• ABOUT

thinairfactoryblog

~ A topnotch WordPress.com site

thinairfactoryblog

Tag Archives: TRUST

Trump, Trust, People Power & A New Social Contract

25 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

20 Million Voices, Con, Divestment, facebook, Fossil Fuels, hawks, Islam, Lyndon Johnsen, Military Industrial Complex, Monty Python & The Holy Grail, NeoCon, Oil Men, PeoplePower, Pussy Grabber, Radicalism, Social Contract, Trump, TRUST, UltraCon, Vietnam

images.jpeg

I’m less concerned with the overt Trumpness of Donald. I am sure that I should be.

Weirdly, the idea that one certain mister ‘pussy grabber’ becomes the President Elect of the United States does not surprise or shock me.

The White House has had its fair share of mysoginists and philanderers – and of course the hawks (both the useful ones the world desperately needed and the assholes the world didn’t). Presidents have not all been shades of the wholesome, family-loving God bless America of Carter and Reagan.

Trump’s direct assaults on minorities, global warming groups, foreign aid, etc. are in no way a surprise. He claims that he is against radical Islam not Muslims, but seems to think beating up Muslims is a great strategy to that end.

And as for the Wall and the Mexican issue. Its teetering on high comedy.

I imagine Trump in the roll of the Norman Knight played by John Cleese in Monty Python & The Holy Grail, looking down from his high vantage on the castle wall.

As the people far below call up to him the Donald flicks his nose at them.

Whispers from off camera: What do they want?

Donald: They’re looking for the American Dream… (sniggers) I told them we already got one.

The cynics point to the fact that Trump can’t be a friend of Hollywood because Hollywood would never forgive him for sending back the people who do their gardens – as every lawn from Sunset to Malibu would scorch and die if it weren’t for the Mexican part time labourers who fill the pick-ups every morning on every principal corner of Sunset where the bus stops sit.

Global warming is cobblers of course  in Donaldland (my new name for the Disney-esque NeoCon Hoo Haa place we call the Disunited States of America).

We knew this was coming. His dinner party friends have all made a huge amounts of money from fossil fuels – Oh, and they think the science is cod. How remarkably convenient. Oh and they’d like to continue to make a whole lot of money from fossil fuels. (Apparently the quickest was to roll back environmental impact stuff and fluff is to roll forward one hell of a pipeline.)

And the new hawkish ‘build it up build it out’ approach will be making a whole lot of industrialists in the ordnance sector positively dribble in anticipation. Its like ’64 and Lyndon Johnson’s election all over again.

So shock horror probe.

Donald’s anti the soft lefty red types in the arts. He’s backing the Oil Men, the Military Industrial Complex, the dream of the self-made Millionaire, a two people America and defensive divisive Isolationism.

Damn right.

This is what made America great people. And that’s what Donald is gonna do again.

Look it. Whatta guy. Even his Campaign Officer is a helluva woman – comin’ out fig’tin an e’ry thing at that Inauguration Dinner. Hah.

We’re a hellzaapoppin, asskickin, red slappin’, say it the way it is, speak my mind raise my fists burn some rubber bomb some ragheads give no quarter US of Damn A – an’ don’t you forget it.

There is nothing surprising about Donald Trump at all. He is a very ordinary unsurprising old school alpha man. He is that man in that bar or pub. Foghorn Leghorn. His scrabble for money has given him bragging rights and a loudspeaker for whats right and wrong. And his politics are simply his genetic ‘assert & ascend’ survival strategy writ large and loud.

The greatest issue with Donald Trump is not his politics. It’s his integrity. That fuzzy golden grey periphery that seems to wrap itself around and about everything he touches.

And the minority of ordinary people who voted for him are potentially in for a rude awakening one day. There’s no guarantee he’ll screw it up of course. He may busk it. Survive the next 4 years and fate will smile on him.

