Public Distrust Is Like Scar Tissue
Distrust is like scar tissue. Distrust can be helpful and in some cases, necessary for survival. We benefit from questioning the intentions behind our systems, organizations, and their respective leaders. This paves the way for functional accountability and in the face of dysfunction, opportunities to reform and create anew.
However, severe distrust can also be harmful, when not taken seriously. It can damage the environment for cooperation and decrease operational efficiency.
In a similar way, scar tissue can be both good and bad. The good things include wounds being healed quickly and just being a mechanism for survival in adverse situations. The bad about scar tissue is that the tissue (collagen) is less flexible, and when laid over muscles and joints, one’s movement can be inhibited.
Severe scar tissue, if left unaddressed, can lead to pain, joint immobility, or even infection/unwellness.
Far too many organizational leaders allow distrust to fester and grow like unhealthy scar tissue. They may either ignore it altogether (which disallows opportunities to demonstrate accountability and neglects the chance to improve or innovate on something broken) or they may outright antagonize and limit it (which disintegrates collaboration and increases apathy).
Too many commercial and public institutional /systems leaders do the same - allow distrust to fester beyond levels of what is healthy and productive. And again, not only nonchalantly allow it to fester, but outright dismiss it.
Now there are really complex challenges that we all are living with in society right now that seem absurd to even say out loud. Things like:
- If there’s a natural disaster, will my insurance actually cover the damage and repair?
- Why is the collective cost of everything I need to live a healthy life increasing while my purchasing power is stagnant or even decreasing?
- If I eat this produce, will I get sick? And if so, who is to be held accountable? Do I even have recourse to do anything in response?
- What am I supposed to do with this degree and all this student debt after graduating into a field that is being metastasized by AI?
Embedded in these questions are the norms, values, and general needs of a functioning society. Organizational distrust yields both opportunity and problems for that particular organization and its people (workers, stakeholders) when left unaddressed. Institutional / systemic distrust has its opportunities and risks as well when left unaddressed; however, when the impact is societal, the lack of urgency and intention by leaders at best and outright dismissal at worst will yield a citizenry of collective pain, creative immobility, and an unwellness of its values.
All leaders, but especially those at the institutional and systems level, must treat public distrust with the same urgency as a medical professional would treat problematic scar tissue.
To do otherwise is to risk decay.
