letters after names…… what are we choosing to trust?
Letters after Names......
There are more and more of them these days.
Qualifications, accreditations, certifications — carefully earned and often hard-won.
And they matter. I don’t question that. They represent effort, study, discipline, commitment.
And yet I sometimes find myself noticing something else alongside them.
How quickly we can start to rely on them as shorthand for value.
As if the letters alone can carry the weight of judgment, presence, or impact in a real-world moment.
But the longer I work with people, the more I find myself drawn to other signals.
How someone thinks when things are unclear.
How they respond when there isn’t a framework.
How they listen. How they adapt. How they land in a conversation.
Things that are harder to certify.
None of this is about diminishing qualifications. They absolutely have their place.
It’s more a quiet question I keep coming back to:
In a world full of credentials, what are we actually noticing about each other?
And what are we choosing to trust?
