Day #114
Action Day
This week has been an exploration of ‘Trust’, one of the Social Currencies that govern our relationships both within our social networks, and our formal ones. When i needed to write an explanation of ‘how trust works’ for the Guidebook, i said the following: trust is like a basket that we all carry around with us, and in that basket are a variety of forces and factors, swirling around. When pushed, we take a polaroid picture of the contents, providing an exact snapshot of ‘what trust is’ at that given time. But in another time, in another place, trust will be understood slightly differently.
Trust gives us a broader space to operate: if we work in a trusted team, we will likely feel safer to share both ideas and challenges, but it’s naive to think that ‘trust’ will solve everything. In a trusted team i may hold back from saying things that need to be said, because i fear losing the trust.
Today is an Action Day: use your sixty seconds to draw a web of trust - reaching out from you, who are the first six people you trust? They ask yourself ‘why’ - are there common or diverse factors behind these relationships? And do those six people know and trust each other?
Our social structures may be tight, or loose, connected, or even hidden from each other. One message in the Trust research was clear: making the implicit, explicit, can help us to understand how trust works. Literally by putting our understanding down on paper, we can see more of it’s wonder and limits.
If you enjoy Social Leadership Daily, you may enjoy my longer form writing for ‘The Captain’s Log’ - a reflective newsletter expanding some of my core writing from the week, and sharing a contemporary perspective on the Social Age.