Trust
Intro
Padi mi, I guess I have to do back-to-back writing because of the way I’m feeling. I feel like letting out a bit of my concern about the topic in question: Trust. My day has been okay, with some experiences of incomplete breadths. I started the day off with a colleague, Hyelni, and we had about 30 minutes of a convo on Agility. Our talk spanned across business, social, government and individual agility. In all, we agreed that ‘agile is a mindset’. But can we be agile about trust?
About Trust
Trust is believing that a person or a process will behave in a certain way and produce a certain kind of outcome in a circumstance. Trust is value neutral, in that, you either trust that good will happen or bad will occur. Trust is usually built over time and upon repeated experiences. There is no system or relationship that survives or that could be managed without an understanding of the kind of trust behind it.
Mistrust
The lack of trust in something to produce a positive outcome is called mistrust. One could trust that a football team cannot win a match; that means you mistrust the team. I have observed that people have varying degrees of trust in others. Some people can commit their lives into the hands of others. We trust pilots to do their job, doctors, lawyers, artisans, priests/religious leaders, and other experts usually enjoy trust from the public according to their areas of competence.
The Balance of Trust
Knowing when and whom to trust is often subject to the degree of confidence you have in yourself, and in them. Trust first sprouts from within people, then we extend some measure of that trust to others. However, there are many instances where people are not able to respond to the level of trust placed in them. So creating a buffer within to manage betrayal of trust is a safe thing to do.
Being in Trust
Most often than not, we find ourselves in positions where we are being trusted with things. Physical, emotional, spiritual, social and political commodities can be put in our care. How we manage these items impacts the way those who entrusted them to us will treat us as well as others who come after us. Every individual has the responsibility of safeguarding the trust in their care, for the sake of themselves and for others.
Building Trust
Communication and action are chiefly the vehicles for building trust. You must ‘say the truth, do the truth and remain in truth’ (i.e., the truth cycle) to ensure that trust grows healthily. Repeating the truth cycle is what progresses trust.
Sustaining Trust
Building trust for a long time and breaking the chain could have a negative impact on relationships. But we must realize that human beings are not perfect. Therefore, sustaining trust has to do with understanding the need for an unbroken trust chain, and forgiving in order to heal broken chains.
