Context matters
THE newsletter helping leaders and organizations put trust at the centre of their work so they can achieve more than they ever thought possible while better adapting to our fast-changing world.
March 23, 2021
TRUST-CENTERED LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVE & PRACTICE:
World Explorers
There’s a whole other world out there.
That’s easy to forget when we’re immersed in our own, especially when, for many of us, our spheres have shrunk and our interactions have been reduced this past year.
That’s why it’s more important than ever to get curious, to listen, and to practice wonder. To reach outside of our own context so we can connect with folks beyond our usual spheres and switch up our default patterns of interaction (safely, of course). To be open and engage with a diversity of ways of seeing, thinking, understanding, and experiencing the world.
To better understand, engage, and contribute, we need to make a point of actively being world explorers.
Trust-Centered Leadership Practice for this Week:
What’s one concrete way you will practice being a “world explorer” this week? Perhaps it’s connecting with a person you wouldn’t usually connect with, whether in your workplace or your daily life, or reading an article or listening to a podcast that shares the point-of-view of someone who sees the world differently than you.
However you choose to go about your world explorer practice, be sure to take a few minutes to reflect on what you learned from the experience.
We’d love to know how your practice is going and what you’re noticing along the way: simply tag us on social media or use hashtag #TrustCenteredLeadership to keep us posted.
FROM THE IN TRUST PODCAST:
Creating the Context for Possibility with Paul Jun
“Context is very important because we are overwhelmed with content. We're overwhelmed with just scrolling past things and looking at it on the surface level and not really digging into why this piece of work is actually meaningful? Or how is it actually changing my mind? Or how is it instilling new thoughts or insights into my craft? Context is about making meaning of the work.” - Paul Jun
How do you build a meaningful brand that’s relevant and resonates with your customers when you’re swimming in an ocean of content? How can you leverage storytelling and community to build the trust needed to design the future with your team and your customers?
These questions have been at the heart of Paul Jun’s work as he’s gone about transforming brands and their relationship with those they seek to serve.
Paul works with mission-driven leaders and brands that believe in storytelling and design to build community. He’s currently the Editorial Director at COLLINS, a globally-renowned strategy and brand experience design company that’s won recognition from every major creative award.
We had the pleasure of chatting with Paul and exploring why he believes the future of brands is in owning their own platform and their content. Paul generously shared with us his behind-the-scenes perspective on how he thinks about brand building in addition to practical insights on harnessing the power of storytelling and community to build the trust needed to navigate transformation and make new things possible.
If you’re interested in building a brand and creating relationships with those you seek to serve that stand the test of time, then you won’t want to miss this episode of the In Trust podcast.
SPOTLIGHTING OTHERS:
Prof. Laura Huang | Edge: Turning Adversity Into Advantage
“You need to own the context and your hard work.” - Laura Huang
Life isn’t fair, and other people’s perceptions about our trustworthiness isn’t always accurately connected to our skills, effort, or even the quality of our work.
Associate professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School Laura Huang’s work is focused on giving you an EDGE to defy expectations and overcome stereotypes and biases with practical tools to flip them. Prof. Huang is the author of Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage, where she shares a toolkit to empower yourself to make your path to success a little bit easier by owning your context and your hard work.
In this Google Talk hosted by Junho Lee, Prof. Huang shares some highlights from her book on how you can turn some of the things that are holding you back into advantages that work for you. Her insights might also help make you more aware of some of your own stereotypes and biases in how you perceive others.
Bystander Intervention Interactive Online Training for Anti-Asian Hate
Last week’s mass shooting in Atlanta where a white gunman killed eight people—including six Asian women— is tragically the latest in a devastating string of events. The number of anti-Asian hate crimes have been surging in both Canada and the US since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is not a burden that the Asian Canadian and Asian American communities must bear alone. In order to move forward in addressing and eradicating the discrimination these communities face, we all must stand with these communities and collectively send a message that hate—including racism, misogyny, and xenophobia—is unacceptable in all of its forms.
Taking bystander intervention training is one way to learn skills to help send this message. This type of training prepares participants to identify and de-escalate harassment in a safe and sensitive manner.
Both of us (Rick + Lisa) are registered to attend a bystander intervention virtual training being offered by Asian Americans Advancing Justice Chicago in partnership with Hollaback! and CAIR-Chicago. They’re offering this one-hour training on a number of different dates and times. Click the button to learn more and register for a training:
Quote To Ponder
“To earn trust, money and power aren’t enough; you have to show some concern for others. You can’t buy trust in the supermarket." – His Holiness the Dalai Lama
THE FUTURE IS TRUST:
Sneak Peek: Here’s a Short Excerpt from Our New Book
Layout keeps chugging forward for our forthcoming book, The Future Is Trust: Embracing the Era of Trust-Centered Leadership.
This week, we wanted to share a sneak peek of the text for one short section about how context matters when it comes to trust. Here it is:
Our trustworthiness is contextual.
When it comes to trust, like most things, context matters.
Perhaps you're my loving parent who’s raised me all of these years, but if you’ve never completed a circuit before, I’m going to trust the five-star electrician I hired when I need to rewire my ceiling fan.
We need to remember that while we might be a trusted expert in some fields, we’re not trusted experts in everything. Different contexts can shift us from highly trusted to trust-less, so it’s imperative that we put in the effort to understand the points of view of those we seek to build trust with and do so with humility and respect.
For the latest on book launch details, special previews, exclusive pre-order specials, and more, check out book webpage here:
TRUST IS BETTER TOGETHER:
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