It’s a little like functioning alcoholics: teetering on the edge of the abyss of their addiction but never quite falling into it. He may just glide across the bumps. Even more scary for some, there may even be some things that he does that are not necessarily welcome but actually might benefit a large number of people. The issue is can you trust him to do that but not at a punitive cost to others. Favouring one group or bloc or constituency over another is a politician’s remit. But not a President’s.

A substantially larger number of the thinking, living, earning, voting population of the country he runs don’t trust him to run the country in a manner they see fitting for an advanced and great First World bastion of Democracy and Liberalism (and I don’t just mean the fiscal kind).

They do have some fair reason.

A man who does not immediately and absolutely divest his business interests in the interest of running a country is like a man who turns an old pre wedding girlfriend into a post wedding mistress. A weighty dose of cake and Eating it.

A president who does not happily take a transparent line on his business and tax affairs is not to be trusted. This is where I will draw the Silvio Berlusconi parallel. It simply does not work. It leads to or exacerbates existing corruption, self interest runs riot, and toxic back room dealings and trades become the foundation of government decision making. Governments and Presidents do not need any more ‘obfuscation as policy’ – other than  that which already exists in the misty foggy worlds of GeoPolitics.

Regardless of whether he is playing games to reduce tax disproportionately or whether it is because Divestment might lead to full and open scrutiny of the financial health and integrity of those businesses – especially the degree of leverage he’s using and the source of that leverage (China anyone?), he is a man who fogs facts and doesn’t finish sentences – an obfuscator of the first order.

Policies are not the issue. Trust is, in regards to both his intentions and his actions.

And to be clear what I mean by ‘half the nation do not Trust Donald’ – I do not mean Trust as in their belief in his ability to undertake and do something he commits to doing. I wholly trust him to keep to his (vague) word and commitments:

“I trust DT to execute a mass of executive orders in his own and associates interest and to his own ends”

I wholly believe he will do that.

The Trust I mean is the one that defines the commitment to an action that is instilled with values and ethics – and of a clear sense of collective and not just selective good:

“I trust DT to set aside this own self-interest in pursuit of creating a better country for both the people who didn’t vote for him as for those who did.

As President, his role is to increase prosperity, and reduce division between the haves and the not haves, and between those for and against him.

Which leads me to venture a thought.

I wonder whether perhaps in our peer to peer world in the absence of a Trust coming down from on high, the new social contract needs to be drawn not between government and the people, but BETWEEN THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES.

Perhaps the new social contract – the contract of TRUST – needs to be drawn up between Trump voters and non Trump Voters. And to each the other is held accountable. Because if Donald is all about acting on the will of the people, then the people’s integrity and mutual trust and vision is everything and he should be in service to that.

Perhaps this is the new model to be forged – enshrined and acted upon in the interests of the American people.

The social contract of TRUST should become a respectful charter for mutuality that transcends party and individual politics:

I trust you to uphold your personal liberties without holding them above mine.

I trust you to raise and protect your family but not at the expense of mine or others

I trust you not to harm our communities in pursuit of making a better one of your own

I trust you to raise your hand in support of those less well off than you, not in suppression of them.

I trust you to protect the freedom of every American citizen, not just those like you.

I trust you to protect our great American wildlife and countryside for our grandchildren

I trust you not to be seduced by words but swayed by actions

I trust you to share equally the Greatness we collectively make.

Just a thought. A new peer to peer Social Contract for the American People.

If we could get both sides to agree that it is the people who Donald serves, and let the people shape the Social Contract that he is action, underwrite and secure using all of the instruments tools and machinery of his elected office, now that would be something.

Who knows: we might even have finally found a meaningful role for Facebook in a declining market.

A peer to peer social contract managed across face book’s 20 Million users – which to be fair even allowing for the teenage user profile and pre voting age bloc is still a hell of a lot closer to representing the future voice and desire of America.

It is certainly more broadly representative of the people of America than the 60% turnout of which Donald still did not secure the majority.

Just saying.

