How to Build Trust? Reduce Your Partners' Costs

Not AI but trust is the primary tool for increasing productivity.

Trust is at the core of how modern societies function. Just consider the theory of the social contract and the principle of electing representatives to parliament. Without trust in financial instruments, the operation of banks would be impossible. Trust is what allows us to organize our social structures. But trust is also a tool for economic growth (here is a great article by 德勤 about the topic). The reason is that trust reduces transaction costs.

Let's look at a couple of examples of how this works.

• When a company decides to store its data and host its applications in the public cloud, it deliberately sacrifices control over the physical infrastructure in exchange for greater flexibility, lower costs, and so on. Understanding of the technical architecture; the institution of reputation; existence of regulators, auditors, and courts provide confidence that there won't be any unpleasant surprises with your data (e.g., theft or loss). If a company is unwilling to relinquish control over the infrastructure, it is forced to go the CapEx route, build up the competencies of running own data centers and so on.
• Or, when people trust their government and believe in the honesty of elections in their country, they are willing to vote remotely during the week and spend their weekend off going to a café or cinema. On the contrary, in August 2020, in Belarus, where I come from, people spent the entire day standing in line at polling stations because they knew that it would be more difficult to manipulate the votes this way (and they were right: on that day, a massive electoral fraud was attempted, but due to offline participation of very big number of people it was impossible to hide the true results of the election. It didn't help, though, but that's a different story).
• Without trust, digital platforms through which we have become accustomed to receiving products and services would be impossible. We order things online because we know they will arrive, and if they arrive damaged, we can return them and get our money back. This works both ways: online platform operators cannot be sure that you did not intentionally damage the item, but they trust you.

Trust is incredibly important in corporate life. For example, employers are more willing to invest in their workers when they trust that the workers will not switch to another company. Once one of my managers justified the introduction of an upskilling program for us as follows: "I want you to have strong resumes." At the same time, employees are willing to develop themselves if they know that the employer will reward their efforts. The presence or absence of trust also affects how a company is structured: for example, whether decisions are made centrally and passed down from the top or whether people on the ground have the authority to make decisions based on their understanding of the situation, allowing for quicker adaptation.

In the cases described, those who trust the other party take risks. After all, an employee can upskill and leave for another company, and people who make decisions on the ground may not consider the big picture. But without taking risks, it is impossible to grow: neither in entrepreneurship, nor in one's career, nor in investments. However, by showing that you trust people, you can receive returns in the form of innovative ideas and increased engagement.

Trust plays a key role in the consulting business. Of course, I constantly ask myself how to gain and maintain the trust of my clients. And by using reverse brainstorming , I understand which consultant-engineer I would definitely not trust:

• Those who do not try to solve your problem, do not put your interests above theirs, and do not provide a perspective for the future.
• Those who try to solve your problem but do not attempt to understand the context of the problem (often the assignment given to you is not what you really need to do - the problem may lie somewhere else, and you as a good consultant have to find it out).
• Those who are too attached to their experience ("this can only be done in programming language XY"), do not openly discuss their ideas, do not seek advice, and do not try to get quick feedback.
• Those who are unable to take responsibility for a project, do not demonstrate ownership, and do not act autonomously.
• Those who do not test their code, do not address software security aspects, and do not think about its maintainability and reusability.

People intuitively strive for trust because it reduces costs - financial, cognitive, emotional. Aim to be the kind of person with whom people around you will want to reduce their costs, not increase control (i.e., increase costs).

(Control, or confirmation is the opposite of trust. Take blockchain: no trust - everything is based on multiple confirmations. No confirmation - no transaction, no deal, no record).