Respond to Betrayal by Learning from It, with Joel Peterson | Big Think

Respond to Betrayal by Learning from It, with Joel Peterson

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Betrayal is part of giving trust, says JetBlue Chairman Joel Peterson. So the odds are you will be betrayed at some point in time. Still, recovery and healing are possible.

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JOEL PETERSON:

Joel Peterson is the Chairman of JetBlue Airways, which was founded in 1999 and is now the fifth largest commercial airline in the United States. He is the Robert L. Joss Consulting Professor of Management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he has served on the faculty since 1992, teaching courses in leadership, entrepreneurship, and real estate. A 2005 recipient of the Distinguished Teacher Award, he also serves as a Director at Stanford's Center for Leadership Development and Research, as a member of the Dean's Advisory Group, and as an Overseer at the Hoover Institution.

In addition, Peterson is chairman of the investment firm he founded in 1995, Peterson Partners, which focuses on providing growth and buyout capital to businesses with strong management teams and a track record of success. He formerly served as Managing Partner, CFO, and CEO of Trammell Crow Company, the world's largest private real estate development firm, where he was employed for nearly 20 years.

Throughout his distinguished career, Peterson has continually cultivated, called upon, and benefited from high-trust relationships. In his new book, THE 10 LAWS OF TRUST: Building the Bonds That Make a Business Great, he lays out attitudes and behaviors for developing a high-trust organization. “Investing in trust works to create abundance and is far superior to hoarding power, harboring suspicions, or barricading oneself behind gotcha controls," he attests. “The satisfaction that derives from collaboration, the innovation that flows from interdependent teams, the joy that springs from knowing you can trust those with whom you work—all are well worth the effort required to understand the nature of trust and to internalize and live by its laws."

Over the past 35 years, Peterson has served on dozens of public and private boards, including Asurion; Franklin Covey; Ladder Capital Finance, a billion-dollar real estate investment company; and Bonobos, a New York based apparel start-up. He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and received his bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University, where he was valedictorian and student body president.Joel Peterson is the father of seven children and a grandfather to more than a dozen.He makes his home in Salt Lake City, Utah, with Diana, his trusted partner for 44 years.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Joel Peterson: So betrayal is a very tough thing and it’s part of giving trust is the odds are you will be betrayed at some point in time. So getting good at dealing with betrayal is a really important thing. And I think it starts with realizing that you have joint ventured the betrayal. You’ve had a part to do with it. It could be that you trusted when you shouldn’t have trusted. You didn’t think about whether the person had high character, was competent and had the authority and therefore shame on you. We don’t like to take responsibility for that but I think if you step back and say how did I participate in this? I think that gives you insight and sort of the first ability to start approaching it in a way that allows you to heal. Because that’s really what you want to do in a betrayal is you want to heal as fast as you can. And so I think it really helps to do that.

So any time you’re betrayed you feel alone. You feel like why me? You have the poor me’s and you feel like you’ve been attacked and it’s all unfair and everything. I think if you step back and say everybody’s been betrayed, everybody knows what this feels like and people get over it. And therefore I’m not alone in this and I can learn from other people and this too will pass. So sometimes when you’re in the midst of it and you’re dealing with it and it’s acute it feels like it’s all you can think about. You wake up in the middle of the night it’s the first thing on your mind. When you start your day it stays with you throughout the day and you start to marinate in it. And I think it’s really helpful to step back and say this has happened to other people before and therefore I will get through this.

So sometimes people betray us and it’s not that serious. They didn’t deliver a project on time or on budget or they didn’t get the report.....

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