowl together in the ways being suggested at http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=95100&d=1&h=417&f=56&dateformat=%o%20%B%20%Y?
graydon smith
graydon smith, 30-Oct-02 @ 23:04PM
Trusting the Internet - small business and e-security
While trust frameworks have beed established in the offline world to address many of the issues raised in this forum there remains impediments to the wider adoption of online tools and techniques, especially by small businesses.
Trusting the Internet has been designed as a plain language, non-technical guide for small and medium businesses to understand electronic security issues when planning to take their business online or when connecting their computer systems to the Internet. It is an integrated package that comprises a business focussed brochure with 12 supporting fact sheets providing “How Do I?” advice, a supporting detailed guide and five enterprise level case studies explaining how businesses have cost effectively addressed e-security impediments. It also explains secure Internet technologies and raises awareness of the latest developments in areas such as privacy and the protection of online data. The full set of resources are be available at http://www.noie.gov.au/trustingtheinternet.
The National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) is working to promote this resource widely within the small business community. Please contact me at graydon.smith@noie.gov.au, if you would like printed copies or assistance in linking it to your web site.
regards
graydon
Graydon Smith
eBusiness Projects
National Office for the Information Economy
www.noie.gov.au
02 6271 1636
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 29-Oct-02 @ 16:51PM
About me ...
In the interests of trust (and who knows, maybe someone across the pond would like to contract me ;) I thought, since I seem to be hanging around, I should fess-up and register so you have some inkling of who I am.
For a more whimsical view of who I am, you can also go to Googlism.com and see what the common sense of the Internet says about me ;)
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 29-Oct-02 @ 16:00PM
Smell of a Woman
In the shower just now, always an environment which has those effects on me as to induce inductive reasoning, I realized there is one clear place where I personally reliably evaluate trust based on my neurophysiological response: I place a lot of value on smell.
Now, let me qualify that by saying I've been married more than once ;) but I will also say that one reason I prefer meeting people here, online, rather than in person is because of the colognes and perfumes that cloud my judgement ... it's as if those people are wearing gorilla masks (well, feline masks actually, since that's the source) and it makes me tilt my head and grope for other cues.
And those other cues are also neurophysiological: I listen for voice inflections, body language, facial expressions, and yes, those are starting to sound a lot like NLP, but it's not that extreme, it's just the same thing you do when you encounter any other member of our species. I know too much about logic and rhetoric to trust someone based on what they say, and I know too much about communications not to believe the medium is at least part of the message.
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 29-Oct-02 @ 15:29PM
Devil's Defense
I'm glad to see everyone took my critique in the spirit in which it was meant, and happier still to see it provoke some re-examination of the topic.
Just to clarify, my analogy of the kiss is not a model of trust, not in the sense of "I trust the person I am about to kiss," or even "I trust myself" because I don't -- we fall into it, like the symbolism of the Tarot Fool, we gaze up in the sky, holding the tiger by a leash, and step blissfully unaware into the great abyss. That is not "trust", it is, literally, pure blind faith. It is trust perhaps, but trust in spite of all evidence, or at least oblivious to all evidence. We don't care about the consequences, we just step over that cliff and fall in love.
As for Tony Robbins, I'm no great fan either, but on reviewing the neurophysiological research, I can now see there is a basis to what he (and esp Richard Bandler) discovered by accident. You can say it doesn't affect you, but instrumentation attached to your body will say otherwise, and that's distressing to the detached intellectual view or to the misplaced spiritual view of the "Awakening the Angel Within".
My own best metaphor is to caution that we may be One in the Spirit, but we are One in the Body too: By being the animal we are, there are certain predictable conclusions, and one of them is that we have a hormonally doped connectionist machine in our heads (the finest in the known Universe), and that gland can be fooled.
As for the long term effects of this induced trust, we need look no further than the research of Geoffrey Mousatief Masson and others on the utter failure of psychotherapy to produce any tangible results, yet the deep, near universal and long term trust it's victims have for its practitioners. Psychotherapy is the carny barker with a PhD ;)
John Moore
John Moore, 29-Oct-02 @ 09:32AM
Interesting Devil
Gary bills himself as Devil's Advocate and, now that my ego has recovered from the challenge of his "heresy" I'd like to welcome his provocative contribution. It's all too easy for our debates to move into being a bit cosy so thanks Gary for the wake-up call.
It prompts me to add some further thoughts on trust arising from the continuing debate. I argue for greater trust in business but this cannot be too single-minded. Misplaced trust can be harmful; context is crucial. In the Andersen example, yes some people trusted too much - but other people did not trust their own instincts enough and blow whistles sooner. In the long run, I believe untrustworthy behaviour will have consequences even if it works short term.
I think I'd modify my enthusiastic claim that trust multiplies creativity to say that it often does. Yes, excessive trust can lead to complacency and to tired thinking. Equally, high trust can actually embrace conflict and lead to much more challenging team processes. Similar caveats would apply to the other statements Gary justifiably challenges.
I understand this amygdala stuff and but I don't buy the conclusions Gary posits. It might be possible to induce trust by ad techniques but not when a lot of others are trying the same stimuli; we live in a world with an excess of stimulus and in any case short term salivation is not the basis for an enduring relationship.
At a deeper level this stuff reminds me of my student essays on Free Will versus Determinism. I can't prove one or the other but I assume a role for Free Will: you can provoke or stimulate me; but I believe I have discretion in my response.
I've read Awaken the Giant and seen Tony Robbins in action; I am not a massive admirer: so just how clever is this neuroscience at manipulating me? (And no disrespect to Tony, I don't think he takes his material in quite the direction Gary does.)
Gary's view sounds pessimistic, especially the reference to Iraq. I personally believe we have more choice in our actions and that the challenge is exercise our choice more often.
I like Gary's close. That risked kiss. But I think it fits my model of trust: the kisser really trusts him/herself to take the risk; it's less about trusting the other than trusting our own ability to deal with the consequences of our actions.
I'd welcome other views and comments. Are we being too naive in championing trust? How can we distinguish trust from complacency? Can people reference examples of high trust supporting challenge and conflict?(I'm sure I can think of a few).
Best
John
Ton Zijlstra
Ton Zijlstra, 29-Oct-02 @ 08:18AM
Trust really is a verb: it's what I have to do
hi Gary,
Thanks for adding to the discussion and your probing questions. This is just a quick response, since I haven't time now to react to all of your comment.
You end with:
Truth is in between should-be's and primal what-are's; we move ahead only by closing our eyes, crossing our fingers, and moving in for that first kiss.
