The 2013 trust reform in Denmark worked with a limited mindset, and it weakened trust, collaboration and innovation. Perhaps Minister of Economy and Home Affairs Margrethe Vestager should have started somewhere else.

With Kotter, she could create a “sense of urgency” – the burning platform that creates a strong sense of necessity for change. Vestager may have used too much push-push, where employees become reactive, instead of a pull-carrot: the vision. The trust reform could also have been implemented by lifting the roof and removing the framework for the endless game. I will describe this below.
Responsive organizations are characterized by agility and holocrasy. Anthropologist Simon Sinek describes this from a different angle in his book on “The infinite game“, where he also explores how high trust is created. Although life is finite, it is not meant to be. The infinite game never ends, unlike the finish line of a sports match. Yet when we use the performance and achievement parameters of winning and losing, we instinctively prepare for a short-term ending rather than raising the roof. That’s why the US lost in Vietnam, Kodak lost “world domination” in photography, etc.
In order to succeed, Sinek argues that we must choose the unlimited paradigm. There is a difference between going to a soccer game and staying fit. The latter is a long process with many opportunities, dreams, choices and influences. For this to happen, there are five practices we need to go through (see illustration on the right). All five areas strengthen trust, collaboration and innovation.
Similarly, Patrick Lencioni reveals that the first and most important of the five most common collaboration defects is the absence of trust.
Power and invulnerability have been key elements of a confident leader. Lencioni and Sinek turn this on its head and claim vulnerability is essential when you want to build trust.
Dr. Bréne Brown says “trust is stacking small moments of… mutual vulnerability on top of each other, layer upon layer over time,” If these two don’t develop together – vulnerability and trust – then both will be destroyed. And then she describes how we need to bravely step out into the wild landscape of imperfection.
Sinek believes the pressure to meet our quantitative goals of problem solving and performance must be replaced with a pursuit of vulnerability because it provides transparency, and illustrates this in the model to the right.
Performance is about technical ability. Trust is about character. When the maritime special operations force of the Danish Defence, the Frogman Corps deploys, trust is more important than performance when it comes to survival in war zones.
To take the boundaries out to the infinite game, Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck helps raise the roof further through her research on performance and success. Dweck describes two different types of mindset:
1) Static mindset with innate, fixed and unchangeable qualities.
2) Dynamic growth mindset: abilities can be developed and strengthened through commitment and hard work.
Vulnerability raises the roof when I want to build trust.