Valuing Truth

Trustworthy is the first word in the Boy Scouts law. It's a very important word that derives from the word "trust", of course. Without trust, none of us can ever feel comfortable being around anyone else, or saying something around anyone else. Without trust, personal relationships mean nothing, and work relationships mean nothing.

Think about the last time you trusted someone who violated that trust. It could be almost anything; you gave someone money and they never paid you back; you shared information with someone and it got out to others; you believed something a loved one told you, then learned that it wasn't true. How did it make you feel?

For that matter, were you the one who acted out of turn, or violated a trust, for whatever reason, and were discovered later on? Was it inadvertent, or intentional?

All those times I've talked about customer service, I'm talking about a type of trust between the customer and the proprietor. We all trust those who sell us goods to sell us top quality merchandise, items that won't quickly break and will bring us great satisfaction. We trust that if we have issues with those items after we've purchased them that we'll get some amount of satisfaction from those stores. We trust that we'll be treated as valuable customers whom these companies care about. But what happens when it doesn't happen? We tell almost everyone we know what happened to us. Bad news always spreads faster than good news, and if enough of these bad stories get around, those companies will find that their bad actions have crippled their business.

The same kind of thing happens as it pertains to family. Someone does something without thinking, upsets a family member in some fashion, and that family member is never trusted again. Word spreads throughout the family, and, whether that person realizes it or not, they're never trusted again by anyone. Sometimes an action is intentional, with the purpose being to harm someone else, and when it's found out, there are so many hurt feelings that family members sometimes won't talk to other family members for years and years. Families deal with many broken promises, things said in moments of tragedy that are forgotten as soon as they head for home, things said at family reunions or weddings, some that can never be truly forgiven or taken back.

All these types of things are tragic. But what happens if it's in a work situation, with people you don't have a choice in talking to or seeing ever again? Every day in the workplace, gossip is flying around the office, sometimes solicited, sometimes not solicited, and it's hard to escape. Someone hears a tidbit and just has to get it out; it hurts too much to keep to themselves. Sometimes they're making it up because it's something they feel has to be true, and they tell it as if it's truth. Sometimes they're told something in confidence and it's just burning too much to be held in. Gossip is tough to deal with because, unfortunately, sometimes it's true. Still, it's hurtful, and if one is viewing that person from a telescopic view rather than a microscopic view, they'll eventually start to wonder what's being said about them when they're not around, because none of us is immune to being gossiped about, truth or not.

What about other work issues that come up more frequently than we'd care to admit to? For instance, getting someone's opinion on something, having them tell you they like it and agree with you, only to tell others what you really feel and work on sabotaging the process? Or working with someone who has you doing most of the work because you understand the issue better, then having them represent it later on as if they did all the work themselves, as if you never had a piece of the action? Who hasn't had someone else try to take credit for work you did? Who hasn't had someone talk out of both sides of their mouth, nice to you in one direction, vilifying or sabotaging you in another?

Trust is, in my opinion, the most important thing that one person needs to have in their working relationships with each other. As a consultant, if people don't trust me to be able to show up and help them achieve things they couldn't without me, I'd never get any work. If people didn't believe they could trust me not to tell all of their business once I leave I'd never get work. By the same token, if I didn't trust these same entities to pay me, or heed advice that I give them, I'd never work with them or expect them to improve in any fashion. If I didn't trust my abilities, I'd make a lousy consultant. If I couldn't get people to work with me, believe in me to a degree, and allow me to help them along the way, I'd be a lousy consultant.

Many managers and employees don't trust themselves, or others, and that's where problems occur. If one doesn't trust themselves, they make mistakes, and spend their time trying to figure out ways of either hiding that truth, blaming others for their own shortcomings, or finding mistakes that others make to defer attention from themselves. They work on breaking down the office, turning people against each other, and expect that they'll remain unscathed by it all. And when it finally does come back their way, they spend their time blaming others for getting them in trouble.

And that's the overall reality, because it always comes back on those types of people in some fashion. It's hard to keep a lie going; honesty, a major component of being trustworthy, is usually easier because there's only one story to tell, and one can tell that same story to many people. Lies are hard because liars tell different versions of the same story to many people, not realizing that others will eventually talk with each other and realize that they each have a piece of some story, which they're not sure is true or not.

Edward R. Murrow said "Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit." John F. Kennedy said "The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic." And Voltaire said "As long as people believe in absurdities, they will continue to commit atrocities." Each of us gets to decide how much we want trust and honesty in our lives, both personal and professional. If I had my way, it would be 99% truth; I might have said 100%, but we all need a little bit of fun in our lives, right?