I agree with you here. And that to me is what trust is. The action I take to overcome my own uncertainty. In your example closing your eyes and moving in for a kiss. (which is a way better expression I think than moving in for the kill!). You don't know if the other will kiss back, but you have leapt over that uncertainty (based on your own experience, estimated probabilities etc.) and tried anyway. That leap of faith, to me is what constitutes trust. It is my action, it is me that willingly ignores the uncertainty and moves ahead. Trust is what I need to make a choice/decision and carry it out. Trust is not a commodity that resides in the one I try to kiss. If I trust someone to be responsive to my attempt to kiss, it actually means to me that I need LESS trust to be able to reach a decision, whether to try and kiss or not.
By showing trust, i.e. jumping over uncertainties, I build relationships with other people. The result of these actions is a trusting relationship, where the trust invested by me (and not the initial trustworthiness of the other: it is not a commodity) leads to less uncertainties (for me) in the next choices/decisions I may have to make in that relationship.
In the article Trust me! I know what I'm doing here at KnowledgeBoard this line of thinking is worked out in more detail. The article is a summary of the discussion on John's article here. Maybe it helps to excorsize the devilish parts in the advocate ;)
Kind regards,
Ton Zijlstra
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 28-Oct-02 @ 16:15PM
Devil's Advocate
"trust is a verb" ... is this true?
Experience (used cars) and neuropsychology (http://www.teledyn.com/mt/archives/000147.html) say we experience hormonal sensations of trust/confidence and marketing pairs cues of the product. These effects run deep: A Money Magazine article examines amygdala effects on investments; the marketeer flashes nubile bodies to influence trust deeper than any discourse.
'trust' may be what the carny already knows:
2-4-6-8
ring the bell and sal-i-vate
Yea Pavlov!!
Let's revisit the other assumptions:
*
Trust multiplies creativity: Do connections cause creativity? Neuropsychology says connections produce the habitual. The derailing spark is infectious mystic magic.
*
trust saves energy: XWindows was released because Sun el al would not trust. In-crowd networks breed contempt; look at high-school cliques ... Enron emerged from Anderson's 'trust'.
*
Trust is generative: if trust grows to the third, why do couples not become menage-a-trois? :)
These assumptions need concrete examples. How do we create trust? I answered that: Rhetoric pairs 'trust' sensations with argument stimuli; smiling happy people holding hands, and it says we bomb Iraq. You may not like it, but it works.
John's comfort words sell a management style, but are these Successful Habits of Successful People, or Everything I Know I Learned in Kindergarten? ;) We may be morally superior while our competition reads Awakening the Giant Within and laughs.
Truth is in between should-be's and primal what-are's; we move ahead only by closing our eyes, crossing our fingers, and moving in for that first kiss.
George Por
George Por, 27-Oct-02 @ 14:10PM
towards a theory of the economic value of trust
This is a very interesting conversation, indeed. Thank you John for your paper that triggered it. I wanted to post on this board a work-in-progress chapter of mine closely related to it but it's longer than 2000 characters, so I uploaded it in the public file repository of the com-prac group at Yahoo.
Its title is "Trust - Where Business Meets Its Karma"and it can be found here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/com-prac/files/articles/Business_Meets_Its_Karma.doc
Hope to connect someday your and my line of inquiries.
George
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 18-Oct-02 @ 18:32PM
trust this space
Nick, I could imagine your last question - like the meaning of life could run and run - so I've created a thread for it over at
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?forum=1&topic=66&comment=322
Suffice it for here to say that I won't cry for the death of management (breaking in horses never did seem quite the right derivation for making the most of people) but I'd be sad if the networked world lost knowledge, especially as Peter Drucker has been talking up the great potentials of knowledge workers for close on 3 decades now...And I'm motivated to see what great human endeavors evolve from this
Meanwhile, speaking of risk of getting lost, can we keep this thread focused on trust please?
Nick Kings
Nick Kings, 18-Oct-02 @ 12:28PM
So, this KM malarky... its all a fad?
Interesting survey about KM language, theory, and usage. The author concludes that KM is a fad, promulgated for the sake of consultants.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 18-Oct-02 @ 12:23PM
The Compass of Trust , and networkers databank
We've put up a short exercise enabling you to explore whether your community or organisation can agree on a compass of trust - what it means to each person and why its valued
Its at http://www.valuetrue.com/home/GetPDF.cfm?filename=showmethetrust.ppt
I would appreciate any comments. Also we seek to catalogue leading trust research centers as explained in the final slide
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 17-Oct-02 @ 21:01PM
business webs of partners revolve round trust in knowledge economy
Extracts from quite an intriguing article at http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/?ptag-ps=&art=410788&pg=0
In late 2001, researchers at Booz Allen Hamilton and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management surveyed 113 executives at a representative sample of Fortune 1000 companies and found that winning companies define and deploy relationships in a consistent, specific, multifaceted manner. Although some companies will dub any concluded business deal a relationship, top-performing companies focus extraordinary, enterprise-wide energy on moving beyond a transactional mind-set as they develop trust-based, mutually beneficial, and long-term associations, specifically with four key constituencies: customers, suppliers, alliance partners, and their own employees. Starbucks, we believe, exemplifies this new model of the relationship-centric organization. “The culture is very relationship-oriented,” says Michelle Gass, vice president of beverage. “It’s built on trust. We talk about partnerships and mean it in every sense of the word.”
...As the knowledge economy takes hold globally, companies should follow the lead of Starbucks, and apply the same disciplined approach to managing their network of relationships.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 10-Oct-02 @ 19:12PM
and to start a second course on Trust
For those who have already feasted on the bookmarks of trust to date, I have just heard that Peter West has sighted a whole book on Trust 'free' online:
Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations, edited by Diego Gambetta. (1988)
http://www.sociology.ox.ac.uk/papers/trustbook.html
The complete contents of the book are available on-line. Fourteen years young at a first glimpse
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 10-Oct-02 @ 18:19PM
back to thread please
Ok Gary and friends:
In this SIG: technology has its part but please respect cardinal rule of a thread: it is a fragile linear life-form. This one lives on trust. User queries/comments on design can be emailed to me (and I'll relay) or Helen. But not in this space: reserved for trust.
