Transparency key in rebuilding trust

While most years, friends and family share well-wishes and hopes for the new year filled with resolutions to become healthier or achieve a longtime goal, this year’s well-wishes often included a tinge of dark humor.

Memes of dumpster fires and others that include a reference to 2022 being, “2020, too,” have circulated as a way to collectively bemoan the country’s current circumstances.

While acknowledging a shared experience offers a beginning, rebuilding trust in each other and institutions must start for any hope in a brighter future to survive.

A global pandemic has wreaked havoc on economies, social lives, families, health and nearly every other aspect of daily life. It has also exacerbated a political divide that has simmered in the country’s collective consciousness.

A survey released by the Pew Research Center in the fall showed Americans were the most likely to say their society was split along partisan, racial and ethnic lines. The U.S. also reported more religious division than most of the other 17 countries in Europe, Asia and North America that were surveyed.

One of the most telling results of the survey also showed the U.S. was one of five countries in which more than half of those surveyed — 59% in the U.S. — said their fellow citizens cannot agree on basic facts.

That statistic would seem shocking were it not for study after study highlighting a growing distrust in institutions including government, media and each other.

You reap what you sow. So rather than seeking a “pre-COVID” normalcy, it’s time society starts planting seeds to foster trust and transparency. Anyone who has felt betrayed knows rebuilding trust takes much longer than breaking it, but the process must start somewhere, and the good news is, 84% of Americans believe the level of confidence in institutions can improve.

How?

Plain and simple, the world, and more directly our country, needs to operate more transparently. This includes government, media, science, business and as individuals.

The advice handed out on how to build trust varies little between those sectors.

• Be honest.

• Honor your commitments.

• Admit mistakes.

• Communicate effectively.

• Be helpful.

Value long-term opportunities over short-term success.

While the process may not be rocket science, it takes time and commitment. Rather than bemoan the current state of the world or wish for a return to “normal,” the better path forward focuses on being more transparent. Without that, and the rebuilding of trust in institutions, the sharing of dumpster fires seems unlikely to end.

–Sheridan Press