 

 

TRUST, Values & turning up in the I’m Funny T Shirt

22 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Authenticity, Bonus Culture, Brand Agencies, brand behaviours, Business Schools, Consumer Rights, Contracts, Corporate Affairs, FMCG, Funny, Gladiator, Iconic, Integrity, Keynote Speakers, Management Consultants, Maximus, Oliver Williamson, purpose, Retail, Rigour, Rome, Spinal Tap, The Big 4, TRUST, Values

keep-calm-and-remember-im-funny

… I maintain that trust is irrelevant to commercial exchange and that reference to trust in this connection promotes confusion.

— Oliver Williamson

 Trust. Small Word. Massive Impact.

But which ‘Trust’ do we actually mean when chiseling the word for the umpteenth time onto the Values Plinth? There are a few versions out there – and none more corrosive that faux TRUST or the TRUST that comes from the dressing up box of corporate affairs – fancy TRUST – a word draped in Savile Row charcoal cashmere, or beautifully typeset and set high on the wall – yet inert – made moribund at the moment of its stitching and forging.

Then there’s buttoned up TRUST. Ironed repressed imprisoned – bear baited into a contracted commitment between one actor and another.

In these contractual prisons, the real power of TRUST; as a proof that liberates people to act decently and respectfully and with singular purpose at all times, gets twisted and shoved; and roughly cut away to fit into the self interested margins of the contract it supposedly underwrites.

Then there’s the TRUST of the podium, the BIG TRUST of soundbites and ‘our journey’ and the soaring oratory of perseverance and endeavor – an ephemeral fleeting TRUST that fills both the chest of the corporate speaker impugning it and the hall into which they decant it, only to wash out of the back doors into faint memory and insignificance – sullied and cheapened by having ever been bought there in the first place.

And then there’s the TRUST that protests too much from the statements and the releases of those who have traded, stained and manipulated it most. (Yes, banks and financial institutions, that will be you, and your FMCG and retail friends there on the bench next to you; with their palm oil and indentured labour hidden in some foreign field that is forever England: or the provider of its pants at least.)

If you wish to speak of real TRUST, speak in hushed respectful tones; speak rarely; in fact, come to think about it, we’d rather you didn’t speak of it at all.

Much like the exquisite blue guitar in Nigel Tufnel’s Guitar room in Spinal Tap, there is a sense that to even point to TRUST would be to destroy it.

“its special, look, see, still got the old tagger on it, never even played it”

“you just bought it”

“dont touch it”

“…was just looking at it…wasn’t going to touch it”

“…well, dont point …even”

TRUST is a dream that so many institutions crave but in that craving lies the source of self deceit. In their idolising of it lies the greatest measure of how fragile it is in their world: and how often and easily it can be compromised, corrupted and set aside.

In one of the opening scenes of the film Gladiator, Marcus Aurelius explains to Maximus that Rome is not a place but a very very fragile dream:

“There was once a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish…”

TRUST is that fragile. So it is best kept safe and sound and away from prying eyes under purposeful lock and key. It is made all the greater by remaining invisible and unreferenced.

But invisibility and absence are two very different things. The absence of TRUST renders every other corporate buzzword insignificant. Rigour, openness, expertise, integrity, promise, commitment and guarantee – all are simply conjuring tricks if not underwritten by real TRUST.

Real TRUST, the silent knowing kind, is the one that walks through relationships and partnerships without braggadocio or pomp.

Real TRUST never speaks its own name, claims its own accolade or states its own credential.

Much like its culturally-rooted cousin – ICONIC – it is an accolade for others to apply.

To state it is to turn up in the I’m Funny T Shirt. Don’t tell me that you’re funny, tell me a joke. I am wholly capable of deciding whether to laugh or not all by myself.

Real TRUST is not an academic concept or an intellectual exercise; much to the irritation of pretty much every business school, who seem to see TRUST as a compound fraction as opposed to the complex chaotic collision of context, circumstance, tangible and intangibles that it really is.

Real TRUST is felt, sought, fought for, prized, pursued, missed, believed, encountered, received, gifted, hard won, quickly lost, broken.

