# The individual must trust the institution, the institution cannot trust the individual?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-individual-must-trust-the-institution-the-institution-cannot-trust-the-individual/645929>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 3, 2013, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-individual-must-trust-the-institution-the-institution-cannot-trust-the-individual/645929 "2013-01-03T06:37:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![H3Knuckles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba8739/32.png) [@H3Knuckles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/H3Knuckles)\
**Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-individual-must-trust-the-institution-the-institution-cannot-trust-the-individual/645929/1 "2013-01-03T06:37:06Z")

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Where is this quote (likely paraphrased) from? I was reading some GD threads and it surfaced in my memory, but Google isn’t giving me anything useful.

Also, just for the sake of clarity, I don’t agree with it at all, just bugs me that I can’t remember who said it.

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**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\
**Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-individual-must-trust-the-institution-the-institution-cannot-trust-the-individual/645929/2 "2013-01-03T13:21:42Z")

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What was the context? What did “institution” refer to … church, government, corporation??

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**Author:** ![H3Knuckles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba8739/32.png) [@H3Knuckles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/H3Knuckles)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-individual-must-trust-the-institution-the-institution-cannot-trust-the-individual/645929/3 "2013-01-05T05:43:07Z")

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Hah, found it!

Got the quote wrong; it’s “organization”, not “institution”, and I got the order reversed.

Ray Kroc (the man who made McDonald’s what it is) said “The organization cannot trust the individual; the individual must trust the organization.”

Can’t find a good citation for it, but search him or the phrase and you’ll get a whole bunch of different sites with it.

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**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-individual-must-trust-the-institution-the-institution-cannot-trust-the-individual/645929/4 "2013-01-06T15:09:28Z")

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Hmmmm… wonder what he meant?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![H3Knuckles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba8739/32.png) [@H3Knuckles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/H3Knuckles)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-individual-must-trust-the-institution-the-institution-cannot-trust-the-individual/645929/5 "2013-01-07T03:19:25Z")

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AIUI, the context was a situation where several franchise owners weren’t following the same playbook. Kroc was credited with encouraging local managers to experiment and suggest things to the national level (which is how we got Ronald), but he wanted everyone to stick to the corporate template as much as possible.

Essentially, the franchisees must trust the chain’s judgement, the chain cannot give the franchisees free reign.