Liarbilities

Liarability. Call it the law of subtraction…a twist on the common accounting term “liability” or by definition: one that acts as a disadvantage.  Liars. We know them when we see them, hear them.  It is nauseating to see the affect one person can have on a team, a business, a community.  To wit: people we trust who stand for themselves first.  Current examples: Kwame Kilpatrick, the mayor of Detroit, Eliot Spitzer, the governor of New York, healthcare CEOs….open the newspaper and point to one.  Liars.  We vote for them, we work with them, and probably most tragic, we marry them.  We build our community, careers, and lives on seemingly sound foundations only to find no truth beneath the souls of our feet.  We fall.  The damage is unfathomable.  We trusted you.  You cost us.

 

So much promise exists in “trust”.  It is the critical element of all that is possible.  Think productivity.  Think spirituality.  Think innovation.  Trust is a “force multiplier”. Businesses with it gap the competition.  Partnerships built of it are impervious to unwelcomed external forces.  Leaders who stand for it create teams that thrive.  I don’t mean lean-back-and-I-will-catch-you-before-you-hit-the-floor trust.  I mean “being there” trust.  I mean your stand trust…your word trust.

 

It starts with you, leaders. 

 

“The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him” – Henry Stimson

Ask the WL Gore Team, the Google Team, the Whole Foods Team what trust does for their teams.

 

A couple of weeks ago I worked with a team of 15 highly talented sales and technical leaders.  Watching them in action was like watching the movie response to the question:  when you are looking out at a team in action that has the highest trust element, what does it look like?  Unflappable under stress, appreciative of other’s skills, focused on a common incredible outcome, willing sacrifice self for something so much more.  Wow.  I witnessed talent fused by trust deliver extraordinary results.  Results, you ask?  Try this:  their business is growing by leaps.  How’s 3 billion to 5 billion to 10 billion dollars?  They are thriving and hiring.  By the way, those with liar-bility need not apply.

 

I call for unbalancing the balance sheet.  What if we could create a zero-liability business  model…heck, a human life model…that stood in trust.  What if leadership, your leadership, helped create the dream chemistry that sparks talent to explore the “what is possible” universe? What if your leadership could inspire everyone to be committed to something larger than themselves…something that can only be created through trust?

 

“Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you”  -Henri-Frederick Amiel

 

I submit we don’t know how good we can be.

 

So let’s do it:  stand in trust.  Lead from there. Create something larger than you and your team.  What if….

 

What could be created if you stood in trust?  Dare you to share.

 

p.s. Oh, yeah, good-bye liarbilities.  Your selfish wake got us here… to this point of magnificent awareness… and for that we are grateful.