Going back to the experience at the Dagstuhl seminar. We noticed that a lot of products, from beverages to snacks, are available for sale near the cafeteria area. All we need to do is to pick what we want. The interesting thing is that there is nobody checking the products available to make sure that you’ve included your choices in your expense sheet. Another point is that all room doors do not close from outside, so when you go out to the seminar, to have dinner or out for a walk, your room is open. What is common in both situations? They simply trust us and it makes us thrust everyone.
There is a recent article at the Harvard Business Review that mentions the importance of trust in business. In any domain, from carpentry to IT, there is no technical skill that overshadows trust. This you cannot learn or teach, you can only feel it. Besides trusting your instincts to make decisions in the market place, trust between people plays even a larger role in the work environment. It is fundamental for everything to work smoothly.
Another great example of thrust with customers is by O’Reilly. First, they kindly convince customer to choose e-books saying “save a tree, go digital”, which is cheaper than buying the printed version. Second, when you buy e-books, they send an unprotected pdf file, trusting that you are not going to inappropriately share it with your friends and co-workers. When customers feel the trust, they are inclined to buy even more.
Trust is a sign of health in the business world, from workers to top management and from simple deals to global market confidence level. When you are recruiting people, how do you know they are trustworthy? Do you transmit to your customers how trustworthy you are? And how much do you trust them to take some risks?
