Trust: the most important thing you don't care about yet
15th November 2009
Jess didn't show up for work on Monday.
There's got to be a good reason. She's probably got that horrible bug which is going round - runny mind disease - where her entire brain leaks out of her fingertips, making touch typing impossible. Poor Jess, maybe we should send her some flowers?
A week later, Claire didn't show up for work.
That bitch. Was she hungover, I wonder, or was there just something too good on daytime TV to justify hauling her fat lazy ass out of bed?
When you distrust a person, everything they do is tainted. You'll assume their motivations are bad, with or without evidence.
If you trust someone, they have earned the benefit of your doubt. You don't waste time thinking about why Jess isn't in, but you'll bleed yourself dry dealing with Claire: hours of bitching round the water-cooler, resentment, gossip and hushed silences.
Our trust in someone is the means by which we judge that person's behaviour. We don't know what's really going on that head of yours, so we guess. Trust is a really effective way of doing this: we reward people who act consistently and with good intentions, and we punish those who don't.
Trust isn't a soft skill, some mushy intangible. For companies, the trust they earn is their brand. For teams, trust separates the fast from the bureaucratic. For people, it is the cornerstone of what makes relationships work - or die.
Trust really does transform everything. But somehow it doesn't get due credit. For every thousand books helping us improve our diet, intelligence, looks, charm or confidence, I've only seen one on trust.
I've found that once you start looking for trust, it's like Neo looking into the Matrix - you see the world differently. From trust in yourself, to the trust built by corporations, our brains are hard wired to value and respect trustful behaviour. And like anything worthwhile, trust has to be earned.
For everything you could ever want to know on the subject, get a copy of The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey (son of Stephen Covey). It's an extremely worthwhile read.
