I have heard for the longest time when finding a partner/spouse etc, the key is trust. You must trust them, or the relationship will fall apart. You can look inside your own relationships and understand whether or not trust was the reason it is still together or fell apart. There is this notion also of trust for you manager/company you are working for. If your boss no longer trusts you, they are checking everything you do and this in turn makes you feel like a child. If you don’t trust them, you probably are not putting in your best effort. It is amazing that that one concept covers so much.
But what I just made a connection is that there is a key relationship that is failing us all due to lack of trust. Our relationship with our government/leaders. And they are not doing anything to gain in back, in fact what is worse they are blaming the symptoms and not the cause. It is like when someone is sick and giving them cough syrup, not realizing they are choking on something. Funny when you try to fix the symptom now, you seem to actually anger the people you are trying to protect more. You give them the notion that you trying to silence them.
What is strange is that in work I have been taught (by very good leaders and managers) to answer “I don’t know.” It is better to answer that than to make up some lie. Or at least say “let me get you the right answer.” Seems like very different when it comes to some in government, they are making choices of “what they want us to hear” or “what will calm the masses” or even in some cases what will “rile up the masses” versus saying “I don’t know.”
In some cases it is calculated answer and it other cases it just is plain stupid. I am not going to pick out any specifics, those you can google. The problem is we don’t know when someone is doing it, and for what reason. For someone to say “I don’t know” makes them seem like not a leader.
But the outcome now is the lack of trust. And when this trust is missing people can find and make up their own truth. Or in many cases not believe what they are being told. Winning trust back is almost impossible (depending on how bad the loss is) Take someone cheating on you, how quickly would you trust them? It is not lock each government official can go to one and one therapy with everyone they broke trust with. So their answer is not to fix the cause, but put a band aid on the symptom.
We cannot look at Facebook or Twitter and say they are the cause of the problem without understanding what led to it. Misinformation existed from the time we started communicating, and with each new form of communication there was always push back that it will lead to problems. Jeff Jarvis on This Week in Google states this 100x over. From the Gutenberg press to radio, to TV, we are told that the medium of communication is the problem. Well whatever replaces Facebook and Twitter you are next to blame.
I don’t know what will fix trust but not addressing it is not going to solve the problem.
This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free. I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them
This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book. With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path. I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content. I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip. I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.