Restoring trust in a messed up State

Kristina Keneally has a job on her hands. Being Premier of NSW on its own is a job many people simply would not put their hand up for. Stepping in at a time when the State has been run into the ground, when its constituents have lost trust in State Government and no longer know who to trust - now that's a job that is going to require some very special skills.

One of the things that happens when trust is eroded is that people build up negative expectations based on their previous experiences. We all do this when things just don't work out the way we Expect. In fact, what happens is that we no longer believe the Promises that are made to us. 'Things will be different. I'm here to sort things out' etc, are simply a waste of breath because everyone is sitting around thinking 'Sure. That's what the last guy said, and the one before that, and the one before that....' Because their experience is negative, because the Promises that were made in the past were not kept, cynicism sets in and a new Expectation is formed - the story everyone tells themselves, in order to keep their trust intact is 'They always break their Promises, and they are all as bad as each other'. Now, there are exceptions to this rule, there will always be the few who will give them a go, but the majority will sit back and wait to watch them fail.

Sounds pretty awful, hey! But we all do it, and you are probably very aware that we all do it. The challenge for the one attempting to build and restore trust in that environment is to:

1. recognise that it is very real and that is the environment they are dealing with
2. know that making statements to convince people that things are different is hopeless
3. work at shifting the negative expectations first - that means slowly proving them wrong
4. know that people don't like to admit that they were wrong, so they cling to their negative expectations even if they don't like that about themselves
5. be patient, and consistent - keep proving, bit by bit, brick by brick, that you are serious about restoring the trust that has been broken

I'm putting in a call to Kristina's office and sending her a copy of 'The truth about trust in business' - hopefully I can help her in some way with her enormous challenge. Fingers crossed!