Insights from trust practitioners on social cohesion

Recently a colleague asked me, “Laura, how are you able to get a group of complete strangers to bond so quickly?” It made me pause and reflect on my approach. Creating a strong bond among individuals is rooted in fostering psychological safety, shared experiences, and vulnerability. Here are some strategies I employ: 1. Establish a Shared Purpose Early On: - Define the group's purpose clearly. - Focus on the intention behind the gathering, promoting authenticity over perfection. 2. Initiate Vulnerability-Based Icebreakers: - Dive beyond surface-level introductions by asking meaningful questions: - "What's a personal achievement you're proud of but haven't shared with the group?" - "What challenge are you currently facing, big or small?" - "What truly motivated you to join us today?" These questions encourage genuine connections by fostering openness and humanity. 3. Engage in Unconventional Activities Together: - Bond through unique experiences such as: - Light physical activities (get outside and take a walk) or team challenges. - Creative endeavors like collaborative projects or improvisation. - Reflective exercises such as guided meditations followed by group reflections. 4. Facilitate "Small Circle" Conversations: - Encourage deeper discussions in smaller groups before sharing insights with the larger group. - Smaller settings often lead to increased comfort, paving the way for more profound interactions in larger settings. 5. Normalize Authentic Communication: - Lead by example as a facilitator or leader by sharing genuine and unexpected thoughts. - Setting the tone for open dialogue encourages others to follow suit. 6. Highlight Common Ground: - Acknowledge shared themes and experiences after individual shares. - Recognize patterns like shared pressures, transitions, or identity struggles to unify the group. 7. Incorporate Group Rituals: - Commence or conclude sessions with grounding rituals like breathwork, gratitude circles, one on one share. In what ways have you been able to create cohesion quickly amongst a group of individuals in a training session? #fasttracktotrust #humanconnection #facilitatedconnection

Early in my career, I believed offsites and outdoor activities could build trust and alignment in teams. I took teams for rafting in Shivpuri near Rishikesh. I ran outdoor programs in Ranikhet. I made people climb rocks and cross rivers. One day, a participant pulled me aside and said quietly — if he had wanted to be good at climbing rocks and crossing rivers, he would have joined the army. He had done an MBA instead. Though, he admitted, he hadn’t paid much attention in his OB and OD classes. I laughed. But the comment stayed with me. One team, after many such offsites, became very good at rafting. The team issues stayed. We often confuse the experience of togetherness with the conditions that make teams actually work. They are not the same thing. Google spent years studying over 180 teams to understand what separates high-performing teams from the rest. The answer was not shared experience. It was psychological safety — a condition where people feel safe to speak, disagree, challenge, and act without fear. That is built in meeting rooms, not on riverbanks. Recently, I was reading about Iran’s military doctrine — something called Mosaic Defence. The idea is simple but powerful. Do not build a system that collapses when the centre is struck. Build one where every unit is capable, aligned, and authorised to act independently. When the centre fails, the system continues. Because the mission is understood deeply enough that no one needs to be told. I found that interesting. Because if you combine three things, you start seeing real teams emerge. A shared sense of purpose. Psychological safety. (I am not sure if an army would have this ) And distributed capability with real authority. The first is built through honest, sometimes uncomfortable conversations — why we exist, what we stand for, and what we owe each other. It also requires leaders to look at themselves — their style, what it enables, and what it quietly shuts down. This is what we call social cohesion. The second is operational — clarity, capability, and the trust to act without waiting. People don’t just feel safe. They are able. Offsites can create moments — good photographs, late-night conversations, a bit of singing and dancing. Those have their place. But they don’t build teams. Teams are built in the everyday — in how decisions are made, how disagreement is handled, and how much people are trusted to act.

