(2011-05-20) Boyd Myerson Swift Trust

Stowe Boyd looks at Debra Myerson's thinking on Swift Trust among temporary teams. (Team Work) Proposition 3. Inconsistent role behavior and “blurring” of roles will lead to a slower build of trust. This presumes that role blurring heightens uncertainty. People who exhibit inconsistent role behavior raise questions about what they will do with whatever is entrusted to them. Attempts to answer these questions slow the development of trust.

Jul14 update: I believe, along with Neil Perkin and the unnamed founder of Co:, that swift trust is becoming the default for creative work, and that we are all increasingly operating as if every activity we are involved in is impermanent... Partly this is to take advantage of swift trust — where deep trust activities are deferred or completely put aside — and the team members operate in a social demilitarized zone, putting aside long-term obligations and politically-negotiated power arrangements. Instead, we join such teams and rapidly assume the role that fits us, people interact based on the nature of the roles that all members play. We suspend our disbelief and agree to trust within the confines of the groups narrowly defined goals. And just as important, as a consequence of deferring the complex and involved discussions of personal purpose, every ad hoc team member can cast the project in terms of how it lines up with their personal meaning for work (Coalition). The members do not need to collectively agree to a single shared reason for existence. That is shelved, since the team members will be going forward on their own life paths, as soon as the project is completed. I think this often results in lots of wheel-spinning, because when you hit surprise, and have to re-think and maybe Pivot, you have to pick new "narrowly defined goals", and that lite coalition is more likely to fall apart.