Harnessing Trust, Creativity, and Communication: Keys to Collaboration in an AI World: We Can achieve anything, if work together & ask the right Qs.

Welcome to #FixTheWorld or #GiveUp newsletter 40

Hope our american friends have had a great thanksgiving weekend, especially those hostages that manage to get out of Gaza safely.

Not to forget despite truce thousands innocent civilians have perished not only in Gaza, Isreal but also in Ukraine and many other wars big and small and even those mass shootings and stabbings for seemingly no reasons.. I've decided however to focus on some positivity this weekend as we must highlight the power of creativity and if harnessed well, we could achieve much, not only the creative process itself (like creating a film/video)

but also achieve something (like election interference of

a bird of the century competitions), surely we can do better than that!?

My Rap via AI (well, its a short summary of my last blog post after the Sam Altman sacking & rehiring saga, & important question that no one is asking about ):

Hope you like this post please subscribe and invite others to FixTheWorld.4Good.Space

My Challenge to you this December, be Creative, make a song, video, movie, product, services; alone, with friends/family, enemies, nemesis or even total strangers, ask difficult questions and let's #FixTheWorld together?

TLDR: Trust is essential for creativity and innovation to thrive. When people feel psychologically safe to take risks, share ideas openly, and be vulnerable, they are more creative. Leaders can build trust on teams by modeling vulnerability, fostering open communication, and giving creative freedom. LLMs like ChatGPT can enhance creative collaboration if used thoughtfully, but should not replace human creativity and connection. Key action steps include building vulnerability-based trust, designing spaces for open sharing, leveraging supportive technology, and staying grounded in ethical principles.

Key Insights

• Trust convergence across competence, integrity and benevolence breeds the psychological safety vital for risk-rich creativity.
• Psychological safety liberates idea flow. Google research affirms it as most predictive of team performance.
• Trust fuels high performing interdisciplinary "Teaming" that solves complex problems. Specialists can coordinate quickly when relying upon shared goodwill and intentions.
• Leaders own disproportionate influence in shaping psychologically safe cultures through modeling vulnerability and fostering openness.
• Toxic business practices that exploit fears of conflict and failure inhibit engagement and imagination. Short-term numbers lead to long-term decline.
• Research proves trust and creativity are intentional skills developed through humble inquiry, mutual understanding and assuming positive intent.
• AI possesses untapped potential but its tendency to feign competence and alignment necessitates vigilant regulation to prevent deception and displaced workers.

Full blog post below:

The Creative Power of Trust

Trust is the foundation upon which creativity and innovation are built. When trust thrives, so does creativity. When trust suffers, creativity and progress grind to a halt.

This link is more than just anecdotal. Researchers have found direct connections between trust, psychological safety, and creative performance across industries, geographies, and eras. Trust enables the openness and risk-taking that drives breakthroughs.

But what fuels trust itself? And how can we consciously cultivate it to unlock creative potential? This treatise will explore the ingredients of trust, its causal links to creativity, and key strategies leaders and collaborators can enact to build trust on teams for enhanced innovation. We’ll highlight critical ethical considerations as AI capabilities advance.

Let’s begin by looking at the foundations. What is trust made of in creative environments and why does it matter so profoundly?

The Anatomy of Trust

Organizational researchers Roger Mayer, James Davis, and David Schoorman have extensively studied trust and developed an integrative model depicting its key components. Their work suggests three primary ingredients of trustworthiness:

1. Competence/Ability: The capabilities that enable a party to operate effectively within their domain. This includes skills, expertise, experience, and talent.
2. Benevolence: The extent to which a trustee has positive intentions and genuine care for the trustor. Benevolence moves beyond mere reliability to encompass goodwill, loyalty, and faithfulness.
3. Integrity: The willingness to uphold ethical principles like honesty, accountability, and consistency. Integrity builds trust by signaling morality and fairness.

When competence, benevolence, and integrity converge, they produce organizational trust between individuals and groups. And this trust, serving as a “lubricating” force, enhances efficiency, adaption, and innovation.

But why does trust function this way? Amy Edmondson’s seminal research on teaming sheds light. Edmondson suggests that today’s complex problems require cross-disciplinary collaboration at an unprecedented scale.Large creative initiatives depend on fluid teaming which temporarily unites diverse experts across fields and functions.

