I mentioned in decision-making and trustworthiness that the roles of Professors, Stewards, and Experts are not as trusted as Doers, Connectors, and Catalysts. The role of Professor is ranked as the least trusted. During this pandemic the mainstream media, public health agencies, and governments have predominantly used the least trusted roles — Professors & Experts — to get their message across. No wonder we are seeing cities in Canada occupied by dissidents and our international border crossings blocked.
These people — who come from a variety of backgrounds and are not singularly aligned — agree on one thing. They do not trust the government. They do not trust the experts who have told them that vaccines are safe and effective. They trust the government so little that they want to unilaterally eject the elected governing party and its leader, the current Prime Minister.
The role of Doer is the most trusted. What if public health officials could descend from their ivory towers and find the Doers in every community and then help them get their perspectives shared? Officials would have less control of the message, but as Rachel Happe says — “Control is for amateurs”. Controlling the message has not been that successful to date, so perhaps these demonstrations/occupations across Canada will be a wake-up call. As one Member of Parliament recently stated, government communications are not working.
“I believe that if more and more Canadians find it hard to comply with the restrictions, it’s not because they lack solidarity,” [MP Joël Lightbound] said. “It’s because, increasingly, Canadians don’t understand the measures. And they don’t understand them because governments no longer care to explain them.” —CBC 2022-02-13
When trust is lost, knowledge fails to flow. When knowledge flow is stemmed, trust is lost. This happens in organizations and is now happening at a societal level. Networks of trust are what keeps society together. The glue that enables this are the Doers, Connectors, & Catalysts. An example of a Doer is Birgit Umaigba an ICU nurse in Toronto. NB Citizen Covid Updates is an example of a Connector, as she curates all pertinent information relevant for people in New Brunswick. I would call Zeynep Tufekci a Catalyst who is outside the medical profession yet weaves knowledge from many disciplines into a coherent narrative.
A lot of mistrust is fomented on platforms like Facebook, which is in the business of finding and selling access to people who are ‘persuadable’.
“You don’t need to change everyone’s mind, argues Brittany Kaiser, former director of business development at Cambridge Analytica. You just need to change the minds of the ‘persuadables’. And the way you identify them is through understanding not just what they buy or say about themselves, but how they think. Through harvesting personal data, Cambridge Analytica could, and did, identify and persuade them.” —Vox 2019-07-25
We cannot let these social media platforms and their underlying algorithms set the agenda. It’s time for those in leadership positions to give up some control, find the trusted voices in our communities, and start sharing their voices. Professing knowledge is not enough. People need examples of Doing our best. These people are here. They just need louder voices
Next: super-connectors
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Hear, here Harold!