Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Speaking of trust

Thought leader, entrepreneur and management academic, Karen Stephenson, talks about the “quantum theory of trust” in organizations, which reflects that the collective cognitive abilities of organizations depends on the presence of trust in its networks of relationships.

As she says, “People have at their very fingertips, at the tips of their brains, tremendous amounts of tacit knowledge, which are not captured in our computer systems or on paper. Trust is the utility through which this knowledge flows.”

Or one might say, people who don’t share trust are less intelligent together; people who share trust are smarter together.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's true!

I'm an italian student and for my master degree in Economics I'm trying to demonstrate that it's possible to create value in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility by networks b/w profit and nonprofit organizations.

I've founded your blog from orgnet.com, it's very interesting!

Kordell Norton said...

In the early 1990 the use of a power-based social network was fused into traditional sales strategies. The premise was that if you could figure out who were the individuals that had clout and power in any organization, that the principle of “where Eagles gather” would take over. Find one point of political power and that person would then lead you to all of the others who had similar power.

Another principle was that these individuals got power because they knew how to manage the risks the business experienced by adding additional value add both internal to the organization or by outside vendors, partners or other service providers.

Trust. If you are going to bring in outside “value add” and you are a person in power. . . you have got to trust, indeed even know that they can indeed bring value.

Trust worthiness then as at the core of anyone being able to expand your value into a client, customer or organization.

Kordell Norton
www.KordellNorton.com