The majority of people votes for politicians who elect a leader who consults with her Cabinet and makes a decision that she passes on to her General who promulgates orders that are issued down the chain of command to a 19 year old rifleman with the optical scope of his weapon pressed against the pimple on his cheek.

Along with hundreds of other soldiers sailors and airmen issuing orders, pushing buttons, pressing levers and delivering violence upon other humans on seas, in skies, from air conditioned cubicles and lying on other bits of dirt, the teenage Private pulls a trigger and kills a stranger and thus produces his Widget.

 

Trust is like the lubricant between the working parts of the teenage infantryman's rifle that respond to his index finger pressure and discharge the round at supersonic speeds towards its living target.

Without trust, the mechanism that delivers a decision from the elected leader to the finger of an infantryman will friction and fail.

The military trains Trust.

Navies, Armies and Air Forces have learned and refined over hundreds of years how to recruit, train, exercise, promote, educate, discipline and remember people who demand and honour high levels of trust.

The military's widget - applying maximum violence permitted by law upon the enemy - is designed a long way from where it is delivered by mostly young women and men. They do so while knowing that their own deaths or maiming are part of their adversary's widget.

 

Trust is a force multiplier.

 

Police forces demand similar levels of trust. A probationary constable can deprive a person of their liberty and moves among their community with a gun.

 

Meanwhile, in the open plan battlefield and amidst the chaos and din of values statements, codes of conduct, team building exercises, most managers distrust their workers.

After all, if they were trustworthy, why would they need managing?

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