I have collated together the bookmarks so far mentioned in this thread. Quite a wonderful feast on trust for a humble thread but great collection of correspondents to have woven together...please keep up the good communal work everyone
THREADERS PICKS:
1) Temperature Reading developed by Virginia Satir - one of several expositions online is at http://www.stickyminds.com/sitewide.asp?ObjectId=2535&Function=DETAILBROWSE&ObjectType=ART
2) on mistrust, and the potential absence of system-understanding by leaders, I think you might find this link interesting : http://www.wholeearthmag.com/ArticleBin/109.html
3) Reith lectures including Trust are at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2002/
thelectures.shtml
4) the "Cluetrain Manifesto" ( http://www.cluetrain.com/ ). Trust cannot be built up without conversations; conversations occur when real people from inside companies talk to real people outside of the company shell
5 a)The thread on brint.com regarding trust can be found at:
http://www.brint.com/wwwboard/messages/129311.html
5b) the original thread that sparked the discussion on trust:
http://www.brint.com/wwwboard/messages/129223.html
6) "Twelve Principles of Civilisation", where they state certain pre-requisites are required before a community will form and be self sustaining.One of those items required being trust. http://www.mongoosetech.com/downloads/12principles_high.pdf
7) Trust in the way that guru Chris Argyris frames learning organisation dialogues : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195132866/qid=1030560247/sr=1-8/ref=sr_1_8/002-0032167-8164071?v=glance&s=books
8)This is a useful paper, developed by a sister group (here at BTexact) about how to model "trust":
http://www.btexact.com/ideas/papers?doc=70458
9) 'The High Cost of Lost Trust.'
Org: Assoc.Prof.T. Simons, Cornell University:
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/tls11/
10) http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=2367
Helen Baxter
Helen Baxter, 10-Oct-02 @ 05:50AM
Thank you for your feedback
I completely agree which is why I have requested that some explanatory text be added to this form.
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 08-Oct-02 @ 15:33PM
Knowledge Management starts at home
Hi Helen,
All that you say may be, but it's a little late to be telling people in a comment sent longafter they post. This may be a case of "everyone here knows this" that frustrates many knowledge management projects: It's essential to keep the perspective of "new eyes" in any information technology project. The rules of engagement should be explained upfront, and linked on the iadmin.cgi form page.
Helen Baxter
Helen Baxter, 08-Oct-02 @ 07:26AM
Yes HTML is accepted
Hi Gary,
Yes, users can embed HTML tags into Comments, e.g. bold, hyperlinks, mailto, etc.
If you were a registered member, you would be able to edit your comments after
posting. The user cookie would identify you as the author and provide you with a visible Edit link against all of your comments. This obviates the need for any preview function.
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 05-Oct-02 @ 16:05PM
Ooops ... wrong URL (here's the correction)
There was no cues on the Knowledge Board entry form as to whether or not HTML was allowed in these comments, no preview, and no means to amend a posting once you see how it goes... (ahem) isn't that kind of ironic for a site billed as a "Knowledge Management" portal? ;)
Anyway, click this link for that blog article address: Ecademy:Trust me on this ...
Gary Lawrence Murphy
Gary Lawrence Murphy, 05-Oct-02 @ 16:00PM
Trust me on this ... (some thoughts on trust)
As John knows (now ;) I've posted some thoughts on the building of trust within online networks in a thread on Ecademy.com, with some ideas on how we can quantify trust metrics through a closed community such as a business directory or a contract-bid website.
Ton Zijlstra
Ton Zijlstra, 30-Sep-02 @ 12:54PM
Trying to summarize the discussion
Since taking part in the discussion John Moore's article on the value of trust generated I felt the need to try and summarize all that has been said here. This need combined with a request if I could write an article for a faculty journal at the university I'm currently attending, led to an article on the role of trust in KM. The link to this article is provided below.
With this text I try to do several things at once. The general introduction on KM and its history is primarily intended for the readers at the university for whom KM is mostly terra incognita. The rest of the article tries to both summarize what has been brought forward already, and second to provide a framework along which contributions past and future can be placed in context.
You should be able to find the article here: Trust me!I know what I'm doing.
Reactions, of course, are more than welcome!
kind regards,
Ton
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 26-Sep-02 @ 12:35PM
trust & email!
I thought this was an interestingly different perspective on trust & KM
Occupation: Chief Naval Engineer, USCG Atlantic fleet
"TRUST is the underlying issue. Too much mail is the symptom. All the email tips in the world won't make a dent if your employees don't trust one another. I suggest senior management consider the thought, "Trust begets trust". It starts at the top. I tell my staff to only send me only what they think I need to know. I trust them to do their jobs, and hold them accountable. It works. When they know I'm not micromanaging them (following every email trail), they are more inclined to think before they send...does the boss need to know this?
The follow on is what really surprised me. I noticed that middle managers started doing the same thing to their subordinates."
It's cut and pasted from a FastCompany dialogue email which I have been participating in both at the space shown and within the London network of the Company of Friends.
John Moore
John Moore, 25-Sep-02 @ 17:37PM
Good posts
Very interesting. I agree with Matthew about active listening. I am capable of it and it can be surprisingly satisfying. Being ideaphoric it is easy for me to simply burst into other people's talking with my ideas and thoughts. But it is more respectful and often leads to different, and deeper insights.
Spiro's pointer to the Cornell research is terrific. Numbers can be horribly misleading, but at least here are some that support the application of integrity and intelligence.
John
Spiro Raftopoulos
Spiro Raftopoulos, 25-Sep-02 @ 06:27AM
Don't Forget the Line Manager...New Evidence...
Hi All,
You do what your manager does even if it
destroys wealth rather than builds wealth.
They assess your performance so you play to
their game, however ordinary it may be.That is
why in the UK and Australia a big government
emphasis is on building Frontline Management
skills. Trust starts from leadership. Harvard
Business Review (Sept02) has just published the
latest findings on this.
In short :
'The High Cost of Lost Trust.'
Org: Assoc.Prof.T. Simons, Cornell University\
www.people.cornell.edu/pages/tls11/
Hotel Industry - Holiday Inn Hotels
Oral Survey - 6,500 employees in 76 US/CAN
hotels.
Measuring Effects of Manager Trustworthiness:
'We asked how closely their managers' words
and actions were aligned - what we call the
manager's Behavioral Integrity'...
Then 'correlated the responses with the hotels'
customer satisfaction surveys, personnel
records, and financial (performance)records.'
Findings :
'Hotels where employees strongly believed their
managers followed through on promises and
demonstrated the values they preached were
substantially more profitable than those
whose managers scored average or lower....
No other single aspect of manager behavior that
we measured had as large an impact on profits.'
KM Relevance ?
You can put all the other systems and processes
in place, but if you do not have Emotionally
Committed Line Managers to the KM imperative,
employees will NOT practice KM behaviours.The
few who do are visionary knowledge workers.
KM initiatives will never be institutionalised.
When we are deploying/introducing KM practices
are we checking to see if the line managers
have bought into it ? So they have adequate
'behavioural integrity' ?
Leaders always set the pace of trust...
in Scouts, in online communities, in the
office. Yes? Mmmmm... can we teach 'trust' ?
Spiro.
