3. When Did We Stop Trusting The People And the Organizations We Work For?

Something is rotting inside a lot of organizations right now and most leaders are either not seeing it or pretending they don't. In this episode of Monsters of Curiosity, we dig into one of the most quietly damaging things happening in business today...the erosion of internal trust. Not the kind you fix with a company retreat. The deeper kind, where employees have simply stopped believing what they are being told. We get into why it is happening, what it is actually costing, and introduce a concept worth sitting with: the trust tax. The invisible toll that skepticism takes on productivity, retention, and whether anyone speaks up when something is going wrong.   In this episode we get into: • The biological reason your brain defaults to distrust before it defaults to trust • The trust tax — what it is, why it is measurable, and what it is quietly costing your organization • How generational experiences with layoffs and restructuring have compounded workplace skepticism over decades • Why communicating more is not the same as building trust and what actually is • The difference between saying you have someone’s back and building a culture where everyone does • How to measure trust inside your organization and track whether it is improving or eroding over time This one is for leaders who think they have it figured out and employees who are done pretending they agree.   Chapters 0:23 Why internal distrust in business is at an all time high 2:02 Your brain has been hardwired to distrust authority since the beginning of time 5:42 How each generation became more skeptical of the companies they work for 8:07 Why younger employees have built-in BS detectors and what to do about it 14:29 What leaders cannot legally say and why that silence destroys trust 20:03 How return to office mandates and mouse tracking are making distrust worse 24:10 Why saying you have someone's back and meaning it are two different things 31:55 How three people define trust and why they all landed on the same answer 35:43 Why your smartest employees are always the first ones to walk out the door 38:33 Trust is not one size fits all and what that means practically 40:57 Actions are the only thing that actually builds trust over time 43:52 Where to start rebuilding trust in your organization starting tomorrow   Check out a practical list of strategies for building trust inside your organization and how to track whether it is actually working over time Practical Guide to Building Trust Inside an Organization:https://monstersofcuriosity.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Monsters-of-Curiosity-Practical_Guide_to_Building_Trust_Inside_an_Organization.pdf7 Ways to Measure the Trust Tax in Your Businesshttps://monstersofcuriosity.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Monsters-of-Curiosity-7_Ways_to_Measure_the_Trust_Tax_in_Your_Business.pdf   🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/monsters-of-curiosity/id1893176736 🎧 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Iy2Y9XMyJ9Yjc9icMeUDG?si=ajdpFX1ZQIWtUF-RFffg7Q' 🎧 Listen on iHeart https://iheart.com/podcast/332768788/ 🌐 Visit us at: https://monstersofcuriosity.com/ 📩 Subscribe so you don't miss the next one: https://www.youtube.com/@MonstersOfCuriosity 💬 Have a question, story, or anecdote for us? Email us: [email protected]