🌿🧭🌳 OD29: New framework - the Pyramid of Trust ∙ Six ways to think long term ∙ OD goodies
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1. The Pyramid of Trust
John Hagel explores the topic of trust and proposes a new framework for (re)building trust. Some key premises:
It’s becoming increasingly apparent that there’s a growing disconnect between the way our institutions are run and the way our world is evolving.
That’s a key driver of the erosion of trust – we intuitively see that growing disconnect and recognize that our institutions are less and less fit for the world they operate in.The more fear we feel, the less willing we become to trust others, which makes us even more fearful, setting into motion of vicious cycle of growing fear and loss of trust.
In a more rapidly changing and uncertain world, performance in the past is no longer a reliable indicator of performance in the future.
And the proposed solution:
To build deep trust with others, we’re going to have cultivate multiple layers of trust, with each layer building on the layer(s) underneath it.
Base layer: Humility
The acknowledgement by the person or institution that they will never have all the skills and resources required to address an expanding array of unanticipated challenges and obstacles.
Second layer: Values and Integrity
Are their actions consistent with their values, regardless of the unexpected situations that emerge?
Third layer: Commitment to Impact
Is the person or institution committed to delivering impact that matters to me?
Since my needs and aspirations are unique to me – is there a commitment to understanding what my individual needs and aspirations really are?
Fourth layer: Excitement about Impact
We need to see genuine excitement about addressing unexpected challenges in delivering the impact that matters to us.
We can trust those who have this passion because they have a questing disposition – they’re constantly seeking out new challenges and opportunities and driven to deliver more and more impact that matters in the domain they have chosen.
The other dimension of the pyramid: People
Looking ahead, I’m much more likely to trust a group of individuals who have deep, trust-based relationships with each other than I would trust any one individual.
Does this framework resonate with your own approach of building trust at work?
Six ways to think long term
Continuing the theme of long-term thinking that we started last week, we’ve now picked a piece that’s sub-titled “A Cognitive Toolkit for Good Ancestors”.
The need to draw on our capacity to think long-term has never been more urgent, whether in areas such as public health care (like planning for the next pandemic on the horizon), to deal with technological risks (such as from AI-controlled lethal autonomous weapons), or to confront the threats of an ecological crisis where nations sit around international conference tables, bickering about their near-term interests, while the planet burns and species disappear.
At the same time, businesses can barely see past the next quarterly report, we are addicted to 24/7 instant news, and find it hard to resist the Buy Now button.
Roman Krznaric goes on to present a graphic using the “Tug of War” metaphor:
We invite you to reflect on these 6 ways to think long term. Could they help your team or your organization become more effective and create more value?
OD Goodies
If you like this stuff and you’re curious about some extra #orgdev.
Li’s Newsletter: a trend that we’ve been observing and living ourselves is unbundling the work from traditional employment.
Korn Ferry: in this piece about engaging people and maintaining the esprit de corps, we bumped into the topic of “presenteeism” again. Here it’s defined as ”the state of being physically on a call or in a meeting but not mentally or emotionally present”.
Ars Technica: there’s a new documentary app (looks like a new genre) about the journey of the Valve organization to release a new Half-Life game. A quote: "We sort of had to collectively admit we were wrong on the premise that you will be happiest if you work on something you personally want to work on the most."
MIT SMR: business anthropologist Martha Bird shares a social history of the modern office and invites readers to reflect on and contextualize the post-pandemic office.
Quick updates related to the newsletter:
We’ve had some insightful conversations with some of you these days. Thank you! Two common themes emerged: invite readers to share challenges and resources around a specific organizational topic + share our own experiences, challenges and lessons learned from the programs we’re advising. So this is something that we’ll experiment with in the coming weeks.
If you want to shape the evolution of the OrgDev newsletter, we invite you to take this new 1 min survey to share how we could make it more useful for you.
The OrgDev newsletter is curated by Raluca and Bülent Duagi, the team behind Sense & Change. We’re OD practitioners, working with teams and organizations that are not running on autopilot and advising them to become more effective.