From Dr. Brené Brown’s conversation with Jim Collins, this gem about a trusting mindset. Collins is describing the mindset of his mentor and co-author, Bill Lazier.
He said, “There’s this fundamental fork in the road in life, and it is your opening bid to trust or does somebody have to earn your trust?” And Bill’s view was that there’s far more upside and far less downside in an opening bid of trust, always.
He goes on…
And his basic argument was, “That if you trust people as an opening bid, number one, a lot of people will rise to it. You’ll make them more trustworthy by trusting them.” That was Bill’s view. The second is that it will attract the best people because they will thrive on being trusted. The best people will respond to, “I’m trusted, I’m responsible.” And if you want to have the right people around you, trust people. But this was Bill’s other thing. He said, “If you start with mistrust, you’re going to turn away the best people, because the best people will not take well to ‘You have to earn my trust. I’m not sure you’re trustworthy.’”
This is a nutshell of my philosophy of putting trust in my students. I default to trust because there is far more upside. I default to trust because many – even most – of the students I place my trust in rise to meet that trust.
I’m a big fan of falling down to learn in school, too, and of teachers giving second and third chances for their students to be worthy of the trust. But the trust comes first.