Tiger Woods is making a comeback this week at the Masters Golf Tournament and not only will he be judged on his Golf but over the coming years individuals and corporations will be looking to get his trust back – his credibility.
They say that “trust” is the highest form of human motivation.
Trust in my opinion is the single most important thing that we have.
One definition of trust: When trust goes down, things take longer to do and become costlier; when trust goes up, things happen faster and at a lower cost.
Think about it.
In mid 2000, Watson Wyatt conducted a survey and only 39% of US employees trusted their senior manager – what’s wrong with this picture?
Let’s look at the other side of the coin, in 2005, Warren Buffett purchased a $23 billion company from Wal-Mart (McLane Distribution) and to make this deal happen, it ONLY took a 2 hour meeting and then 29 days later Wal-Mart received their money from Berkshire Hathaway.
Most mergers take months – trust me, this was a unique situation. Warren Buffett did no due diligence and was quoted after in saying “…in essence, I trusted Wal-Mart, I trusted the people I worked with. I knew everything would be exactly in order they said that it would be and it was…we did no due diligence”.
From my point of view, we have two ways to creating trust:
1) Transparency or in other words being open. In building a business or your personal credibility, individuals will look for you to tell them the truth that can be validated and verified so give this to them.
2) Don’t skirt the issue – Each of us are going to go through our own “waves” of ups and downs and when it comes to the downturns, we need to learn how to take it head on even if it’s difficult to discuss.
Both of these items can be applied to personal and as well as business relationships.
As Francis Fukuyama once said “widespread distrust in a society…imposes a kind of tax on all forms of economic activity, a tax that high trust societies do not have to pay.”
How are you creating a high trust society?
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
very well put – many a times when there is a conflict between
money and trust people forego trust with negative consequences in future.