Book Club: The Seven Rules of Trust
There’s been a lot of hand wringing about trust lately. The loss of trust in science, government, institutions, and organizations has serious consequences. When it’s lost, it’s hard to repair.
The Seven Rules of Trust: A Blueprint for Building Things that Last is an excellent place to start exploring how to fix the mess we’ve made. The author, Jimmy Wales, founded Wikipedia and uses that experience to illustrate what to do, and what not to do. He also includes other initiatives, such as Airbnb and Uber, that require a massive level of trust. Imagine inviting a stranger into your home or car. But these are very big, successful companies now.
Wikipedia launched in 2001, allowing anyone to write and post articles or edit existing articles. It was a “nutty idea” at the time. Now it has millions of articles (far more than the Encyclopedia Britanica it replaced), is very close in accuracy, far surpasses in usage, and engages hundreds of thousands of volunteers each month across the globe contributing and editing content. How did it not devolve into the screaming chaos that pervades social media?
Based on Wikipedia’s experience and similar initiatives, the author has developed seven rules that are critical to building and maintaining trust.
- Make it personal
- Work with human nature
- Have a strong, clear, positive purpose
- To get trust, give trust
- Civility
- Stick to your mission, Don’t take sides
- Transparency
Very wise, very simple rules. I will be thinking about these lessons for awhile.