How do we establish a new truth?

Truths are strange ducks. You hope they will be self evident, but more frequently, they are not. The biggest issue tends to be in that a truth to one person is not necessarily so held by another. Much of it centers around faith, and much of the proliferation of the truths center around trust in the one asking you to hold some concept as the truth.

So, perhaps the critical step in the process of establishing a new truth is being able to trust those that are recommending the ideas behind the to-be truths. Trust is also an interesting concept. In relationship to truths and trust, the venerable Einstein has been quoted saying “whoever is careless with the truth in small matters can not be trusted with important matters”. Stephen Covey Jr., in his book The Speed of Trust states that the principal path to Trust is through integrity and in turn integrity is seen as not only telling the truth, but leaving the right impression about that truth. In other words, you can be truthful and honest, but twist it for your own purposes. Think about the sales process in most consulting or product organizations. Often, the sales people believe they are truthful, but skate in the fuzzy boundary between fabric and fabrication.

If we are going to instantiate a new truth we, the purveyors, must retain our integrity and meet the expectations that we set for ourselves. It is inappropriate to set the bar so high that there is only a small probability of achieving is; but equally, we can not set it so low that any methodology would perform as well. Let’s us strive to be aggressive but possible, meet the expectations we set, and make them clearly above what other methodologies can accomplish. This is the way we will establish a new truth.