Matthew McCulley
Matthew McCulley, 22-Sep-02 @ 06:49AM
How to create trust
I agree with John that people who have learned to be comfortable with themselves and demonstrate a self-referential integrity instead of pushing too hard towards a goal are preferable to those who are disingenuous. However, if you really want someone to trust you, you need to listen to them and show that you truly care about the same things they do. That is the best first step and it can be done in two ways, and please, these are not manipulations -- they require real honesty and care to accomplish:
1) Ask them about what they want and need. As you listen to them, practice "Active Listening" and try to not let your own mind interrupt and distract you. The idea here is not to answer or solve the problem as much as it is to listen deeply. This demonstrates you care enough to be patient. However, the real payoff comes when follow up with a letter in a couple of days recapping what they shared with you in a straightforward and honest manner. This proves you cared enough to really listen to them, and you understand them too!!! It is a very unusual feeling to be listened to and understood about things that are very important to you, so do not be surprised if their response is a full and immediate committment to the relationship.
2) The other technique not as powerful, but it still works. Be the curious apprentice. Ask questions whenever you can about their professional specialty and engage them seriously to learn more information aboyut it. Please love to share their knowledge and this will engender a mutually sharing relationship. You will know they really trust you when they begin asking you about your job. This is an excellent way to build trust in a calm manner, the patient blending of language, values, and interests until an adequate comfort level is achieved for both parties.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 18-Sep-02 @ 08:36AM
two great threads flow
I recommend that all afficinados of this trust conversation also link to this thread at the COP SIG
If you don't see why, you could use this space to ask...
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 14-Sep-02 @ 18:06PM
Center of Advanced Emotional Intelligence
I came across this bookmark
Trust fans might enjoy it because appears to use the byline "build trust" as the core EI skill of leadership. It seems to see this as closely related to Social Capital building too.
I would be intrigued whether people find anything new at this bookmark. It seems to be leading up to authenticity of a person's character as being the biggest explainer of their EI and ability to build trust.
How then does one link this to KM? Perhaps I am stretching it but I do believe the biggest challenge to any long run virtual space is to do with social hosting that goes on in the so-called back office behind what's actuallly seen as the web's or network's digitalised display of information or conversation. It's almost more important because otherwise a virtual space has many less character clues than we interpret from real life situations.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 13-Sep-02 @ 07:34AM
planting trust conversations in other spaces
I'd recommend we flow some conversation over
here
Reason: quite a quiet group but populated by some strong KM thinkers and moderated by one of the world's leading youthful researchers in KM & Social Capital Mapping
If you have a nomination space for cross-fertilising trust debates, please say. This fragile flower needs quite a lot of seeding imo
Nick Kings
Nick Kings, 11-Sep-02 @ 12:06PM
Trust models...?
Ivo, thanks for your comments. The research on the trust model was undertaken by a sister group, here at BTexact, so I am not as familiar with their model, as I would hope to be. But, the model of trust is based on past experiences, in general, rather than solely on your past experiences with a particular set of people.
The model has been used, sucessfully, on setting up a number of on-line, learning communities. I will try and dig up, and publish here, the results of that search!
:-)
Nick
Ivo Snijders
Ivo Snijders, 11-Sep-02 @ 08:23AM
It seems that there are two strands in the discussion now, the theoretical approach and a practical
It is interesting to see that the input and comments about trust now seem to go along at least two different roads:
- a theoretical level, where we are concerned with contexts where trust thrives and definitions, both in general and on a KM level.
- a practical level (or better, the way to apply), where we are concerned how we can measure, register ect. the level of trust we (can) encounter in CoP's.
The theoretical aspects of trust, especially with in KM (CoP's) really do need some more clarification. A good theme seems to me: Is the Internet a such new the context that the definition of trust needs to be explored again? Perhaps this might be a subject for an online workshop (Helen, something for you to research?).
I am a little bit sceptical about the measuring and the "model making" when it comes to trust. (I wasn't entirely convinced by the article from BT).
I can accept the notion that trust can be expressed in different levels with regard to the "investment" you make in the relationship. So a low investment ( of little significance) means the "trust-threshold" can be lower, at a high investment (of high significance) the trust-threshold will be higher. In mathematical terms I would dare to say that in both instances the number would be the same.
I am far more interested in the way people can be persuaded to interact within CoP's, under extreme circumstances. The BT article deals with people who know and trust each other already before starting a new venture. In familiar surroundings it seems easy to get CoP's and the trust needed, 'going'. How do you deal with these issues in a setting where the surroundings are new, people are not that familiar with each other?
Ivo
Stuart Hannabuss
Stuart Hannabuss, 10-Sep-02 @ 11:37AM
Misztal on Trust
Hi everyone
I'm glad and not surprised that this has taken off as it has. There's enough for a symposium
here! Trust-cultures and blame-cultures seem to
define a key polarity here. They shape responsibility and obligation in different ways, and are self-perpetuating and self-confirming, ie virtuous and vicious circles respectively. You probably know Barbara Misztal's Trust in Modern Societies (Polity Press, 1996), one I recommend to ethics students if they want to explore that far. She argues that social relationships need to be though through again in a more cooperative way. Trust is more than contract, more than intimacy and stability, more than social order, more than instrumental relationships, more than a pragmatic compromise between self-interest and solidarity, more than collective conscience, more than gratitude, and more than conformity. She cites Elster's point that the motivation to trust is not reducible to mere rationality, and Giddens' points that trust may be one of the outcomes of self-reflexive and identity-creating behaviours in institutions. For Bourdieu, trust is habitus when we internalize it. Links with honour and virtue need to be examined. A lot there. I wonder whether there's a taxonomy or rank order, perhaps from simple concept to complex concept, in these ideas, and whether they could be transferred to and applied in a real-life organization. Any takers?
Stuart Hannabuss
Aberdeen Business School
s.hannabuss@rgu.ac.uk
Nick Kings
Nick Kings, 06-Sep-02 @ 10:11AM
Model of trust
All
This is a useful paper, developed by a sister group (here at BTexact) about how to model "trust":
http://www.btexact.com/ideas/papers?doc=70458
Nick
Ton Zijlstra
Ton Zijlstra, 05-Sep-02 @ 18:56PM
in response to Chris: more complication and Machiavelli
Hi Chris,
Ad 1) You sketch how fast trust can get complicated. Here's one to add to the complexity:
I know a company where there are some employees whom I trust to deal with my requests swiftly and adequately, but where I do NOT trust the company as a whole to honor service contracts to my satisfaction. This because most others in the same organisation have entirely different perceptions of what their service should be. This is a situation where trustworthy relations are under a severe cultural pressure that points the other way.
In my view it is very important to distinguish between trust on a personal and organisational level, and then try to find out how the sum of trust generated by individuals impacts the trustworthiness of the organisation, and how organisational culture and reputation impacts the way trusting relations with individuals in the organisation develop.
