Building trust ain’t as easy as it used to be. (It’s a fact.) – SCN Encourager

And I’m not looking back in time through rose-colored glasses.

It’s true.

Yesterday I pointed out the Top 3 Impactors on school marketing success.

Do I wish at least one of the three was a super secret downloadable tool?

You bet!

Especially if it was both cheap and so easy to use even a knucklehead like me could figure it out.

Unfortunately, the Top 3 Impactors are tightly connected to the daily behaviors of you, me, and everyone else in our school ecosystem.

It’s our mindsets that are critical, not our tools and tactics.

The Top 3 Impactors on our school marketing are leveled up (or down) by our attitudes, our willingness to work with each other, and our hearts for serving others.

#1  Culture
#2  Trust
#3  Momentum

And oh yeah, some degree of sensitivity to what’s happening right under your nose doesn’t hurt any, either.
(Or so Cindy and our girls tell me.)

We face a formidable challenge.

Even in the best of times, positively shaping and guiding our organization’s culture, trust, and momentum are incredibly hard to do. 

Take, for example, how the whole notion of “trust” has changed.

Although the definition of trust hasn’t changed – still meaning “to have strong confidence or reliance in” – the way trust is attained today is totally flip-flopped from what took place just one generation ago.

Thanks to the research of social psychologists, studies show that trust used to be simply and generally accorded to leaders and authorities by the previous generation until they (the leaders and authorities) did something to lose or betray their trust.

In the past, leaders and authorities were trusted until they were proven not to be.

Today, it’s the exact opposite.

Leaders and authorities are not considered to be trustworthy until they (the leaders and authorities) have proven they deserve to be.

Boy, this irks me.

When I was a kid, my parents demanded that I respect and trust teachers, other parents, all adults, and practically every other person on the planet who was more than 7 years older than me.

I was raised to respect and trust my elders without question (unless the adult was convicted criminal or something). 

And now, I can’t believe my bum luck!

Nowadays,  I’ve got to continue blindly trusting everyone older than me because of the programming of my parents, while also going the extra mile to try and EARN the trust of everyone younger than me who isn’t generationally inclined to just “freely give it.”

Talk about lose-lose.

No wonder I reach for my rose-colored glasses as often as I do.

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