Yet this interdependent teaming involves substantial risk and uncertainty. When brought together, specialists must rapidly build shared understandings to coordinate effectively. This means openly discussing fledgling ideas that highlight knowledge gaps and vulnerabilities. Team members must reveal half-baked notions and ask “dumb” questions that expose their limitations.

Without trust, these uncertainties and risks inhibit ideation and progress. But when competence, benevolence, and integrity converge, they produce psychological safety—the belief one can take chances without being punished or embarrassed. And as Google’s Aristotle Project has shown, psychological safety is imperative for breakthroughs because it liberates the sharing of provocative ideas and unconventional perspectives.

Trust dissolved fear within some of history’s most prolific creators and collaborators. For instance, Pixar’s “Braintrust” method empowered the studio’s creatives to show unfinished work to colleagues and freely exchange candid feedback. Screenwriter Andrew Stanton recalls early readings of Finding Nemo when the plot was floundering. Yet rather than reacting defensively, Stanton absorbed the critique and rewrote the script until Toy Story director Lee Unkrich cried at a screening.

This vulnerability-based trust catalyzed creativity.

Findings in neuroscience underscore the creativity-enhancing effects of trust. Paul Zak’s research reveals that oxytocin, the “love hormone” associated with affection and empathy, also predicts creativity and ideation. When we feel safe and supported, vision expands. But when threats loom, executive resources concentrate on self-protection rather than imagination. Fear quite literally shrinks peripheral vision as the primitive amygdala hijacks higher cognitive functions. By contrast, trust bred through competence, goodwill, and fairness restores openness to exploration and innovation.

The Creativity Crisis: Trust in Decline

If trust enables the interpersonal risk-taking vital for trailblazing ideas, our current creativity crisis reflects an erosion of trust in multiple domains.

Gallup’s tracking has registered devastating declines in governmental, media, and societal trust over the past fifty years. Only 11 percent of Americans feel confident in Congress. Just 36 percent of citizens have faith in the mass media. And as partisan animosity intensifies, 57 percent perceive growing distrust between opposing partisan groups manifesting in contempt rather than comprehension. Consequently, self-censorship and tribalism now jeopardize the open exchange of ideas and integrative thinking necessary for breakthroughs.

Likewise, trust in business leadership has deteriorated. After studying organizational trust for decades through the Edelman Trust Barometer, Richard Edelman announced 2022 the first year businesses were distrusted globally, perceived as unethical and incompetent. With economic pessimism deepening, employees distrust leaders will support their futures. (although can we trust Edelman?)

But rebuilding trust for creativity means understanding its erosion. What cultural patterns and business practices have corroded the foundations of safety upon which imaginative potentials unfold?

True Creativity Killers: How We Crush Trust & Imagination

Delving deeper into the drivers of declining trust exposes troubling yet amendable trends.

common creativity-killing attitudes that dominate business and beyond:

1. Cynicism - The tendency to default to scornful and pessimistic assumptions about people’s motives destroys trust in benevolence and goodwill.
2. Skepticism - Valued by innovators for stress testing ideas, destructive skepticism manifests as knee-jerk suspicion and dismissal without due diligence.
3. Control - Excessive dependency on policies, approvals, and bureaucratic layers reinforces low-trust environments requiring constant governance.
4. Fear - Whether of conflict, failure, or the uncertain future, anxiety constricts creativity’s need for risk and exploration.
5. Aloofness - Physical and psychological separation from the human experiences of users and teammates degrades empathy and care.
6. Scarcity - The belief creativity is finite lowers likelihood of sharing ideas and enabling others.
7. Envy - Resenting the success of creative competitors deprives them of the community, complements, feedback, and inspiration that bolstered their rise.
8. Power Hoarding - When leaders centralize authority rather than distributing ownership of challenges to those closest to the work, both engagement and innovation decline.
9. Rightness - Getting attached to a specific solution prematurely cuts off better possibilities and turns fluid creative process into rigid execution.
10. Autonomy Allergy - Excessive individualism that eschews assistance keepsWould-be innovators isolated rather than leveraging collaborative capacities.