More generally I sort of believe that the success of KM-initiatives, or more boldly, even management in general, depends on the effectiveness with which we are able to reach alignment and translate (knowledge /needs /behaviour /culture /strategies/ goals /etc.) between the personal and organisational level and vice versa.
Ad 2)
This reads like your basic Machiavelli. The 'case-studies' Machiavelli uses to proof his point may be outdated (Duke so and so, Emperor such and such), but his description of how power works is still as confronting as around 1500 when he wrote Il Principe.
The reason why Machiavellian behaviour is likely to undermine trust, and create distrust, I think can be found in Kant's ethics concerning respect. Kant defines respect as treating humankind (albeit a person, group, or even yourself) as an end in itself, instead of as a means towards an end. Machiavellian power-building uses people as means towards an end, i.e. gaining a position of power and then hold on to it.
This also touches on what John said about marketing. Is the aim just to move product, or to please the customer in any which way then I would say you're treating your customer as a means towards an end. If you're really interested in how you and your customer can create a win-win situation on the grounds of common interests, you'll probably will be treating your customer as an end in itself.
kind regards,
Ton
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 05-Sep-02 @ 14:31PM
2 inputs
Hi
1) Any views on whether this approach is worth playing with. I feel the trust dynamic starts simply enough : between you and anyone (ie person or business unit or organisation) the relationship dynamic starts very simply. Trust is when you give and take; distrust is when you take.
There are at least 3 levels of complication regarding distrust that I quickly sketched next:
a) when as an individual you don't realise you are mainly taking from a relationship
b) when everyone in an organisation doesn't know who's mainly taking, because the knowledge system isnt open , at least not with the information that enables people to 'measure' relationship quality
c) when 2 organisations (or sub-systems) that are supposed to partner/collaborate don't know who is only taking - partly now because there are also different cultural codes as well as probably poor measurable information
I'm sure these could be worded better. But do they convey how something so simple can quickly become systematically very complicated? And if so, will it be KM's job to make standards of trust more transparent?
2 Something different. A friend told me a jolly good way to understand trust is to look at bibles of how to do the opposite. Then quickly recommended The 48 Laws of Power as a great book on how to distribute mistrust. Here are a few of the laws for you to taste what I mean:
1) Never outshine the master; always make those above you feel comfortably superior; make them appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.
2) Never put too much trust in friends: friends may betray you quickly, being easily aroused to envy. Hire a former enemy and he will be more loyal. If you have no enemies, find a way to make them.
4) Always say less than necessary: When you are trying to impress people, the more you say, the more common you appear, the less you are in control...Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, and sphinx-like
It occurs to me that there are some sad truths in these remarks at least in a soundbite age, where what you said/did isnt digitally recorded, and the short-term is the dominant performing reward. Do you think we will one day see a reversal of these vicious rules of power? Or have I just miscontrued?
Alistair Brett
Alistair Brett, 01-Sep-02 @ 22:19PM
SIG on Trust
Chris,
I am in favour of a new SIG on trust.
I just heard the formal announcement from Arthur Andersen that they will no longer audit the books of public companies and that their employees have been reduced from some 27,000 to 3,000. Reason - destruction of trust.
In a networked world, I cannot think of any more important underpinning attribute than trust.
By the way, the BBC Reith lecture were mentioned in this thread. The complete set are now on the BBC Radio 4 web site for downloading in pdf.
Alistair
KK Aw
KK Aw, 01-Sep-02 @ 04:12AM
Conflict should be celebrated
Conflicts in an environment where there is trust is what I enjoy working in. Unfortunately, I find that it is often very difficult to reach this state. Personal ego, agenda and psychological makeup often gets in the way. It is the psychological makeup that is easy to miss.
Some people want to avoid conflict as far as possible for various reasons. Others are less adventurous and deny the real issues to avoid having to take drastic decisions and actions.
Any thoughts how we can address these?
In a conflict situation, we will hear a lot of logical arguments. I always like to remind my colleagues that "What is logical is not necessary correct".
Thanks for the great article, John.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 30-Aug-02 @ 11:05AM
Articles on trust , friendship etc + content structures
Ton and friends
Your articles on these subjects (draft or finished) are always most welcome, and you can choose where you want to post them. Possibilities include:
-within this thread
-or as a separate article/thread on the SIG's front page
I am beginning to wonder if Trust and its systemisation is such a big subject that it needs its own Sig. I don't have the power of any such decision which goes to the overall SIG editors and Helen. Equally I would support any such motion if there is demand for it and if we can nominate someone (other than me) to do Trust arrangement of contents justice. EI & Trust could always keep good sisterly relationships between SIGs. Any pros & cons anyone?
Nick Kings
Nick Kings, 30-Aug-02 @ 10:55AM
bricks and hats?
Have you seen DeBono's "coloured hat thinking"?
(see http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140296662/202-5425686-7563847 as a taster).
"...With the Six Hats methods the fullest use is made of everyone's intelligence, experience and information. The Six Hats also removes all "ego" from the discussion process. The need for the Six Hats is based on an understanding of how the brain chemicals change with the mode of thinking..."
Thats too grand a description, but the technique encourages people to play 6 different types of "jester" (each one with a different focus). The black hat being purely critical. The red hat is an interesting one where it is legitimate to talk about your emotions (on an issue) ie "i have a gut feel that this is wonderful, but the facts say otherwise."
Is the key to trust, therefore, to have a "place" where it is safe to fail? One organisation I was in had an internal newgroup (X.whinge); any posting sent to the newgroup was treated as if it was anonymous. Management used that as a very effective feedback channel.
Ton Zijlstra
Ton Zijlstra, 30-Aug-02 @ 06:44AM
just to even the record and..........
hi there,
Helen Baxter wrote in her editorial the other day that the record number of comments on any one article at knowledgeboard stood at 26. So to even this record, and inviting you to break it, I'd like to make some comments on the effect our discussion is having on me.
I already mentioned the start of a similar discussion over on brint.com. But the spin off doesn't stop there. At work I've been striking up conversations with colleagues about trust these past days, resulting in the decision to bring together our accountmanagers and on the basis of the comments made here try to evaluate our relations with customers past and present. This as a learning experience and to see if the experiences of these account managers fits in with what has been said here (especially if it touches on what has been said here on the absence of trust). This might be a good opportunity to get rid of some bricks in our pockets on how we've been treating our customers.
But in order for me to be able to do that, some ordering and digesting is necessary. Just this week courses resumed after the summer break at university and here too I talked about the value of trust and the value of this discussion. The bi-monthly faculty journal always chooses a theme for their editions. It turns out "the value of friendship" is the theme for the next edition. The editors picked up on my remarks about trust, and asked me to provide an article of up to 6 pages discussing trust as the centrepiece of relationships, and it's relevance to my work as knowledge manager. What better way to attempt systematizing and ordering my impressions in this discussion than accepting this invitation?
