Building Trust

I am pushing through a book called Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality, by Dr. Henry Cloud. It has a description that says, " how six essential qualities determine your success in business." As a book it is not particularly enlightening, but it is one of the first attempts I have seen where biblical principles (he does not use that term) are applied in the business world. I am more accustomed to the business world influencing our spiritual walk, but that is another matter.

Chapter 5 is "Building Trust Through Extending Favor" It is a chapter on, want to guess? Grace. Huh? But this little chapter gives a pretty good working definition of the term. "Grace is when we extend "favor" to someone, not because they have earned it in some way, but because we just possess it to give. It is a stance in life, a way of being." He is quick to point out that this is not a license to let others take advantage. In fact, this becomes the real battle, extending grace and maintaining a life that is not abused. Our current corporate climate is built more on competition than trust. it is simply easier to treat everyone as an adversary, than a partner. But the point of this little book is to create a different culture, a different way. His point is that we have to change the way we think before we can expect the way we act to change. Orthodoxy always drives orthopraxy, not the other way around.

Here is my question. Are we born with a bent towards grace? or do we develop it? I don't know. I have come to the conclusion that there are generous people and there are people who are not encumbered with the flaw of generosity. Can we teach them differently? I think we move them a little along the continuum from stingy to generous, but I'm not sure they will ever make the entire journey. Being able to extend "favor" or "grace" may be the same way. Some folks may just be born with that chip, while others are not.

I am in the midst of helping develop a company. A primary concept in our interviewing process is one of collaboration, of extending "favor" to each other and to our customers. We will not stand for territorial battles, we will sacrifice talent for team. I don't want us to be uniform, I want us to be unified. Pipe-dream? Maybe. But we are going to give it a shot. We are going to develop partnerships based on trust. This is going to require transparency, forgiveness, and grace. Will it work? I will let you know in a few years.

Godspeed
Don