Turning the Page, Staying the Course Reflections on What 20 Years in Development Brought to #AlUla. After completing a one-year assignment as Senior Projects Manager with The Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU), I step away with renewed clarity on what truly sustains impact in culturally rich and complex environments. One key insight that never fails: beyond the policies, tools, and frameworks, it is trust and human connection that sustain impact! 1. To engage communities meaningfully, one must begin with understanding who the community is. I led a community research initiative mapping the social and tribal composition of AlUla, capturing detailed data from 91 community sections ‘asheera’ and 504 families. The result? A living, dynamic database of 300+ Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) bearers and over 100 community specialized experts identified for RCU programs. 2. But development isn’t copy-paste. I authored practical guidelines for ICH Community Engagement, — aligning UNESCO standards and ethical frameworks with the region’s social codes, tribal structures, and local governance. The result? a practical, ethical, and locally usable framework for heritage professionals and field teams. 3. Sustainability is about knowledge transfer. Beyond training staff on participatory engagement, I prioritized hands-on mentorship with junior team members (whom I was grateful to mentor and learn from) — embedding know-how for continuity beyond my tenure. 4. Civil society actors are often the most credible and sustainable intermediaries in communities, yet they are frequently overlooked. I initiated a structured dialogue with 35% of the local NGOs and community based associations in AlUla. The result? opening new channels for reaching underserved populations, particularly in peripheral areas, and paving the groundwork for locally anchored partnerships. 5. Community consultations must go beyond formality. Through UNESCO-moderated dialogues, I worked to ensure that community consultations were not performative, but participatory. The result?  shift consultations from formality to shared influence — bringing in voices across tribal, gender, generational, and geographic lines. And finally, a simple moment stood out: a surprise gathering by the community to celebrate my pilgrimage — a heratfelt reminder that trust is built, not assigned. 💚 As I look ahead, I carry these experiences forward — open to new missions or rather new challenges to crack open 🙂

Every year, I look forward to exploring the latest Edelman Trust Barometer. 2026 edition is, once again, a sobering read (link in comments). 🫧The main theme is growing “insularity” – noted with 7 of 10 respondents. Think of an ‘information bubble’, then add an active reluctance to step outside it. This isn’t just lack of exposure to different viewpoints; it’s active avoidance - rejecting or dismissing them. 🔭Only 2 in 5 people look for political perspectives different from their own even once a week; a number that has dropped across almost all surveyed countries. 🦥And 2 in 5 employees say they would put in less effort if their team leader held different political beliefs. This means a significant erosion of shared trust, shared interests and shared visions. In parallel, trust has become local and personal. People rely on people they know personally (neighbors, friends, colleagues, teachers) or who “feel personal” (social media influencers). People trust “our CEO” but not “CEOs”. People trust teachers but not journalists. People trust local companies more than those based elsewhere; significantly and even more so in Western world. Immediate community takes over distant authorities. Trust is guided less by credibility or expertise, and more by proximity to the source. The report builds on not-so-encouraging insights into the global trust dynamics to provide actionable ideas for moving out of current trust crisis. A concept they call “trust brokering”. 🫶I really like it.🤝 Trust brokering means intentionally reaching out to people with different opinion and actively listening. Hearing someone out does mean agreeing but it does signal interest and respect – and that’s foundation of trust. If trust now flows through close relationships, then our personal circles have more influence than we might think. It feels empowering. 💪 Each of us is a neighbor, friend, colleague, sometimes even educator. The report made me realize that I want to be more intentional about “brokering” trust at every life “touch point”; rather than “breaking” it by acting absent-minded, thoughtless or just “as usual”. Insularity patterns are human, we all slip into them. My mother, for example, votes very differently from me. I often listened to her with a kind of polite distance, focused more on keeping the peace than trying to understand her. In doing so, I protected the relationship but didn’t build trust. Three quarters of respondents say leaders should consult different perspective and help bridge them but less than a half think they do it. I know I can do better. That’s a start. Benjamin Lampe Leo McKay Barbara Steiger Morten Skøtt Hennariikka Niinistö Karolína Kříženecká Anna Klimczuk Cornelia Bjørke-Hill Azar Koulibaly Gabriela Bechynská Soňa Schwarzová

