Circle of Trust

When I ask audiences what they do when they don’t know how to do something in Excel, Word or PowerPoint, the answer I hear 99.99999% of the time is “I just Google it!”

Whilst one of the benefits of technology is the volume of information available to us to answer our questions with a few keystrokes, it’s also one of its downfalls.  Amongst all the data, finding the answer you need in a context that is relevant to you, can produce slim pickings.

An alternative I ask my audiences to consider is the Circle of Trust concept.

The Circle of Trust was referenced in the 2000 comedy movie, Meet The Parents.  Robert De Niro’s character, Jack introduces Ben Stiller’s character, Greg to the concept of the Circle of Trust.

In the movie, De Niro’s character uses the concept to demonstrate to Greg that he must establish his trust worthiness as a suitor for his daughter before he can be let into the family’s “Circle of Trust”.

The Circle of Trust I refer to in the context of business focusses on being selective about what information we let into our already noisy world.

Googling produces a multitude of answers and concepts for your choosing, but struggles to provide a context to connect the answers to an individual workplace or scenario. 

The Circle of Trust concept is a framework I introduce in initial presentations which encourages teams to share tools and strategies that have worked for them with technology such as Excel, with colleagues, and to confidently ask for help with technology they are struggling with. 

It’s a framework that takes the internal knowledge of staff in programs such as Word and Excel and provides an opportunity to contextualise it with examples of use relevant to the organisation.

In a recent presentation as we explored a concept, one participant shared how utilising the concept minimises risk when she shares spreadsheets and explained how.  By sharing her knowledge, everyone learnt and could understand the value of the concept.

Creating a circle of trust is a simplistic concept, is easily implemented and can provide a straightforward framework to assist organisations and their teams to continue the learning with technology beyond structured training.

Do you have a circle of trust in your organisation?

If not, maybe you should

Want Donna’s help setting up a knowledge sharing circle of trust for your team or organisation?  Call +61 39457 4745 or email enquiries@primesolutions.net.au to discuss how Donna can help increase productivity and efficiency in your organisation.