Every day I'm reminded of how we are losing Trust in our politicians, our big corporations (banks, please go to the top of the list), our unions, our public sector, our economy, and just about everything we're exposed to by the media. Heck, even one of my favorite trusted web sources, Yelp, is now defending several class action suits with allegations including review tampering. For Pete's sake.
A teacher once showed me that there are two elements to Trust - first, the presence or absence of Sincerity, and second, the presence or absence of Competence. Trust is built by recurrence supported by Sincerity and Competence... if my plumber has shown up and fixed my problem the last six times in a row, I Trust she will do it the next time I call. Conversely, when politicians say that BLS unemployment data indicates continuing recovery, I remember that those data have been consistently revised in the bad direction every month and reported in such a way as to mask the full magnitude of the persistent employment problems we face. Trust? Not.
When political races consistently boil down to intense negative campaigning, what happens to Trust?
When a neighborhood is immolated by it's public utility company and the back story shows the tragedy was eminently preventable, what happens to Trust?
On the bright side, I still Trust people and organizations that are Sincere and Competent... fortunately enough to make life work well. I hope you have many people in your life you can Trust... it's precious.