How do cultural dimensions affect the effectiveness of public decision-making and digitalization? Directly: through trust between citizens and institutions, criteria by which state effectiveness is judged, and how fairness and rule of law are applied in society. 👉 On April 10, 2026, I discussed this with 75 participants of my lecture, “Trust as a Condition for Results: How to Boost Decision Effectiveness in Public Projects,” for CDTO Campus - the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine educational project, implemented by the East Europe Foundation (EEF) with support from donors and partners. Audience photo is at the end of the slides 🤪 📌 Some insights from our discussion: ☑️ A startup mentality (mistakes = growth points; launch faster, improve later) works only where clients/beneficiaries trust the service provider. Where core state institutions are broadly distrusted, broken processes, glitching app features, or unclear service algorithms trigger resentment and deepen distrust. ☑️ Ukrainians are a distrustful society. It's neither good nor bad - it is our reality. Research data point to perceived unfairness, cynicism, caution, blaming the authorities more than ourselves, seeing success as luck and connections, and more external than personal attribution of success or failure. ☑️ Our strength lies in strong personal relationships and breakthrough decisions under deep trust. Every reform and responsible project needs a human face accountable for the result. Local leaders are trusted more than the institutions they lead. And after 24.02.2022, societal anomie has not prevailed: Ukrainians continue to show unity, resilience, solidarity, and meaningful ties in critical conditions, while being aware that 'bickering' fuels social divisions. ☑️ Practical recommendations: ▪️Trust in Ukraine is earned, not advanced; the strongest motivational drivers are safety, protection, fairness, autonomy, mutual support, and loyalty. ▪️Invest in mutual trust between project teams and communities: we are softer on “in-group” tolerate their mistakes longer, and expect leaders to show emotional participation, not just assign and monitor task execution. ▪️Institution-citizen contact is key to growing trust. Three working features are better than ten glitchy ones; a product still being fixed after launch is perceived as low-quality. If it is a test version, say so clearly - and make bug-finding the point of the launch, with a reward attached. ▪️In change-making, work not only with supporters, but also with the disagreeing and the unheard. “If it needs explaining, it’s not worth explaining” is a destructive and polarizing approach. 💙💛 Thanks to Olena L. for the invitation, Inna Roman for the support, and all participants - among them familiar and new people, even readers of my book "Understanding Ukrainians: Cross-Cultural Perspective". I hope our discussion and insights will be helpful in the critically important work you do for Ukraine!

In a world where trust is everything, how can private companies replicate the success of social impact organizations in building community loyalty? In Kenya, social impact organizations have gained strong community trust by prioritizing transparency, consistent engagement, and a genuine commitment to local needs. Private sector companies can draw valuable insights from these practices to enhance their own relationships with the communities they serve. Key Lessons from Social Impact Organizations: ✅Community-Centric Approach: Focus on addressing the specific needs of the community and empowering locals to take ownership of initiatives. This builds trust and ensures sustainable impact. ✅Transparency and Accountability: Communicate openly about goals, processes, and outcomes to establish credibility and demonstrate integrity in your actions. ✅Consistent Engagement: Regularly engage with community members to ensure initiatives align with their expectations and feedback. This fosters ongoing trust and collaboration. Tips for Building Community Trust: 📌Involve Communities in Decision-Making: Engage with local leaders and residents in planning and implementing projects to ensure they are relevant and impactful. 📌Demonstrate Commitment: Commit to long-term support through sustained projects and initiatives rather than one-off efforts. 📌Be Transparent: Maintain open communication about your company’s operations, goals, and impacts to build credibility and trust. 📌Provide Tangible Benefits: Offer resources, training, or job opportunities that directly improve the community’s well-being. By incorporating these practices, private sector companies in Kenya can foster deeper trust, build stronger relationships with communities, and create positive, lasting change. How does your business/organization currently engage with the community?

