A Matter Of Trust

I just finished a book called “Thank You For Being Late” by Thomas Friedman, the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times.

It’s a fascinating read that seeks to explain the changes happening in our world as technology accelerates and Mother Nature reacts.

But the book really takes off when Friedman returns home to St. Louis Park, Minnesota to describe an idyllic childhood in a middle-class community where people looked out for each other and trusted their leaders and their institutions.

Trust.

Now that’s a powerful word; loaded with meaning and importance.

When you think about it, trust is our most valuable commodity.

When you earn trust—and it must be earned—you can leverage that trust to do big and important things.

Friedman relates a story about the mayor of St. Louis Park backing a solar Wi-Fi program that cost the city $1.7 million. Then winter came and the technology didn’t work. It was a complete loss.

The mayor went to the Chamber of Commerce stood up at a breakfast and told a packed room that he was “the idiot” that voted for the plan. He owned the mistake. His honesty built trust.

And when he walked around the community he was greeted with empathy.

“Too bad that didn’t work,” citizens would say. “What’s the city going to try next?”

That message wasn’t delivered with cynicism or snark. There was no “gotcha” expressed, just a genuine desire to say “hey, you messed up, you owned it, we appreciate that, and we hope you’ll try new things in the future.”

Can you imagine that happening in Washington D.C.?

Can you imagine that happening in Delray Beach?

Recently, a former city water inspector filed a whistle blower lawsuit alleging that she was fired without notice for speaking out about issues relating to water.

The city denies the allegations. In fact, the city denies that she was fired at all. She was merely written out of the budget. P.S. Her son was let go as well.

A few days after the suit was filed, Rob Long, a member of the city’s Planning and Zoning Board, was on Channel 12 saying he could relate to the plight of the whistleblower. There was an attempt to remove him from the planning board because he expressed an opinion about the water that didn’t adhere to the city’s party line.

That’s chilling.

And wrong.

The politics of retribution doesn’t breed a culture of trust—in fact the opposite occurs. A toxic culture creates a climate of fear where maybe the next inspector will think twice about expressing an opinion that could affect public health.

Confident and competent leaders at all levels welcome debate. They see it as healthy and serving the larger purpose of getting to a better place.

In the Friedman book, he finds that the culture of St. Louis Park has remained intact to this day despite decades of change including dramatically altered demographics.

That’s a testament to the community and their strong desire to hold onto important values.

Yes, we live in an era of rapid change, but some things need to stand the test of time. Some values need to be preserved.

One of the things that resonated for me in the Friedman book was the ethos of dialogue and compromise that’s apparently prevalent in Minnesota politics.

I cherish both of those things. And I think they’re missing in our society today.

Dialogue allows citizens to engage, share ideas and build relationships. Dialogue enables trust. It is hard to demonize someone that you know.

Today, the “sides” talk past each other and exist to score points not to serve the nation or the community but to get back at their opponents.

One side exists to “own” the other in an endless back and forth that produces exactly nothing.

As for compromise, well has anybody seen compromise recently? It seems to have vanished without a trace.

Instead, we are seeing the powerful say: ‘why should I compromise I’ve got the power to do what I want? And those out of power saying, ‘how can I compromise? we’re getting bulldozed so I need to stick to my guns’.

This kind of thinking leads to very bad outcomes. It leads to Old School Square being terminated without a conversation or a plan at a cost of millions to the taxpayer. It leads to confusion versus solutions when it comes to water issues.

A twin word to trust is decency.

We don’t hear much of that word these days.

It’s not quite missing like compromise seems to be, but it is rare —like finding a good parking spot on Atlantic Avenue or seeing an albino alligator (see photo above, her name is Pearl, and she made her home at the Gatorland preserve in Orlando).

How do you show decency?

You start by being empathetic, courteous, and benevolent. It doesn’t cost you anything and it buys you everything.

According to Friedman, there really is something to the term “Minnesota Nice.”

Sure, there are problems. Lots of problems. There’s racism, education gaps and affordability issues. George Floyd was killed by police in Minnesota. So it is far from perfect.

But that’s not the point—every place has its problems. It is how you address those challenges that distinguish the winning communities from those that languish.

In Minnesota, they have something called the Itasca Project.

Itasca is a business led civic alliance focused on expanding prosperity and tackling big issues.

It has no staff, is project based, but has produced a ton of results. The organization is data driven and its values center on igniting cross-sector collaboration to take near term actions to solve long term challenges.

Check it out: https://itascaproject.org/

We need one of these organizations in Boca-Delray.