Drafts and the final result I hope to be welcome to put before you, so that our discussion may be strengthened by it.
Kind regards,
Ton Zijlstra
John Moore
John Moore, 29-Aug-02 @ 18:04PM
"I've got a brick in my pocket"
Reading the Argyris precis in Chris' last posting brings me back to basic interpersonal behaviours that create - or destroy - trust. Human relationships are often weakened by things left unspoken. When we fail to speak out about a concern, we unconsciously create a rule "We don't talk about this..."
Often such rules are created not so much by the leader in an organisation, as by followers. It was to counter such censorship that medieval kings hired Court Jesters and Caesar had a guy to remind him his feet were made of clay.
I've learnt a useful habit in personal relationships: to say "I've got a brick in my pocket" meaning there is a thought or comment - often a concern or complaint - that I've not articulated, and now it's making me uncomfortable. By acknowledging the bricks in our pocket, we start to build a more open system in which complaints are no longer seen as dangerous to air, but necessary to clear for the promotion of trust and goodwill.
One of my reasons for appreciating the Satir Temperature Reading (see earlier posting) is that it creates a honourable space for complaints in relationships. It gets the bricks out of pockets and leaves us freer to move about.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 29-Aug-02 @ 10:07AM
How trust connects with management use/abuse of Systems
I was having a conversation with one of the world's great experts (Steve Brant) in the history of system's theory. I have put some of the extended conversation in this SIG's general discussion area. But part of Steve's conversation flowed towards the following reference to a book by Chris Argyris and I immediately though that I saw Trust (or its demolition) flowing here. Do you?
From Amazon.com -
Management consulting is big business. Consultants often make very good money, and the good ones throw intriguing ideas on the table and get people excited about their work. But is any of their advice actually useful? Does it get implemented and lead to more productive workplaces? Chris Argyris thinks that most of it doesn't work, because it has too many "abstract claims, inconsistencies, and logical gaps to be useful as a concrete basis for concrete actions in concrete settings." No matter what managers hear from consultants, they ultimately resort to these five behaviors, according to Argyris: State a message that's inconsistent ("You're in charge of this, but check in with Steve"); act as if it's not inconsistent; make the inconsistency undiscussable; make the undiscussability undiscussable; act as if you're not doing any of the above. Flawed Advice and the Management Trap shows managers how to break out. He shows that a choice is sound when the emphasis is on facts and accumulated data and isn't influenced by the relative power positions of the people involved.
Top company managers and human-resources professionals will probably find this book most interesting. For them, the ideas in Flawed Advice and the Management Trap show the path away from a management style that breeds resentment and internecine warfare and points toward one that allows the facts to speak for themselves. --Lou Schuler
chris macrae also at http://www.valuetrue.com
PS In "our book discussion" area I have also made some links to the work of Argyris and Covey and personal psychology, which also goes in the organsiational contexts of fear and mistrust that subordination and hierarchy inadvertently cultivate - if interested look for the reference in this thread http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?comment=175&topic=
Nick Kings
Nick Kings, 28-Aug-02 @ 17:44PM
12 principles...
... of civilisation.
Mongoose Tech have produced an interesting whitepaper entitled "Twelve Principles of Civilisation", where they state certain pre-requisites are required before a community will form and be self sustaining.
One of those items required being trust.
http://www.mongoosetech.com/downloads/12principles_high.pdf
They see "trust" as inter-linked with reputation and history. Why should I trust you, unless I can see evidence of a reputation, which in turn comes to the history of a community. In terms of a newsgroup, I give your words more credence because I can see your other postings, etc.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 28-Aug-02 @ 17:15PM
great linking
Excellent news Ton. In anyone's world tour of knowledge sites: www.brint.com and knowledgeboard should rate as vaut le voyage. If any major agendas get raised at Brint's conversation - a short note would be great. I am beginning to wonder if Summer School 2003 had a trust day, what would it's curriculum look like? Sometimes the heart of a discipline is the hardest to structure a set of training modules round. Or am I wrong?
Ton Zijlstra
Ton Zijlstra, 28-Aug-02 @ 12:05PM
One conversation sparks of another. Hop on the cluetrain!
Hi there,
Over at brint.com I've been commenting on a thread concerning KM in SME's. One of the propositions was that a company needs a certain set of ethics and principles in order to be effective in KM. This is almost synonymous with the statements John made about being self-referenced. Also the examples given of such principles were in line with the discussion here. This led to the creation of a new thread on trust being at the heart of KM. So, naturally, I've invited everybody to come and see our discussion here, and the contributions already made.
The thread on brint.com regarding trust can be found at:
http://www.brint.com/wwwboard/messages/129311.html
the original thread that sparked the discussion on trust:
http://www.brint.com/wwwboard/messages/129223.html
kind regards,
Ton
Nick Kings
Nick Kings, 27-Aug-02 @ 17:47PM
Just out the office...
... so this has to be a quick comment (with possibly more later). Poke me with a email, if I forget.
Hello all!
Having printed out all the comments, I was reminded of the comments made about the "Cluetrain Manifesto" ( http://www.cluetrain.com/ ). Trust cannot be built up without conversations; conversations occur when real people from inside companies talk to real people outside of the commpany shell. Conversations do not occur between customer focus groups and marketeers.
Ton Zijlstra
Ton Zijlstra, 23-Aug-02 @ 13:05PM
Reith lectures URL
The lectures Mark Cole refers to are at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2002/
thelectures.shtml
regards,
Ton
Mark Cole
Mark Cole, 23-Aug-02 @ 11:04AM
Philosophy of trust
This year's BBC Reith Lectures, delivered by Onora O'Neill, looked at the question of trust. One interesting conclusion that the philosopher drew was that structures designed to enforce accountability (for example, "command and control" performance management systems, Government league tables, and so on) actually serve to undermine trust. In essence, if things have to be closely measured and monitored, then trust itself plays no part in such an arrangement. In that sense, the observation in the debate that organizations that focus on numbers consequently lose sight of the significance and usefulness of trust is well made. For knowledge to circulate freely and thereby enjoy greater social currency, trust is central to the relationships and networks that create, scrutinise and disseminate that knowledge.
Ton Zijlstra
Ton Zijlstra, 22-Aug-02 @ 14:56PM
in response to Chris on mistrust and the ethics of relationships
Hi Chris,
I haven't read Wayne Baker's book you mentioned, but I don't think that'll disqualify me from reacting to the propositions.