I think one of the biggest privileges of my work is that I get invited into conversations most people never hear. Whether it's sitting with local authorities developing social cohesion strategies, facilitating community consultations, or working alongside people from every corner of the world, I'm constantly reminded that beneath the headlines are human beings trying to answer the same questions. How do I belong here? Will my children feel accepted? What kind of community are we trying to build together? You hear the hopes. You hear the fears. You hear the pride people have in their neighbourhoods and the frustrations they carry when they feel unheard. And if you listen long enough, you realise something important. Most people don't actually want conflict. They want certainty. They want safety. They want to know that there is still a place for them in a changing society. As a social psychologist, it's easy to get caught up in frameworks, theories and policy. Those matter. They help us design better strategies. But sitting in those rooms reminds me that social cohesion is never built on a spreadsheet. It's built in conversations. In the courage to listen before responding. In creating spaces where people can voice difficult truths without fear of being dismissed. Every social integration strategy I've contributed to has reinforced the same lesson: communities already hold many of the answers. Our job isn't to speak for them. It's to create the conditions where they can speak to one another. That's where real social cohesion begins.

I was mentioning to my daughter a point that Dave Snowden made years ago at a #KMWorld conference he was speaking at. Something to the effect that if you can create 3 degrees of separation between people, you don't need a KM strategy (sorry, Dave. I know I mangled that!). It led me to go to look for the exact quote and although I didn't locate one, I found this post he made and this deeper point within: "The general evidence is that more than three degrees of separation means that trust breaks down. It is also true that self-forming teams have higher degrees of self motivation than ones where people are allocated by management. In the former case I would let down my mates if I don’t pull my weight, in the latter case I can blame HR for the team creation." Snowden’s insight here, that trust breaks down beyond three degrees of separation, and that self-forming teams outperform assigned ones, points directly to a truth at the heart of work systems being more social by design: when organizations create conditions where people can more easily choose who they work with and stay close to the work itself, trust becomes a natural byproduct. The farther people are removed (by hierarchy, silo, rules or structure) the more likely they are to disengage and/or deflect responsibility. So if trust is nonexistent or eroding, the problem isn’t people, it’s "proximity"... and that’s a design flaw, not a personal one. If we want effective and continuous collaboration, we must create the conditions where trust is inevitable, not the exception. And if we want engagement at work, we must design systems that naturally encourage people to connect and co-create. Basically, we shouldn't have to “do” social because we already ARE social. We’ve just built systems that forgot that. https://lnkd.in/eeyYUK4w #Cynefin #SocialLearning #Collaboration #FOW #KM #Trust #EmployeeEngagement #SocialByDesign

Insights like these aren’t easy to come by. Maryse Hazelzet has years of practical experience in building coalitions when interests are at odds. She spoke about this during a lunch session of our Community of Practice last Thursday. My takeaways: Successful coalition builders understand why a party can’t say something. Even if they want to in principle. An NGO can almost never say that something is good enough. That’s not a lack of willingness, but an institutional constraint toward its own constituency. For the same reasons, a company often can’t do or say everything it wants because of a constituency of shareholders, employees, suppliers, and customers, that is often less unified. Once you understand that, you stop trying to convince them. You start creating space for communication: so that each party can continue to communicate with its own base while collaborating with one another. Three tips for coalitions where collaboration is sensitive: 1️⃣ Bring in a reputable third party if two parties are at an impasse. Think of a minister or an international organization. That shifts the dynamics. 2️⃣ Find the common ground: the area where all parties have a stake. That’s the starting point. Sensitive topics? Explicitly rule them out and only address them once trust has been established. And yes, that can sometimes take three to four years. That also requires you to cultivate patience within your own organization. 3️⃣ Prioritize face-to-face contact. It’s crucial for building trust. Yes, even now. And yes, even if that sometimes means you have to board that polluting plane. #sustainability #community #practice