In my new book, The Recipe for Success, (out tomorrow, available from Amazon and good high street booksellers!) I explore trust. In fact it is one of my 10 ingredients for success.
In dysfunctional environments, trust is much lower than in healthy environments. This means that people need much more evidence in order to trust. There can be fewer environments more dysfunctional than The Apprentice where every competitor is out to destroy every other. There is no incentive to help someone who is struggling or give someone the benefit of the doubt - both behavoiurs which have long term benefits rather than the short term "Wham, Bam, Thank You I Am The Apprentice" motivations.
What is most striking to me is the talk without the walk. That is, people who say all the right stuff but cannot back it up with action. The perfect examples were last week's hopefuls (hopeless?) Noorul and Ben.
Noorul describes himself - "I have always been ambitious and driven and I've got the capabilities to deliver. I am not all talk... I can manage a team of people, total strangers even, because I am feisty and have attitude."
As we watch him in stunned silence (we are in stunned silence as we watch him in stunned silence) it almost seems as though he cut and pasted a description of someone else on to his CV and hoped no one would notice.
And Ben, who famously did not go to Sandhurst, continues to believe that being offered a place is the same thing as going to war. And if one more person says "I've got a lot more to offer" I will call the BBC and complain!
This sort of behaviour may actually work in more healthy environments (at least for a while) where people are more likely to trust. But in a dysfunctional one like this (and like many workplaces today) it is actions that speak loudest.
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