|
[Printer Friendly Version]
Networks of Trust: Reframing How We Think About Stakeholder Relationships
By Michael C. Gilbert, September 3, 2009
In a couple weeks I'll be teaching a workshop on Building Trust Online with Donors, Activists, and the Media and as I work on it, I find myself thinking how strategic success online often comes from changing our traditional frame of reference. I'm pleased to share some my ideas with you here.
We want the trust of our stakeholders and we think we're doing things to earn it, but in the end too much about successful communication feels unpredictable. Some messages take off and others don't. Movements seems to spring up overnight. Funders turn down some proposals, but flock to others. Some of it makes sense. Some of it doesn't.
As organizations we keep trying this and that. Some things work and some things don't and even if they don't work all that well, we cling to the things that make sense. The meager, but predictable return from direct mail. The grinding mechanics of a capital campaign. Other things we hang on to because, well, they are what people do. But do we even know if they're working?
I suggest that one of the main causes for so much mystery and confusion is our point of view. We think it's about us. Or, if we're sophisticated, we think it's about our relationship with our stakeholders.
Although this point of view is arguably self-centered, it's completely understandable. It's born from the ordinary narcissism that afflicts every person, nurtured in the isolating nature of the modern nonprofit, and reinforced by the structures that have emerged from a hundred years of broadcast media. And it has enough predictive power, especially in its sophisticated incarnation, to work for us. Sometimes.
But less and less so. Our minute by minute exposure to networks makes it clear that there really is very little that's about us or even about our relationship to our stakeholders. A hundred years of confusion is coming to a head. We need a new frame of reference.
Up until now, if we were dumb, we were in the center of our map of the world. If we were smart, maybe our stakeholders were in the center, or at least we talked as if they were. But the fact is none of us are at the center of any world other than our own. We're all just part of a network.
That, of course, is the new frame of reference we need, the new point of view. It's not just about us. It's not just about our relationship to our stakeholders. It's about everyone's relationship to each other. It's about the network.
Among the many challenges of this frame of reference is that it hardly feels like a point of view at all. In some ways it steps outside the notion of individual point of view. This has the drawback of not being very interesting to key internal and external stakeholders with control of resources. At least on the surface, it doesn't suit the narrative needed by leaders who are trying to build a strong brand for an organization, boards members who want to tell stories about their organization, or funders who want to hears such stories.
But that doesn't mean it isn't true.
And here's the clincher: Remember all those mysteries with which I opened this piece? Those are all network phenomena. These results and dynamics flow not just from some strength or failing of your organization or even from how well you have cultivated your stakeholders, though these things certainly matter. They flow from dynamics that are outside the old frame of reference. They flow from the dynamics of the network.
The network frame of reference actually explains things. Movements start in predicable places, among people who already know and trust each other. The hottest message in the world won't catch fire and spread unless the people who can spread it are connected and open to each other's communication.
Trust is socially mediated. Donors give because other donors are giving. Volunteers step forward because they will be among friends. People take action because they think it's the thing to do and it's part of their identity, in their world of relationships. In each case, people are acting on the basis of the trust built up in relationships that you, as an organization, are not part of. In each case, people are acting on the basis of relationships with others in their network, not necessarily on their relationship with your organization.
We're starting to get that trust is important, that it's the fundamental currency of our work, and of civil society in general. Without trust, people will not give, they will not volunteer, they will not act. But so long as we persist in interpreting the world - our programs, our media, our opportunities - in terms of our old narcissistic frame of reference, we are going to giving up most of our power to influence that trust.
We have to start looking at trust as bigger than what we hold in our hands. We have to step back, over and over, and see the relationships among our stakeholders, and between our stakeholders and other organizations, as a network of trust.
Most importantly, we have to invest in that network. I don't know if we'll be able to pat ourselves on the back as effectively ˙ although I think we will, because there is a huge role for organizations in this new network-centric world ˙ but I do know that we'll have better outcomes. And so long as we are trying to make the world a better place, that's what we need.
If you found this article interesting or helpful,
please consider making a donation to Nonprofit Online News.
It will probably feel good!
|
RSS