One thing I've learned in my life, my life in advertising, my life as a leader of groups, my life with my two daughters, is that it's hardly worthwhile, or in any event, it's significantly less fruitful, in the absence of trust.
Maybe the notion of trust is rattling around in my brain because it's the center of so much of what goes on in jury duty.
In any event, what occurred to me yesterday is that so much of the infrastructure of client organizations is based on the absence of trust. You need to run your work through a gantlet of levels, through a labyrinth of reviews because of that absence.
Showing work to clients isn't about doing what's right, it's about doing everything they "asked" for.
And then going through eleventeen layers to show them you listened.
I work for an organization whose mantra is "assume positive intent." Very hard in a cynical age in the most cynical business, easy to dismiss as naive or dangerously risky, but it makes a remarkable difference.
ReplyDeleteWow. Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a little kid I assumed many things were honest and earnest and respectful. That was what I was taught. The police. The court. The government. The banks. Banks where authorities. You had to earn their trust too. To get a loan. The bank people knew you personally or you were not trusted. Or so it seemed. I don't know if all these things were always rotten at the core. Or if the times have changed? But everything is very, very short term now. Profit next month or else. Build for the short term only. Why build a house that will last 300 years when it will be paid for in 10? I'm not even that old, but either I have finally grown up and had my eyes opened up, or things have really changed very quickly the last 20 years or so.
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