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Trust, Responsibility and the Globally Integrated Enterprise

For some time I have been using the following quotation attributed to Jim Kelly, former CEO of UPS.

“I believe that we’re about to witness what may turn out to be the last competitive frontier business will see. It’s going to be a war over the one priceless resource. Time. And when it comes, trust may turn out to be the best investment anyone’s made.” [1]

A recent post by Irving Wladawsky-Berger -- Trust, Responsibility and the Globally Integrated Enterprise -- underscores the importance of Kelly's observation.

In my closing remarks to this year's CUNY Conference on Academic Integrity I asserted:

"Trust is based on integrity. And trust and integrity take time to develop. If one waits to develop ethical behavior and trust until one needs it, it will be too late."

Unfortunately, at the moment, there seem to be more cases where people have thought that trust could be turned on when needed, rather than to have invested the time to build the relationships that lead to trust.

As a teacher, helping students to understand the necessity of trust and how to develop relationships that lead to trust is one of the more important things tasks that I have.  And I just can't talk about trust, I must demonstrate trust. 

[1] Jim Kelly, CEO of UPS, Remarks to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco & Oakland Chamber of Commerce, February 23, 2000.

Posted on Sunday, July 8, 2007 at 06:13AM by Registered CommenterJames Drogan | CommentsPost a Comment

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