These attitudes that inhibit trust are further reinforced by business practices that sacrifice human needs for productivity. Constant disruption and destabilization ruptures the relationships and reputations upon which creativity depends. Real-time digital monitoring of minute-by-minute productivity was shown in sobering research by Harvard Business School’s Ethan Bernstein to choke performance. Fear of surveillance asymmetrically curbs creativity most because generative work entails failure-laden tinkering.

Likewise, the constant connectedness technology enables severely disrupts cognitive focus Creative flow states demand attentional absorption shielded from distraction. Yet expectations of 24/7 availability have increased interruptions, fractures attention, and exhausted mental reserves. No wonder knowledge worker productivity has declined since 2000 even as tech proliferation accelerated.

In total, trust-eroding business practices sacrifice psychological safety for numbers. But sustainable cultures understand you cannot commoditize imagination. As Pixar CEO Ed Catmull underscores repeatedly in Creativity, Inc (fantastic book, recommended!), numerical metrics only reveal outputs and lagging indicators, not the lead drivers of ingenuity and cohesion that enable long-term prosperity.

Trust: A Learnable Skill

Yet despite concerning cultural trends, evidence affirms trust and creativity can be intentionally constructed through conscious learnable behaviors. Trust proves not an elusive external force but a daily deliverable.

Studies confirm leaders bear primary responsibility for cultivating connective, risk-embracing contexts where human potential flourishes. For instance, research into psychologically safe cultures repeatedly isolated common leader practices that shaped them:

1. Accessibility - They remain approachable to team members through words and nonverbal cues.
2. Inclusivity - They intentionally invite diverse voices into critical conversations and decisions.
3. Curiosity - They ask lots of questions out of genuine interest in learning from different lenses.
4. Intentionality - They articulate strategic priorities and guardrails without micromanaging means.
5. Transparency - They openly share business context, goals, constraints and relevant proceedings.
6. Fallibility - They admit mistakes, knowledge gaps and their own imperfections.
7. Resiliency- They model perseverance through failures and frustrations.
8. Meaningfulness – They connect daily work to transcendent impact.

International studies likewise found approximately 70 percent of how employees experience their organization traces directly to local supervisor behavior. This holds true even amid negative macro trends. And professional services powerhouses like Deloitte recognize purposeful leadership action to engender trust as crucial capability in uncertain times.

Beyond formally designated managers, all collaborators contribute. Trust across networks ignites innovation. Mutual understanding evolves through humble inquiry, candid feedback, and extending grace to good intentions.

Teams transcend restrictive either/or tradeoffs by elevating collective wisdom. Creative synergy abounds. Master orchestra conductor Benjamin Zander speaks of distributed co-creation whereby participants simultaneously play their instruments and attune to the responses of the whole. Likewise, improv comedy troupes like Upright Citizens Brigade actively listen, accept, and build on each contribution toward unexpected heights.

Yes, trust-building takes patience and presence. But perhaps mayor roadblock is believing trust exists outside individual influence—that culture is fixed and other people must first demonstrate change. This external locus of control kills agency. But research shows trust can start one courageous conversation at a time.

The Reemergence of AI and the Trust Imperative

Ironically, as trust in humanity wavers, trust in AI ascends. Recent advances in models like ChatGPT demonstrate artistic abilities previously considered quintessentially human. Their launch prompts both wonder and wariness.

Make no mistake; these large language models (LLMs) display eerily eloquent linguistic intelligence. Built upon deep learning algorithms trained on vast datasets, they cangenerate eminently readable prose, code complex computer programs, summarize lengthy legal briefings, design marketing materials and even pass medical licensing exams.

Yet AI Scientist Philospher Anthropic researcher Amanda Askell astutely observes, “Damage to trust could be the largest harm from the misuse of LLMs.” Unattributed automation of creative work breeds confusion and deception that destabilize relationships. And false portrayal of fluency fuels the dangerous illusion of accuracy, accountability and alignment with human values.

So restoration of trust depends upon transparency. Responsible developers openly acknowledge LLMs’ inevitable inaccuracies and tendencies to confidently generate erroneous content without appropriate awareness. Wise collaborators leverage these tools for augmentation but not automation or replacement of human teammates. And ethical policies protect people given the disproportionate hardship automation may impose upon already vulnerable populations.

