The true social benefit of trust must be reciprocal. One-way trust is not beneficial to the individual or the group. What good is a company in which management trusts labor, but labor doesn’t trust management? It is hardly a strong marriage in which the wife trusts the husband, but the husband doesn’t trust the wife. It’s all fine and good for a

he approached them he was met by the horns of one of them. At last, however, they fell a-quarrelling among themselves, and each went off to pasture alone in a separate corner of the field. Then the Lion attacked them one by one and soon made an end of all four. —Aesop, sixth century B.C.

“Those at the top,” explains Captain Marquet, “have all the authority and none of the information. Those at the bottom,” he continues, “have all the information and none of the authority. Not until those without information relinquish their control can an organization run better, smoother and faster and reach its maximum potential.”

Professor Grant arranged for students who received the scholarships to come to the office and spend five minutes describing to fund-raisers how the scholarship they received changed their lives. The students told them how much they appreciated the hard work of the fund-raising department. Even though the people impacted by the work of the

During tense times, a little lightheartedness may go a long way to help relax those around us and reduce tensions so that we can focus on getting our jobs done. As President Ronald Reagan famously joked with the chief surgeon on March 30, 1981, as he was wheeled into the operating room at George Washington University Hospital, after being shot by

Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.

Though it may take small steps to make a big leap, it is the vision of the big leap and not the action of the small steps that inspires us.

It is not the demands of the job that cause the most stress, but the degree of control workers feel they have throughout their day. The studies also found that the effort required by a job is not in itself stressful, but rather the imbalance between the effort we give and the reward we feel. Put simply: less control, more stress.

Trust is a very special human experience, produced by the chemical oxytocin in response to acts performed on our behalf that serve our safety and protection. True trust can only exist among people. And we can only trust others when we know they are actively and consciously concerned about us.