The notion that dropping relationships without thinking why is unethical, sparks a whole lot of associations. First in relation to the study of philosophy I'm doing next to my work. But secondl also with relations I've personally dropped, and thought about or didn't. I think what discourages conscious breaking of relationships is the fear and self-confronting aspects of it. It is much easier to simply drop out of sight (see my little list earlier)than to accept that there is some difficulty ahead with which you have to deal to make the relationship survive or keep it stable. As if you're dropping the relation to someone, in order to keep the peace in the relation to yourself. Conflict avoidance is something which companies, with and without purpose, learn their people to do, part of the culture. So spending energy to 'save' a relationship is often also swimming against the cultural current of your organisation. However, rocking the boat sometimes exactly is what a healthy relationship to someone needs.
The second proposition is exactly what I advocate in our organisation we should do: don't try to manage knowledge, don't try to manage trust or some other abstract concept. Try to create situations in which abstract concepts are likely to blossom. If I want to see butterflies in my garden, I don't go around with a net to catch some and release them behind the house hoping they will stay. No, I do away with all the concrete slabs, and plant the kind of greenery that attracts them.
So our aim is not on knowledge or creativity, but on people, on how they meet, on how we help or obstruct them in their behaviour with our organisational structure and culture.
In response to your remark on mistrust, and the potential absence of system-understanding by leaders, I think you might find this link interesting : http://www.wholeearthmag.com/ArticleBin/109.html
It identifies 9 places to intervene in a system, and the possible effects. Rushing in with measurements comes in right at the bottom-level. For most measurements anyway, although they are mostly intended for level 5.
If you plot the accents of KM in the past years (1st generation: information for decisionsupport and business process redesign, 2nd generation tacit to explicit conversion, and in the thirdwave concentration on personal and abstract concepts like trust in this discussion), you see it steadily climbs the 9-point ladder to probably more effective attempts at system intervention.
kind regards,
Ton
Ton Zijlstra
Ton Zijlstra, 22-Aug-02 @ 14:26PM
in response to John on a regular round-up
John proposes to 'meet' regularly in some sort of fashion to continue to provoke each others thoughts on this. As with most abstract concepts you start seeing connections everywhere. The range of ideas put forward, for instance by Chris, is a clear statement in this regard. A regular attempt at synthesis in these cases is a welcome moment to take stock, and to be able to determine what what has been said actually means to me and my work, what to use and what to leave alone (for a while). In other words, to not only have creative output, but to find meaningfull ways of applying it as well.
Therefore, I agree with John's proposal. Maybe knowledgeboard.com might be the initial place to do this. By migrating this discussion to the forum, and conduct our more direct meetings through the live chat application that is normally used for on line workshops.
kind regards,
Ton
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 21-Aug-02 @ 09:11AM
2 eurekas on Mistrust
Could it be that the 2 biggest sources of organising mistrust are:
-1-Absence of system understanding by leaders. Example, in my view its a fundamental system law : mix 2 systems and you'll get worst of both unless you do a lot of architectural planning of human marriage involved, and lot of implementation. Surely this is number 1 reason why so many technology/virtual transformations don't add what's expected when they are put into the pre-existing real organisation. Another way of saying this is technology is never culturally neutral; in fact it destroys the people culture if you make such a blind assumption
-2- Rushing in with measurements. Over on the story - where are Communities of Practices going? -, Denham Grey has just added a heroic post on what I regard as the total abuse of measurement and the total abuse of community. Please feel free to disagree with me in this thread or in the CoP thread.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 19-Aug-02 @ 19:30PM
Every Measure Changes with Social Capital Best Practices
I'd love to know if anyone else is a reader of Wayne Baker's "Achieving Success through Social Capital"- tapping the hidden resources in your personal and business networks.
He says two things that quite took my breath away, because as I interpret them (and this is why I need you dear fellow reader) they change everything traditional organisation rulers do.
Proposition 1
Its unethical to seek to make or drop a relationship with a person without thinking why. And in a business context, that directly implies its is unethical not to have the best possible information on such making or breaking of relationships. And yes Baker goes on to show high correlation between 'ethical' and value (building or destroying) in an age where relationship capital is core.
Proposition 2
If you want to go north head south. This Zen saying is true for social capital. If we try to build social capital directly, we won't succeed. Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychologist who developed logotherapy based partly on his experiences in a Nazi death camp addresses the paradox of happiness. Anyone who tries to pursue happiness directly will fail and be unhappy. Happiness cannot be pursued; it ensues from the pursuit of the worthwhile, meaningful activities. If a person joins an association, just to "network", people see right through the false front. But if you join an association you believe in - one that has a mission you are passionate about - you will form new relationships as a natural by-product of your involvement with the association. Social capital is the by-product, sometimes a very deliberate and conscious by-product, of the pursuit of meaningful activities.
Oh yes, now Wayne's next page gives a business case example. But I hope the above gives some food for thought about trust, and as a mathematician I expect that intangibles like knowledge-sharing, relationships and trust obey the same (Zen) principle of special relativity that maddened Newtownian physicists. Measure it directly and you change it. Most "Business Case" measures I've seen proposed for CoPs and stuff like that make the same cardinal error...
Any views on all this?
John Moore
John Moore, 16-Aug-02 @ 10:04AM
Building trust
Thanks everyone for a lively and constructive debate. I agree with a lot of what has been said and especially Ton's summary. I think it's important to try to systematise those ideas - and that would be a job for the "social leader" that Chris recommends.
I'd suggest a regular round up for all particpants, whether or not they are active in the project at that point. All would be expected to contribute, and it should include "off topic" remarks and personal experiences as Ton suggests.
Whether this round up is a conference call, a live chat or a circulating email will depend on the context. Like Ivo, I think the more human the connection the better.
Business tends to be very task-orientated and sometimes relating to each others as humans is seen as secondary. In fact, for great creativity I think relationship-orientation is essential.
In my experience, e-mail tends to be even more task orientated. The absence of immediate human feedback will exacerbate a tendency to simply issue commands or requests. Sometimes we use email specifically to avoid "small talk".
But "small talk" is often what connects us humanly. So we need to develop good email habits - warm greeting, some personal information, appreciations of what others have said, using the names of others etc.
Ton Zijlstra
Ton Zijlstra, 15-Aug-02 @ 09:04AM
Alistair's lessons
Hi there,
Alistair gives us two lessons from his own experience relating to trust in virtual communities. Both are valuable.
I don't think that the issues around trust are all that different between virtual and irl communities, only the facilities one needs to address those issues are. So maybe if we could agree on the basic issues surrounding the advent of trust, we could then make suggestions on how to solve them in both virtual and 'real' communities.
From the comments given here I'd make the following list, which fits my own experience both on and off line. Alistair's lessons are on top of this list.