When used transparently and thoughtfully, AI can expand creative possibility by compounding cognition. For instance, AI may help creators:

• Access larger data repertoires to discern patterns unavailable to individual mental perception
• Manage repetitive low-value tasks like information retrieval and data entry rather than squandering precious human attention
• Simulation diverse perspectives beyond personal experience
• Multitrack variant creative directions by duplicating iterations to compare
• Rapidly render developing ideas into testable prototypes for evaluation

So this new breed of creative collaborator may not spell doom. However, we must acknowledge its double-edged potential and embrace regulation that ensures societal good.

Protecting Progress: Principles for the Future

So where do we go from here? How might conscientious citizens and leaders not only rebuild trust for creativity today but sustain it for the future? The following practical principles provide helpful guideposts:

1. Assume competence, humanity and positive intent until proven otherwise. Begin interactions from a baseline of believing in people’s potential.
2. Extend maximum openness, honesty and disclosure possible within legal and ethical limits when introducing new technologies into shared spaces. Err toward transparency.
3. Only automate augmentative technology after confirming through participative observation and engagement that human capabilities cannot meet demand needs, not merely from cost efficiencies. Put people over productivity.
4. Take swift accountability for unintended harms including economic impacts or unconscious biases perpetuated through algorithms. Root out problems at their sources.
5. Provide extensive re-skilling and upskilling resources to workers needing help transitioning as technologies evolve. Approach change collaboratively.
6. Keep organic human creativity, connection and meaning primary rather than submitting wholly to technology. Let tools enhance our humanity rather than humanity contort to tools.
7. Join cross-sector collaborations seeking collective advancement. No one organization can solve systemic issues or detect blind spots alone. We must think beyond institutional walls.

The path forward promises challenge and inspiration in equal supply. But by recognizing creativity’s interdependence on trust, we flip the script on fearing innovation-inhibiting change. Instead we proactively build relationships resilient to disruption. We transform obstacles into opportunities for positive progress. And we access purpose-fueled passions yearning for expression when psychologically safe spaces welcome open exploration. The future remains unwritten. Let us write it together.

What can we do?

Action Steps

1. Model creativity-catalyzing behaviors: Embrace fallibility, discuss dilemmas, ask for input, share control, and grant freedom.
2. Convene dialogue: Gather people to share what helps and hinders their best work. How can they assist each other?
3. Thank failures: Publicly appreciate and unpack what was learned from past mistakes without embarrassment or reprisal.
4. Multiply touchpoints: Engineer informal gatherings for people to connect more personally beyond rigid status updates.
5. Loosen the leash: Within agreed guardrails, eliminate unnecessary constraints and approvals bogging down teams. See what emerges through self-direction.
6. Remix teams: Cut across siloes by reformulating project teams based on big picture priorities rather than reproducing old patterns.
7. Co-create ground rules: Guide groups in establishing their own aspirational code of conduct for building cohesion and trust.
8. Circulate stories: Spotlight moments when trust catalyzed creative accomplishments to inspire future possibility.
9. Confront cynics: Respectfully challenge automatic negativity that demeans people’s motives and derails solutions.
10. Expand authorship: Invite broader input into plans, presentations and policies. Distribute ownership and decision rights.

Summary

In an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world, creativity and innovation hold central importance for solving multidimensional challenges. But at both societal and organizational levels, trust proves imperative in unlocking collective imaginative abilities. When competence, integrity and goodwill converge across network partners cooperating interdependently, they liberate risks and vulnerability required for trailblazing solutions. Although current cultural trends necessitate concern regarding declining trust, evidence confirms trust remains a daily choice powered by human relationships. And even exponentially accelerating technologies like AI carry potential, despite pitfalls, to enhance shared creative work when thoughtfully applied. So whether around physical conference tables or virtual gathering spaces, let us keep coming back together—openly, courageously and wholeheartedly. For when trust thrives, so will creative potentials.

Humanity, Creativity, and Progress await. Together we can #FixTheWorld

If you like this post please subscribe and invite others to FixTheWorld.4Good.Space

My Challenge to you this December, be Creative, make a song, video, movie, product, services; alone, with friends/family, enemies, nemesis or even total strangers, ask difficult questions and let's #FixTheWorld together?