Understanding trust

From management-epistemology

Seeing complexity of trust and trust management by managers as well as understanding its role in everyday business might be the source of the competitive advantage for the pioneers up to the day when similarly to specialization it becomes a standard. These are benefits that come from being first in the space of strategic activities.

(From Trust Management – The New Way  in The Information Society in Economics and Organization of Enterprise, Volume 2, Number 2 / 2008, Grudzewski et al.)

On the one hand, trust is part of all human relationsips and institutions: how could markets, corporations, governments function without trust? It seems like it’s a part of human nature. Yet, as this graphic illustrates it now has a more important place in today’s business world: in the post-industrial age, business relationships are primarily based on trust rather than hierarchy or bureaucracy.

We tend to think of trust as a mental state, a psychological acceptation. It should rather be construed as an act: an act by which we give, say, tell something. Trust is not only thought, it is also made. As a good example, see the following video by David Maister. Or the Strategy of Giving. Or Open Source software, wikipedia, etc. You have to give something (to a client, or a community) before earning someone else’s trust.

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