- keep your promises, and if you can't: say so, and if possible explain (which is different from being required to defend yourself)
- room for off topic remarks/discussions etc. These also fill in the gaps between 'substantial' exchanges, and are most likely to create the strongest bonds. I don't (dis)like my colleagues because they are all experts in their respective fields, I (dis)like them because how I know them as individuals. And liking and trust go a long way together. Basic socialising.
- visibility. Let people know where you're at. Don't drop out of sight, but tell them you're off to the Provence for a few weeks to recharge your batteries. Provide ways for people to get to know a bit more about you without directly meeting you, by having some text (cv, and or other self-description) available for distribution on demand.
- freely tell what you know about yourself, if it's related to the discussion/exchange at hand. Telling about personal experiences brings with it all the pro's of good story telling (elsewhere debated here on knowledgeboard.com), but also gives others a strong signal that you're trusting them with intimate knowledge of yourself. You might consider my first comment here as an example of that.
- use what you know about the others. If you come across something that might be of interest to someone you know, give it to them. You'll maybe surprise them in a positive way, and will certainly let them know you are thoughtful of them.
With these five items the notion that trust is a gift, and an action, as already mentioned here before, is illustrated.
Anybody else who add's to my little list?
Kind regards,
Ton Zijlstra
Alistair Brett
Alistair Brett, 14-Aug-02 @ 15:30PM
Getting started on building trust
I agree with Ivo that having met, in person, the members of a virtual team is a great advantage. In one 3-country virtual team in which I am involved, we had several face to face meetings first.
Two lessons have been learned from this team:
1. One of the best ways to build trust is to "deliver". That is, to do what I said I will do. Also, if I cannot successfully carry out what I said I can do, don't hide in cyberspace but come forward with a reason.
2. Silence can hurt trust. I have requested members of the virtual team to keep in touch, even if there is a lull in our work. This could produce too many trivial communications, but I believe when you can't see someone it is good to know they are still there!
Alistair
Ivo Snijders
Ivo Snijders, 14-Aug-02 @ 09:00AM
So, where do we begin?
The comments on the article, and the questions raised, are getting more and more interesting.
I have a few of my own to add….
The questions are very close to my own “need to know” agenda. My own hands on experiences with virtual communities is very limited.
But in my job I am involved in (setting up) a global (or mainly European) virtual community. This new community not only will cross borders, but also time zones, cultures and independent organizations. All will be focused on raising the professionalism of the participants and the harmonization of rules, guidelines and practices within this highly specialized but also, very independent group of people.
The trust to participate in a community like this will have to come from the few, but regular face to face meetings and seminars we also have. I believe that together with trust there also needs to be the respect for the professionalism of others.
I have a whole range of questions (and worries) on how we can make it all happen, and sustain it.
So, where do we start building trust in an virtual community, what would be the key “trust factor” that would make people join or stay and participate in the community?
At an other level I believe that, somehow, visual contact, or at least having seen the other persons within the community (pictures and ‘yellow pages’ can help too) helps to develop trust. Other aspects, emotions like (the feeling of) the security, credibility etc., that are important in the development and sustainability of a community, will have to be addressed too.
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 13-Aug-02 @ 14:26PM
Trust in virtual contexts
Alistair, thanks for raising this. I would love to hear other people's experiences. In mine over 8 years of virtual experimenting, poor trust flow is what has broken almost every virtual application that didn't fly.
Just 2 short examples. I have done some advisory work on virtual teams in global organisations. My main advice is usually received with rapturous disdain. It is if you have a long-running global team project, install 2 project managers : the technical team leader and the social leader who must work closely together but on different performances : the project goal, sustaining the team's spirit and transparency. The latter leader needs to be the one everyone trusts if they are getting behind or suspicious that real sub-cells are not informing the virtual team etc. If backstabbing can go on in real environments; it can go on much more in virtually-enabled ones. This also means that the social leader should have designed-in ways of keeping in touch; eg if he or she is administering a timesheet, I say add to that some questions where trust can be tracked. Equally at critical stages of the team development - of which the start is perhaps a biggest - the social team leader should call for a real meeting, at least if you really expect a heroic virtual team to bond over the coming months and years.
Second example: do companies design into their organisations rewards that positively discriminate towards trust in virtual collaboration? If they don't, they don't deserve to make the change towards this. System change in my view depends on designing rewards towards the change you want not the status quo.
Look forward to other's experiences in this seemingly unchartered territory
chris
Alistair Brett
Alistair Brett, 12-Aug-02 @ 18:29PM
Trust in Virtual Settings
The article has helpful guidance in creating - and preserving - trust in face to face encounters. How can this be translated into creating trust in virtual settings? Many of us work across large distances, time zones, and cultures using e-mail and web-enabled collaborative tools, as well as the telephone.
Some cultures, or maybe it is just individuals, seem to be more comfortable than others without face to face contact. Americans conduct a lot of business by phone for example, without personal contact.
I would be interested in the experience of others in developing productive and trusting relationships within virtual groups. I assume the fundamentals discussed in the paper must be the same, but how best to implement them when most members of the group have not met each other in person?
Alistair Brett
Senior Associate
Oxford Innovation Ltd
a.brett@att.net
John Moore
John Moore, 12-Aug-02 @ 17:25PM
"CEO Disease": Importance and cures
Chris, I think the phenomenon Daniel Goleman describes is absolutely at the heart of knowledge management. Failures of trust at this level must absoulutely affect the effectiveness of any business. In my experience, encounters of this kind are common in business. In fact, for a CEO to identify it is a good sign - many people are so used to distrust they may not even notice it any more.
I am sure readers will have many remedies to suggest. For my part, I think people in relationship to each other need to take time to review how well they manage the process of their relationship, not just the day-to-day tasks. I heartily recommend the Temperature Reading developed by Virginia Satir - one of several expositions online is at http://www.stickyminds.com/sitewide.asp?ObjectId=2535&Function=DETAILBROWSE&ObjectType=ART
I have used this method in my own work with very rewarding results (though it takes practice and skill to make it work properly).
Chris Macrae
Chris Macrae, 12-Aug-02 @ 14:30PM
Emotional Inteligence of leadership, and a trust problem?
As the current host of this sig on KM & Emotional Intelligence, I felt duty bound to buy Daniel Goleman's latest book which applies EI to leadership. I came across this quote which I felt was an intriguing connection between KM&EI, leadership, and trust:
On p 93, Daniel Goleman introduces the term the “CEO Disease” which one CEO described like this. “I so often feel I’m not getting the truth. I can never put my finger on it, because no one is actually lying to me. But I can sense that people are hiding information, or camouflaging key facts so I won’t notice. They aren’t lying, but neither are they telling me everything I need to know. I am always second guessing.”
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/262/2010/5/2008