Individual Assignment 1: To Trust or to distrust

About four years ago, after my college entrance examination, there was a very important thing in front of me to be determined, which is to choose what kind of university to enter in and which program can be selected. To tell the truth, as a high-school student at that time, I had not thought about what I want to do after my graduation from the high school clearly, so I just went to find help from elders. To the elders, the standards to make the decision maybe that how famous the university is or how hot the program is. Actually, four years ago, the field of State Grid had an outstanding future, and according to a friend of my father, who was charged for the area of electrical power system, he suggested me that I could select a program relative to electric, and after the graduation, I could have the big opportunity to enter into the State Grid system, which is fantastic. At last, I made my decision to trust him, and selected the program Electrical Power Engineering in NJIT. But two years later, State Grid did the system reform, and its foreground was not as good as before. At the same time, the staff’s children had more chances than me. All these situations made me awkward and confused, and also I didn’t like what I learnt. And I didn’t enter into the field.

Four years on, I think there are many reasons why I made the decision to trust the man. Firstly, at that time, I had less experience than the elders, I did not have the clear ideal about my preference, so I give up the chance to think and choose by myself. Secondly, four years ago, State Grid was a very nice platform, which is hot. If I had an opportunity to work there, that was a great choice. Thirdly, the man who gave me the advice is a great person, he was charged for the system in my hometown, on the one hand, he had plenty of knowledge and information about the State Grid, on the other hand, he had the power and right to help me enter into the system. According to the article “The decision to trust” by Robert F.Hurley (2006), there are two kinds of factors about the process to trust or distrust, decision-maker factors and situational factors, which conclude risk tolerance, level of adjustment, relative power, security, number of similarities, alignment of interests, benevolent concern, capability, predictability and integrity, level of communication. Now we can see that, even though I did not know the model of decision to trust four years ago, but the reasons why I chose to trust the man were followed by the model.

To think more about my instance, the result of my decision maybe not as good as expected. Because of some uncertainties and not plenty of deep thought, I spent four years learning what I disliked. According to Robert (2006), if the factor is low, we should find some ways to make it more clearly. For example, the risk tolerance is low, we should spend more time explaining options and risks, to my condition, at that time，what I should do is to consider more about the selections and the risks of just choosing State Grid. We can also learn from the instance, there can be many uncertainties in the society, today is good, but what about tomorrow? And sometimes we have to rethink trust (Roderick M.Kramer), and know what the real things you want to yourself, but not just trust others without any your own thoughts.

By the way, after my graduation from NJIT, I made another decision that come to HongKong for further study, and this time, someone gave me the advice to Cityu, I thought a lot, and chose to trust him myself, so know I’m here. What about this trust? Let’s wait and see.

References:

[1] Robert F. Hurley (2006). The Decision to Trust. HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW.September 2006:55-62

[2] Roderick M. Kramer(2009). Rethinking Trust. HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW. June 2009:69-77