Edelman Trust barometer is out again. Extraordinary piece of work.
The highlights? Trust is at its lowest, everywhere [1]. The media in particular is at the bottom. In the organization, ‘people like me’ (‘a person like yourself’) represents the highest source of trust; the lowest, the CEO, a proxy for the top authority of the system.
This pattern has been consistent for years and is at the core of our peer-to-peer orchestration in our Viral Change™ programmes. [2]
Edelman says: “A person like yourself” is now as credible as an academic or technical expert, and far more credible than a CEO or government official, implying that the primary axis of communications is now horizontal or peer-to-peer, evidence of dispersion of authority to friends and family.
Interesting that Edelman brings in ‘horizontality’. This is how I put it just days ago, before the 2017 results: Trust is (mostly) horizontal. Our organizations are (mostly) vertical. No wonder… [3]
Managing the peer-to-peer networks in the organization sounds like management, full stop.
The Viral Change™ Mobilizing Platform is the most robust type of operating system for the modern, complex organization. It has peer-to-peer work as its engine of action. So we are on track, with the times, and ahead of the times.
I take no pleasure in the dismal levels of overall trust in the world, but I am delighted that we at our company of Organization Architects are working with the highest source of this currency to create large scale, behavioural and cultural change, that is social movements, powered by Viral Change™.
When it comes to trust – peers one, hierarchy nil.
This is not a call to the funeral of hierarchy. Its death has been largely exaggerated. It is a call to leadership to go to the optometrist, get a new pair of glasses, and get real. There are 30 or so points of trust distance between you and the hierarchy, and zero trust distance between you and your mates, colleagues, peers, tribe members, ‘people like you’.
This gap has existed for years and years. Curiously, optometrists have also been available during that time. How interesting!