Trusting the Content

John Blyberg on Radical Trust:

At the end of the day, collaboration is the trust-builder between staff members. Getting two or more people or organizations together to work on a project lets everyone see what the others are capable of. The very act of creating something as a group builds a bond between people that no other activity can. Of course, this assumes that all participants pull their weight and put in the effort expected of them. Again, supervisors need to check in with project members to see ho things are going without becoming a micro-manager. Sometimes, if someone is not pulling their weight, it’s an indication that they are not interested or not able to do the job presented to them–their talents may lay elsewhere.

How many times in libraries do we let teams run with an idea or innovation with a high degree of radical trust? Does your institution always have to have a top-level manager or high-ranker sit on a team to make sure everything goes a certain way? I think the best innovations have come from libraries where the adminstrator trusts the staff.