CHAPTER 6 THE HOLY GRAIL: TRUST

Trust is as ungraspable as it is important. What a damned combination. It’s like the air you breathe: you use it all the time, you can’t live without it, but try to control it and you’ll fail. Worse: trust is like love. You want it, you can’t live without it, but if you try to control it, you’ll end up broken hearted.

Every relationship we have is based on trust. It’s as omnipresent as time and it makes the world go round just as much as money does. The good news is you can give trust without ever having less of it. It’s not like you have a stock with trust piled up in all colors and shapes, and every time you trust someone the stock shrinks. It is a magic, never-ending resource; something we can’t say about money or time. While those are spent once you’ve used them, trust works the other way around: trust breeds trust.

The fact that trust is abundant yet cannot be controlled nor contained, makes it a complex but curious enough phenomenon to dive into, especially as it is the conditio sine qua non for partnerships and metasystems. Trust fuels collaborations, and – if you’ll excuse our flair for drama – we will need those to survive the next decade.

Still, you can’t control it. Is there no designing trust then? Are we completely powerless, doomed to passively observe what this force does to our relationships, our companies, our society? Not in the least. Trust can be found, lost, built, rebuilt, and acknowledged for the constitutive force it is. So pay attention while we attempt the sheer impossible, namely try and define trust, motivate why you need it to build partnerships, show you how to grow and foster it and even explain how to patch things up again after it’s all gone to pieces.

An impossible definition

Defining trust is a tough cookie. The dictionary says it is a “firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something”. It is also a sort of magical pixie dust, a social superglue, a time-saver and the hidden secret to a successful marriage. What we can agree on is that trust is a decisive element in many situations, and that it takes on a different shape or color almost every time. Some examples to give you a taste of the variety of trust.

Example 1. Exotic tastes

You’re on holiday in a far-away country with your 5-year-old. It’s all adventure and fun and he’s enjoying the exotic touch everything has. The two of you walk around an old city center. It’s all dusty streets, food stalls, screaming salesmen, funky smelling dishes and questionable fire safety measures. Then the boy starts whining. He’s hungry, going on hangry, and you both know he won’t let up until that belly is full. You scan the surroundings for something edible.

While the food stalls look highly photographable, you can’t risk feeding your boy spicy food that may not be properly cooked through. You don’t want him to be ill, and neither do you want to do any explaining to the home front afterwards. Luckily you find a McDonald’s – thank you globalization – and buy him a Happy Meal. You can trust your surroundings to offer you an adventurous, Insta-worthy holiday, while at the same time distrusting this country’s hygiene standards, maybe not for you, but for your son. Does that sound reasonable? Maybe not, but very relatable. Besides, when has parenting ever been reasonable?

Example 2. Fear of flying

You are afraid to fly. The fact that this makes you an eco-warrior is a nice benefit global warming has provided you with. But to be honest, you just can’t grasp the idea of something so huge and heavy lifting up in the air. And then the pilot, probably tired from the eternal jetlag and a fun night out with the stewardesses, flying this mastodon through the air with over 400 people in it. 400 lives, in the hands of one person. Ok, there is science and engineering, but still. On your yearly ski trip, you drive. The rest of your buddies fly in while you slalom through the mountains. The snow is good, the skiing is good, the weather is fine.

All is well. And then you break a leg. A stupid accident that will force you onto an airplane back home. Angry, you beg and try to bribe a nurse to drive you home. It doesn’t work, though—your flight leaves tomorrow at two. You have no choice but to trust the pilot’s capabilities. Forced trust still counts as trust.

Whether or not trust is a choice, is also a good question. We believe trust can be grown, fed by intentions or certain conditions, and to set up those conditions or have an intention for trust, is a choice.

The traits that define trust

While these examples are not radically different in their essential elements, they don’t follow a fixed format either. Compare it to the way coffee and milk make cappuccino. The ‘milk’ and ‘coffee’ and ‘cappuccino’ are easy to understand – it’s the ‘and’ between them that’s harder to define. Just like the interconnection between the elements of a system is the hardest to define. However, disregarding the magic of the ‘and’ would be rather offensive to every barista, who will tell you just how important the ‘and’ is, no matter the combination of ingredients. Likewise, trust is an ‘and’. It may just be that undefinable interconnection, holding your system together. It’s the in-between space, the condition, the glue, the fiber, the magic barista touch. But much more than the milk and the coffee, trust is a variable that changes along with the elements it connects.

1. Trust is non-binary

In a binary system, not trusting someone would be a zero, and trusting someone with your life a ten. Things are not that black and white, though. Your mom might be an 8, your best friend a 10. The guy that fixes the electricity is a 2 if he has to do your accountancy and a 9 if he fixes the wires. Trust starts at 0 and comes in different levels of intensity up to 10. And even in one and the same relationship, the number can vary throughout time.

