Exacting punitive revenge

Yes, people will exact their revenge in ways we wouldn't have thought about even five years ago. And because the morality of business has been tainted by the big fat cats with their hands in the till, this example has been followed by employees . I was in Zurich meeting the head of HR for a very large financial services group , where the CEO had just been fired with a six million Franc golden handshake on the back of bringing the business to the point of bankruptcy. ˜The secretaries are stealing the office supplies to take them home for the children, and who can blame them,' he said.

So if business cannot pull itself up by its own bootstraps, no one is going to do it for them. Private enterprise is losing out, big-time. Not only is it losing some of its best and brightest to alternative lifestyles - because it has little idea how to fully engage these people - it is also losing out to the public sector, where salaries are almost on a par, the benefits are definitely better and there seems to be a certain security of tenure.

Anyone reading this in the UK could be forgiven for feeling that this is a rash statement, given the UK government's July 2004 announcement of cutting up to 100,000 civil service jobs. But it isn't at all. Overall, public sector recruitment is still booming and is a safer long- term bet than private enterprise.

The saddest part of all this is that the things that make people engaged in their jobs are no different now than they were 50 years ago. Nothing much has changed, except that technology has allowed us to make mistakes faster and with an awful lot more global impact. Indeed, an initiative called ˜A Survey of Trust in the Workplace' by the Philadelphia-based consulting firm Development Dimensions International (DDI) came to the same conclusions that others have before them. It's all really pretty simple and basic common sense. Here are DDI's top five trust-building behaviours of managers and supervisors as voted by over 1,100 employees from 57 US companies.

Trust-building behaviours

communicates with me openly and honestly, without distorting information
shows confidence in my abilities by treating me as a skilled, competent associate
keeps promises and commitments
listens to and values what I say, even though he or she might not agree
co-operates with me and looks for ways in which we can help each other.

Now, what do you think the top-ranked five trust-reducing behaviours are?

Trust-busting behaviours

acts more concerned about his or her own welfare than anything else
sends mixed messages so that I never know where he or she stands
avoids taking responsibility for action ( passes the buck or drops the ball)
jumps to conclusions without checking the facts first
makes excuses or blames others when things don't work out (fingerpointing).

All of this is pretty basic stuff. But we continue, decade after decade , to get it wrong. But now the series of events and circumstances outlined at the beginning of this chapter has coalesced we have a perfect people storm that we have to learn to live with for many years to come.

Just as with the perfect storm, where you can't beat Mother Nature, you can't beat a social movement whose time has come.