A friend of mine recently confided that she had her heart broken over a love affair. It set me to thinking.
There has been discussion over the past year about radical trust. The conversation began with Darlene Fichter, was refined by John Blyberg. Ria Newhouse expressed the angst that many feel over trying new things and finding institutional resistance. Michael Stephens recently talked about radical trust among other Library 2.0 issues in the Culture of Trust.
What is love but the most personal and intense form of radical trust. You entrust another person with your deepest feelings and emotions. You invest yourself in their lives and let them invest in yours. Then when that trust is broken, for whatever reason, you feel hurt and abandoned.
Radical trust in a work relationship is important. Administrators, particularly, need to trust members of the staff to do the right thing. Whether that right thing may be forgiving a fine for a second grader who has no money, has returned the books, and now needs to check something out, or it is to let the web master redesign the web site. I have found that often times, I don't get exactly what I want. Actually, if truth be known, it is usually better than what I have asked.
Many of the discussions have been about taking radical trust to the next level, of going past the co-worker level, and to the public. It is part of what is at the heart of Library 2.0. The Ann Arbor Public Library, with the help (inspiration?) of John Blyberg have taken the lead in trusting patrons.
Personal radical trust is both similar and different. Partly it is because it is so personal, and we all have feelings which can be so easily hurt.
Just some random ruminations after a weekend away! (See next post....)
Note: Links to radical trust posts added 10/31/2006.
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