Where Is Trust?
If you are anything like me you are swimming in a sea of newness and uncertainty. The amount of change in the world of work keeps accelerating. Sometimes I think I am “running very fast to keep up, and getting nowhere”. Why is that?
A few weeks ago I attended an extraordinary workshop in Independence Virginia, of all places. It was at the Oracle Institute. Sessions were held in the Peace Pentagon, which is a smaller replica of the Pentagon in DC. The facilitators were from Europe and Moiriches and introduced five new archetypes we need as Future Humans. The attendees traveled from Europe and parts of the US.
The setting was perfect. Nature at her peak blessed us with a double rainbow the night before we began. The evening of the first night we had a fire ceremony and watched the full moon rise. A sense of alignment was present throughout. 16 of us gathered: Doctors, Farmers, Scientists, OD Practitioners, and Entrepreneurs.
On the second day, we had the opportunity to do some integrating as we walked the beautiful labyrinth on the property. We concluded on the third day by walking the Medicine Wheel. It was a glorious experience, and I came home invigorated. The group decided it wanted to help support the creation of a new entry into the Gaming industry. It is a positive game that addresses the need for humanity to come together in singularity.
Here we were, a total of 18 people, some of whom had traveled for several days to live in a newly created community for 2.5 days. That we did, each of us learning and taking away what we needed to embrace this new world we are creating. How did this happen?
During this transformative weekend, each of us knew about the work of Anneloes Smitsman and Kurt Barnes. Anneloes co-authored The Quest of Rose and the Return of the Avatar with Jean Houston. She and Kurt created the EarthWISE Constitution, a living document that becomes a template for one's own life, projects, businesses, governments, and perhaps the world.
The Quest of Rose is a guide to sustainable living with kindness, compassion, and recognizing we are one. At one point in the program we read the Constitution aloud and each of us committed to follow it—a very powerful action. When one commits to something publicly a degree of trust is seeded in the ether.
I found my commitment further bolstered by William Hutchison Murray. Murray wrote, in “The Scottish Himalayan Expedition”:
Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
The organization analysis work I have been doing for the last 20 years is predicated on building trust in the work system. Workers need to trust the managerial accountability hierarchy as well as their coworkers to provide them with what they might need.
I asked myself: how could my experience at the Oracle Institute inform my work in managerial leadership? I spent a short weekend in Virginia: how was trust created in such a short period? Could I apply this trust-building to the world of management?
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this blog, where we’ll discuss my ideas on building trust, especially in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and a rapidly changing digital landscape. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the meantime!
Please note our hearts go out to the Israeli and Palestinian people, most of whom are innocents wanting peace in the region.