T is for Trust

Trust may only be a five-letter word but holds so many meanings and values.

All human beings share one thing in common, every one of us was born into this world naked, fragile, and vulnerable.

Unable to fend for ourselves, lacking experience, a high degree of cognitive thinking, awareness, and mobility, we have all been at the mercy of those responsible for a safe delivery to the world and protection from harm.

Every birth is a precarious adventure, fraught with varying degrees of danger.

Life itself continues to be precious and at every stage of our living journey, remains fragile.

Born in Basildon, Essex in the UK in the early hours of 21st November 1977, I was incredibly premature and had initially been scheduled for the following year!

The outlook was grim and was immediately whisked away to an incubator where my first few months became a dramatic fight for survival.

Against all odds, I survived.

When looking at pictures of myself in the incubator, tiny, dangerously underweight, and weak… I consider my on-going life with all its woes, pains, sadness, happiness, triumphs, achievements, and successes to be nothing more than a shining example of our ability to fight for existence and being born with an innate desire to both survive and flourish.

As new-borns, we do not yet understand trust or who it is we need to place our trust in but as we grow to become children, there is an understanding that our parents, carers, or guardians are the people we look towards to keep us safe from harm.

This may be due to the amount of time spent in their company whereby we rely on them to home, clothe, feed, and bathe us.

Maslow, anyone?

Despite a difficult beginning, I was a high-spirited youth, sharp of mind, fit and agile.

Apart from eczema, my health was fine.

Life is unpredictable.

I naturally outgrew eczema as a young adult but in August of 2020, it made an unexpected and violent return.

Rushed to hospital and in a bad way, there was nothing that I could do but place my trust in the UKs NHS who I must say, did an amazing job in keeping the inflammation under control and protecting me from life-threatening septicaemia.

Now an outpatient, Leicester Royal Infirmary’s Dermatology Department have been successful in treating my eczema in such a way that it has returned to a more comfortable level experienced pre-flare-up.

Between 2017 and 2018, it was my privilege to mentor, train and manage a marketing student from Sheffield Hallam University as part of a year-long intern placement.

I made it my duty to teach Jake everything I could to make his time spent with the company as enjoyable, enriching, and beneficial as possible.

On Jakes part, there must have been a great deal of trust placed on me that as his manager, I had the necessary experience, ability, and knowledge to deliver an exceptional learning experience.

It turned out to be a wonderful journey on both counts. At the time, I was completing a postgraduate in marketing leadership and working my way towards becoming chartered.

The example given here was that learning is a life-long process and doesn’t end after graduation, especially in these exciting times of digital disruption and the internet of things.

Jake is a highlight of my career, and I made it my purpose to give him a vast amount of training in strategy, operational, budgeting, analysis, and technical application.

I felt it important not only to send him on training courses provided by various stakeholders but also to get out into the world to see a product undergo a lifecycle.

One such example was a visit to an OEM material supplier, the engineering of the product in the head office workshop through to it being applied to on-site machinery.

Understandably, it was my responsibility to make sure that all health and safety procedures were correctly implemented for the protection of my employee whilst enriching him with real-life knowledge.

I did so in a safe manner and Jake trusted me with this.

Sometimes trust is broken.

In the worst-case scenario, it is vulnerable people who are frequently let down.

Let down by parents, guardians, or at the most extreme, people or organisations of authority.

Due to the very nature of vulnerability and the need for safeguarding, when this level of trust is broken, it often makes headline news.

Often, a major failing of a person’s safety results in wider public discontent and mistrust.

Either towards the individual perpetrator or a wider organisation tasked with a duty of care.

When a major failing of an authority or organisation is exposed, crisis PR comes into play, whereby swift justice must be seen to be served.

With sustainability and equality of major topical and relevant concern, we expect to see ethical behaviour from brands.

Long gone are the days of ‘box ticking’ corporate statements. Don’t tell us how ethical you are… Be ethical.

Eliminate plastic packaging. Be a diverse and inclusive organisation as opposed to ‘working towards’ becoming one.

Don’t simply tell us how innovative you are, provide us with an innovation that genuinely improves and makes things better.

Customers, clients, collaborators, advocates, dependents, and stakeholders of all kinds place their trust in us in more ways than we may at first imagine.

It may be a useful exercise to map out the people who rely on and place trust in you (both personally and professionally), so to paint a true picture of where your responsibilities lie.

Also, who do you place your very own trust in and what are your expectations of these people or organisations?

Have you ever been let down or pleasantly surprised? Are you able to give constructive criticism or deserved praise when appropriate?

Trust may only be a five-letter word but holds so many meanings and values.?