September 12, 2010
By Lisa Trow Managing Editor Managing Editor Sun Sep 12, 2010, 06:40 AM CDT
HUNTSVILLE — For the first time in more than a month, I went back to Austin to spend Labor Day with my family, which includes my nephew Aiden, 8, and my niece Zoe, 4
I promise I am not going to use my power of imminent domain to condemn column inches so that I can tell you about the two craziest little rascals you’d ever meet. But this story is a great segue into what I really want to talk about: trust.
My niece and nephew are not convinced that I am a grow-up. So as we are leaving for a lunch run to Torchy’s Tacos — try the Trailer Park taco and go “trashy” if you want ranch dressing — Zoe handed me what she considered an essential accessory for our trip down MoPac. “Here’s your magic wand, Aunt Lisa.” I thanked her, noting that she had given me the “guest wand,” the one adorned with a tuft of lavender feathers. Zoe’s wand was free of feathers, either by manufacturer design or because when you use your wand a lot, the feathers are the first to go.
Torchy’s Tacos was Aunt Lisa’s pick for lunch. My sister and Aiden were gung ho but ol’ Zoe was so disappointed, she claimed to be no longer hungry and was clearly heading into a funk. I waved my wand over her as she hunkered down in her pink car seat in the back seat. “Bing! I turned you into a hungry kid who can’t wait to get to Torchy’s,” I said.
Her huge — and I mean lake-size — blue eyes registered shock, then she assumed the thin-lipped resolve of a mother about to rein in a rebellious child.
“Bing!” Zoe said with an authoritative wave of her wand. “Your wand doesn’t have batteries any more and I took your powers away!”
Well, bummer.
After lunch, during which Zoe’s mother used her powers to get Zoe to eat, Zoe recharged my wand so that I could turn Aiden into a mouthless amphibian. Instead, not wanting to be mean to my nephew, I turned him into a speckled puppy. “Give me that wand,” Zoe said. “I can’t trust you with it.”
Well, my (lavender) feathers were ruffled, but I surrendered the wand. Zoe forgave me, but I didn’t get the wand back for the rest of the weekend.
Being trustworthy is important to most of us. But we’re less likely to disappoint in situations that are unfamiliar if we’re clear on the expectations others have of us. For example, I didn’t know that Zoe’s loaner wand was only back-up for the one she had. If there was some magic to be done, I had only been entrusted with auxiliary supply. When I turned her own wand against her, I added insult to injury.
Yet, once the incident is deconstructed, the problem is obvious. I didn’t take the time to understand the gesture in the first place. And Zoe didn’t take the time to communicate her expectations. We both made assumptions.
OK, so yes,this sounds silly. So let’s talk about it in professional terms.
I was lucky enough to work for a management team at my former agency in Austin that expected employees to build relationships based on trust and open communication. Sounds crazy, right? But many of us took advantage of some excellent training and made a sincere effort to be trustworthy. It was great while it lasted. Then the agency’s leadership changed and then the culture changed. It was fitting that I found a relic of the “trust and communicate” days in the bottom of a cardboard box of office supplies tucked under the box flap.
It’s a 2.5- by 3.5-inch card with Franklin Covey’s 7 Habits on one side and the rules for building and maintaining trust on the other. To illustrate this concept, Covey uses the metaphor of the trust “bank account.” If I want to make a “deposit” in your “account,” I listen to you before sharing my point of view. I keep the promises I make to you. I clarify my expectations, and I’m loyal to people who are absent. I apologize when I should and listen to your feedback. I make a “withdrawal” from your “bank account” when I force you to listen to my viewpoint without considering yours, when I break promises, when I’m unkind or discourteous, when I violate expectations, when I’m disloyal, when I’m arrogant and when I dismiss your feelings and concerns.
We all make small “withdrawals” occasionally — sometimes even big ones — from the friendship accounts of people whose trust we value. But we can’t make a habit out of it without damaging the relationship.
When you have a relatively clean slate with a new crew, building trust should be high on the list of priorities.
Before I started work here in August, I was firmly committed to making zero withdrawals from the accounts of our esteemed readers, a term I use without irony or sarcasm. Journalism is a calling. Nobody, at least in a newsroom, gets rich doing it. We love the work and we love being read. We develop strong loyalties to the people who read us regularly and to the people we hope we’re helping by publicizing their events and delving into issues they think are important. Nothing is more gratifying that a pat on the back from a reader.
So it is with regret that I admit I have already missed my goal. I have broken promises that I had every intention of keeping. If you called and spoke to me about a story you wanted covered, an event you want publicized or a inquiry you wanted us to make, I really intended to follow through. Too many things have gotten away from me this first month on the job. I’m sorry for that. But I can do better.
While we were getting all this great training, my Austin co-workers and I also took classes on managing our time and increasing our productivity. This system worked very well at my old job. It helped me keep my promises. Unfortunately it hasn’t been road tested at newspapers, where every day is unpredictable and things are done on the fly.
There’s a joke about the employees of state bureaucracies someone told me to make fun of my comfortable post-newspaper lifestyle:
Question: Why don’t state employees look out the window in the morning? Answer: So they’ll have something to do in the afternoon.
If the concept of a bureaucracy time management system strikes you as oxymoronic, I understand. The pace is about four or five times faster at a newspaper, the smaller, the faster. But I’ll make it work. I promise.
Lisa Trow is managing editor of The Huntsville Item. Her e-mail address is ltrow@itemonline.com
From The Huntsville Item published on September 12, 2010