I spent yesterday thinking about "trust" and the relationship I've given
it to competition and to employee ranking (not to mention it's
relationship to organizational culture change).
The bottom line is I don't trust other people. I prefer people to be
competitors instead of collaborators first, as that is the way I feel I
can best decide if I can trust them. I prefer employee ranking based on
clearly defined criteria because I don't trust management to make the
right decisions.
If you had asked me a year ago if I was a trusting person I'd say "yea, of
course." But the thread on employee ranking and competition have made it
clear to me that there is a descrepancy between my espoused values/beliefs
and the ones I actually live by.
I do think that dialog plays a critical role in developing an environment
where trust can flourish. I think that the mating process is more
concerned with using dialog to determine if the other person is suitable
or not; I think that dialog plays an important role in developing a
friendship; I think that dialog is important in developing trust within a
team; and it is certainly critical in developing a trusting relationship
with management.
Unfortunately there is much about how our society functions that deters us
from engaging in dialog. I remember as a teenager being told by my
teachers to "stop misbehaving." They never inquired into what I was doing,
or why I was doing it. They just pronounced my behavior as "wrong" and
demanded that I stop. Parents often do the same thing (at least I've
caught myself doing it). What this says to a child, I believe, is what you
are doing, thinking, or feeling, is not as important as what I'm telling
you ( or what I'm expecting of you). The result is that many of us learn
not to share our true feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. Instead we become
expert at saying what other people want to hear, and doing what other
people want.
When we reach the workforce and take a position in an organization we
carry with us the belief that people don't really care about us as
individuals, but instead only value us when we do what they want/expect.
This belief is reinforced in a command-and-control environment.
The tragedy is that the full intelligence and ability of people is seldom
harnassed when they're not able to fully express themselves at work. The
flip side is if you're going to open the door to an open environment
susceptible to dialog, you'd better be prepared to deal with some pretty
intense emotional situations. Once people find they can express
themselves, they may go nuts for a while. At least that's my experience.
--
Benjamin Compton
DWS -- "The GroupWise Integration Experts"
A Novell Platinum Partner
bcompton@dws.net
http://www.emailsolutions.com
--Ben Compton <BCompton@dws.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>