The Possibility of Trust
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Following on from my blog on Paul Story and ‘The Honesty Edition’, there were loads of comments, Tweets and real-world conversations that made me want to follow-up on the idea of applying ‘trust’ to a range of voluntary sector activities/processes. Namely, in relation to funding, people said things to the effect of: “a funding relationship will never be trusting, because there’s money involved”. This drew me to one of my favourite quotes from one of my favourite books: “Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed”:
“Change—surprising and sometimes radical change—does happen. The world does turn on its head every once in a while. And what seemed almost impossible looking forward seems almost inevitable look back.” (Getting to Maybe, viii)
With this quote in mind, please indulge in the possibly Utopic fantasy which follows.
The Trusting Place
Once upon a time, there was a distinct space that existed between the greedy hedonism of the private sector, and the soulless bureaucracy of government. This space was known as ‘the trusting place’ and was built-on an entirely different set of values than those of its counterparts; a place where trust was at the core of how and why people did what they did…
…I’ll skip the fairy tale hyperbole… But let’s think for a minute about what some of our sector’s relationships might look like if they were based on trust (rather than a range of contractual compliance measures)… All I ask is that rather than going to the knee-jerk ‘that won’t work because…’ response, take a minute to think about how much better than the realities you are used to dealing with, these options would be. If we can collectively acknowledge that there could be significant gains made (reaching new people, improving staff morale, discovering new social solutions, etc) from placing a higher premium on trust in our work, *maybe* then we can start to get passed some of the obstacles that have kept it from happening thus far…
Staff
- What if managers and the staff they managed got to hold each other accountable on a range of mutually-agreed aims and objectives, rather than this process-happening in one-direction?
- What if we felt we could admit our mistakes, shortcomings and poor judgment calls to those above and below us, without fear of some kind of retribution, backstabbing or disciplinary?
- What if we only addressed problems as they arose, with the people involved, rather than filling reams of paper with ‘what to do in case of worst-case scenario’ policies?
Funders
- What if funders and organisations saw themselves as partners, aiming to openly learn from their respective experiences and achieve social change together?
- What if organisations were supported to trial some new ideas before throwing all of their efforts into one approach, helping learn what really works before deeply investing?
- What if funders and trustees supported innovation and the kinds of (often risky) practices that foster it, rather than requiring a predetermined outcome and stressing heavy-handed accountability messages?
Volunteers
- What if people who wanted to help a good cause could just show up and be put to work?
- What if organisations encouraged volunteers to take-on high-level roles or define their own roles, rather than simply offering a ‘one-size-fits-all’ voluntary position?
- What if volunteers made collective decisions on the issues that affect them, rather than having them imposed by management or trustees?
This is clearly a polemic piece…
Some larger voluntary organisations have broken through some of these barriers effectively, and many have not. My instinct is that if a big organisation (and their relevant funders) could put this whole picture into action, the gains would be truly immense.
Anyone agree?
Tags: charity, getting to maybe, non-profit, organisational psychology, organisations, trust, voluntary
