{"id":1938,"date":"2014-09-21T08:27:37","date_gmt":"2014-09-21T12:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/?p=1938"},"modified":"2014-09-21T09:13:03","modified_gmt":"2014-09-21T13:13:03","slug":"trust-it-cant-be-restored-if-it-never-existed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/?p=1938","title":{"rendered":"Trust: It Can’t be Restored if it Never Existed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TAA_R2_EDIT-CS3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>
\u2015\u00a0<\/span>Friedrich Nietzsche<\/a><\/p>\n

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Today’s blog topic jumped right out of the headlines from the past 24 hours:<\/p>\n

Football Must Regain the Public\u2019s Trust<\/a><\/p>\n

Trust Vital Between Officers & The Community<\/a><\/p>\n

State Audit of Fayette Schools Shows Need to Restore Public Trust<\/a><\/p>\n

Restore Public Trust<\/a><\/p>\n

These headlines rarely change. Everyday we hear about the need to restore trust in education, communities, sports, business and government. The story is the same, only the names of the violators change. I can’t think of a single headline that ever read something like this ” We are Embracing Trust as a Business Imperative and Building it Into Our Foundation.”<\/p>\n

There is enormous societal confusion swirling around the term “trust”\u00a0that stems from this “restoration” approach. It is based on the assumption that trust was present before the crisis. In almost every case it wasn’t. Building a foundation of trust\u00a0is a proactive decision made by the leaders of an organization, and it is built in incremental steps. In every one of the headlines above, I will venture to guess that trust was never a component\u00a0of the leadership agenda, nor its Board of Directors.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, trust is taken for granted. It is assumed that it just “exists” when, in reality, it rarely does. Some leaders might argue, “Why bother? Maybe we’ll get lucky and never face a crisis.” I would respond\u00a0that it’s much less expensive to build a foundation of trust, than it is to “manage” a crisis and attempt\u00a0to build trust after the crisis. Building a foundation of trust also brings tangible and intangible benefits. These are just a few:<\/p>\n