Real TRUST is to some professions a supply chain issue – the most critical systemic element that needs sustaining above all else – the securing of its source, its protection of its integrity, the sage management and application of its use, the zero waste and optimal energy processes that support it – all mandatory for its continued and unadulterated presence and role as the primary tool in the mitigation of risk for those professions

Real TRUST draws its potency from its paradox – from its staggering strength and precious fragility – while whole, real TRUST moves the hearts minds and mountains that find themselves in its thrall – but it can be shattered irreparably by a look, a word, the flick of a pen, the click of a mouse, an act sometimes so small as to be barely noticeable.

Real TRUST is the UNICORN of professional endeavor. While it exists in the world, all is well – but if it is forgotten, mortally wounded or set aside, the dark side will prevail.

A MATTER OF EMPHASIS

Real TRUST The assured reliance that someone else will do everything in your best interests and to the best of their ability.

Real TRUST The faith that they will, even in your absence, act faithfully and respectfully in regards to you and the things you hold most precious

Real TRUST  The sure knowledge that no exceptional, proprietary or empiric expertise knowing insight or skill will be held back or remain obscured in their undertakings for you.

Real TRUST  The singular base fabric of any profound relationship: woven from myriad strands and threads of multiple and relentlessly reoccurring and improving emotional and functional transactions of every shape size and hue

Real TRUST The invisible certainty that allows rigour to act unfettered in the room and in the moment

Real TRUST The slingshot of integrity: the champion of authenticity: the springboard of exception:

Real TRUST the most dynamic currency in the assurance economy: selectively invested but never traded or brokered.

Real TRUST the only critical investment worth making in any and every relationship no matter how big or small.

Real TRUST the unquestionable and immutable truth of any profession

Real TRUST is a market shaker, a world turner, an opinion shifter and a deal breaker – the one precious thing that cannot be bought or begged.

Real TRUST cannot be faked, cannot be belittled, cannot be impugned and will not be sold.

Real TRUST is more than a flat inert word on a values plaque or a commitment in a corporate mission. Real Trust is a living extant dynamic and irrepressible thing.

You cannot put real TRUST down, diminish it, demean it or set it aside.

It is the silent ROAR – the mighty Yawp – in every meaningful conversation: and cannot be talked over or shouted out

In the space between TRUST and WORTHY

TRUSTworthy is a simple word to describe a process person or material thing that can be relied upon to fulfil particular tasks time and time again with little decay or degradation in performance or effect –and in doing so make themselves worthy of trust.

It usually involves an incremental journey undertaken by two parties towards belief in each others ability to ‘do what they say they’ll do’ – a journey that is mostly undertaken via proof – measurable evidences great and small – of each’s ability to engender trust in the other.

The levers and pulleys of TRUST?

TRUST seems to be most often engendered by people with an unshakeable sense of Purpose to effect good things in the world – for both themselves and others: People with an irrepressible belief in the simple authenticity of what they do, doing the right thing and keeping their promises. These people regularly demonstrate an inappropriate degree of naked courage – effortless and comfortable in their transparency. They relentlessly apply this belief, commitment trait and nature in everything they do. They are meticulous in their approach – rigour never far from their mind. And they value integrity above all else.

UNSHAKEABLE                 Purpose

IRREPRESSIBLE               Belief

NAKED                           Transparency

RELENTLESS                   Application
METICULOUS                  Rigour
TRUE                              Integrity

I TRUST you to have an opinion

I TRUST you to have the right intention in proffering it

I TRUST you to design your particiaption  in commercial ethical and value terms acceptable to all parties

I TRUST you to price what you do fairly

I TRUST you to do what you say you’ll do

I TRUST you to not compromise the relationship or other interests while doing it.

I TRUST you to reconcile fairly and in good time

I TRUST you with my interests

I TRUST you

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • June 2021
  • December 2020
  • August 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • January 2020
  • October 2019
  • June 2019
  • April 2019
  • November 2018
  • August 2018
  • June 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • March 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013

Categories

  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • thinairfactoryblog
    • Join 93 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • thinairfactoryblog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...