Trust : A Rare Commodity Today? But One We All Crave
To quote Warren Buffet, "trust is like the air we breathe... when it's present, no one really notices; when it's absent, everybody notices'
Trust is one of those things in life that we all want. We want to trust. We want to be able to rely on people to do the right thing. We innately trust. In our personal lives trust is something that we want in our relationships. We trust our family to have our best interests at heart. We trust our friends to have our back and look out for us. We trust our life partner to be faithful and love us for who we are.
However, we all sadly have experienced situations when our trust in someone has been misguided and we have been hurt with someone's actions breaking that trust. And the problem is that our trust is broken not just once in our lives but multitudes of times. And when trust has been broken it can never be fully restored. It can never go back to the original state. We become wary of that person and their actions. We can't trust them anymore because they broke that trust.
Trust in the business world is also something we want but in many instances is sadly lacking. Profit often comes before trust in many instances but this is such a short sighted way to look at your business. If people trust you they will buy from you, again and again. If you rip them off or give them bad service, people will repay you with never dealing with your company again. The lifetime that it took to build that trust can be shattered with just one bad experience.
People today have trust issues with all major institutions such as banks, government, media to name a few. Do you trust our politicians or our banks to have our best interests at heart? They should have and on the surface they appear to espouse this but when we delve a bit deeper we often see cracks in the face that they portray. You only have to look at the continual banking enquiries and royal commissions in recent times to see that trust has been eroded or look at some of our politicians and their travel expenses that are funded by us, the taxpayers, to see that trust in their integrity is diminished.
We live in a world where we do much of our business remotely, ie online. We don't actually speak to anyone in a lot of cases. We are trusting people to do the right thing but internet fraud is big business and on the increase.
What is the answer? How do we keep trust alive? Because without trust we become cynical and life becomes sad.
Personally, I choose to trust and hope that the trust is returned in kind. If it isn't I move on from that person or business but I don't let it get to me or bring me down. Trust is the key to positive communication, in your personal and professional life. I build trust in all my relationships. Most people value trust. We have to believe that trust is still a valuable commodity that is alive and well in the world today. We all have a choice. Trust me.
Ros O'Connor
Thinkind DNA - thinkingdna.com.au
human capital and innovation are the source of all long term economic success
What do you think?
Is trust important to you or have you been burnt too often to trust anyone?
How do you deal with a broken trust?





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