Trust networks

Welcome to all 256 of you who have joined in the past few weeks. If you’re opening this for the first time, or you’ve been so engrossed in Succession that you forgot what this is about - I write weekly on insights and tactics around building an incredible network of clients, collaborators, and community.

Recently, I’ve been trying to do nothing.

Not to the extent of John McPhee, who spent two weeks lying down on a picnic table, “staring up into branches and leaves.”

Despite the immediate judgment we conjured when thinking about someone sitting in his backyard for two weeks, this was part of his process as one of the most prolific and notable writers for the New Yorker.

I’ve been doing nothing, in part thinking about who we can trust.

Less and less, it feels.

I was interviewing an overseas developer who seemed to check all the boxes. We were excited to bring them on. Until a routine reference check turned into one of the strangest Zoom calls I’ve had. Not believing what I had experienced - I had another person on my team repeat the same reference check. Then… another.

Were they really trying to fake their own reference check?

I like to be an optimist, but first, we have to be realistic that there is decreasing ability to trust what we see, read, and hear online.

We start asking ourselves different questions. Who do you trust? And who do they trust? I may not even like them - but I do trust them. That person I’m about to meet - does my trusted network (2nd, 3rd, nth degree) trust them?

Therefore, one of the increasingly important assets is trust. Always has been - but even more so.

I’m asking you and I this to understand as an invitation for us to think about how trust is represented these days, and whether there’s more of a need to start actively tracking those networks of trust.

Taking Action

Do you remember what you had for breakfast two weeks ago?

Alright - do you remember who you met with two weeks ago? What did you two talk about? What were they excited about? What help did they need?

The safe assumption is that we remember little to none of the above. It’s OK, we’re human.

What can help us? A five-minute calendar appointment at the end of the day, titled “Who did I meet with and what did I learn about them?”

Watch This

As I continue feeling my way into video, I posted a video about keeping your network of trusted relationships a bit better organized.

Further Reading

For where I got the story of John McPhee, Cal Newport’s excellent article The Digital Workplace is Designed to Bring You Down is worth the full read - maybe on a picnic table.