Nuclear Regulatory Commission Presentation
September 2010
Rockville, MD – Trust is the operating system of every organizational culture, and it’s especially important for people who regulate and lead in industries where safety and accountability are the primary values. That was the keynote message by Dr. Rodger Dean Duncan at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Duncan, a leading authority in organizational effectiveness, said trust is much more than a nice-to-have social virtue. It’s a competency that can be taught, learned, and improved.
“A big idea here is that low trust is a tax and high trust is a dividend,” Duncan told NRC leaders in an organization-wide meeting that was televised live to the NRC’s regional offices across the U.S.
“When trust is low, you pay a tax because everything requires more time to accomplish and everything costs more. When trust is high, you receive a dividend because you’re able to get things done faster and at a lower cost.”