2. Trust is contextual

If an interaction occurs in a familiar setting (your supermarket, your country, your company), you are more likely to trust the other person from the get-go. On the other hand, you will be more reluctant to trust the people, the food or the directions if you’re in a new and completely alien environment. This is why you’re comfortable eating at a food truck in your hometown yet reluctant to eat street food in India. The word ‘familiar’ plays a crucial role in building trust. Familiarity means a lot of things, but it requires repetition, contact, and predictability for something to become familiar. The same goes for trust.

3. Trust is fluid

Trust evolves constantly. It can become more profound over time. It might be fueled by necessity at first, like the case of the guy with the broken leg who hates to fly, but gradually grows into a spontaneous and heartfelt relationship when the other party proves to be trustworthy. There are myriad factors influencing this movement, like time, actions, expectations, context and the actors themselves. An increase in information can foster trust. An unfortunate error or deliberate mistake can break it. In other words: trust is fluid, flowing, ever evolving.

4. Trust can be directional

You may trust a pilot to fly you and your broken leg over the Alps. That doesn’t mean he feels the same way about you. Trust is often linked to certain skills, and we lean towards people who have skills complementary to our own. Expecting potential partners to excel in the same domains you do, meaning you are in a position to judge their performance, is not really the way forward. You gather partners around you who excel where you have to pass, meaning you also have to trust in their capabilities, seeing as you lack the expertise to assess or judge. In other words: compatibility backed up by trust is far more powerful than comparability plus assessment.

5. Trust is subjective

It is very hard to reason people into trusting someone or something. Some people simply don’t trust airplanes. You can argue about science and the laws of nature as much as you want, your arguments are likely to fall on deaf ears. Scared people are stubborn and less prone to reason. This is why the owner of the family company won’t let his employees touch the business’ bank account. However, trust can be grown, fostered and maintained throughout a relationship. If you don’t trust in good results this quarter, but the numbers turn out super, you might be inclined to change your mind. The more personal or familiar the relationship, interaction or context, the easier it is to foster trust.

6. Trust bridges uncertainty

No one knows everything. Like Doctor Freud showed us decades ago, a lot of knowledge remains hidden from us, even self-knowledge. This forms a source of uncertainty, and also a gap that trust can help bridge. You find yourself across the table from someone whose motives aren’t entirely known to you, but you give them the benefit of the doubt. You have faith in them. You trust in their skills, intention, character, promises, ability or reputation. Trust bridges the unknown in order for us to keep on moving forward.

And on the last day he rested

Trust is a force, not a resource. It stems from behavior, intentions and attempts, but is not merely based on results. And while it is hard to quantify, there are some key attitudes and concepts to keep in mind to build or foster trust. We’ve defined one golden rule for every day of the week, which can help you bridge the gap of uncertainty and allow for movement without losing sight of one another. These 7 rules will help you as a checklist to navigate through relationships, to scan your own trustworthiness and to put in the work where needed.

1. Speak each other’s language

Many companies engage in war games in order to understand their competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. They want to use this knowledge to tweak their own strategies and, in the long run, win in the arena better known as ‘the marketplace’. In order to build trust, though, you need a different approach. You need to learn each other’s language so your plea can really appeal to the people at the other side of the table.

However, it is not just about understanding the other. It is about introspection, too. If you understand your own values and principles, you will become more aware of the vocabulary you use and what it says about you. Words are never just words. They are constitutive of who utters them. They are what shapes our reality. So listen to your own words closely if you want to understand those of others. Because those words are what you use to start constructing a shared reality, a vocabulary built on shared values and principles.

2. Leaders should be personally involved

Whichever way you bend it, trust is always about people, as are relationships and partnerships. That means a lot of the trust your partnership is built on, leans on the shoulders of the specific people who are engaged in it, those who help build and grow it. Because top functions often move on after about five to seven years, it would be wise to have your leader flanked by a colleague who can function as a fallback. Someone who is just as involved as the leader, who is deserving of just as much trust and can take over whenever necessary.

3. Contact creates trust

One of the best proven theories in social science teaches us that the magical ingredient to grow trust is contact, not a handshake or an ‘I’ll call you later’ mumbled while exiting the elevator. Contact means meeting frequently, spending time and doing some miles together. Remember our plea for serendipity? Free that schedule of yours. Being in touch regularly helps people to learn all the things about each other that words or numbers can’t really convey.

All the unspoken information that comes from body language and interacting, working together and thinking out loud together, matters. Business leaders need to spend time together to really get to know each other and their businesses before they engage in a partnership.

4. Start with positive assumptions about the world

Accept that your trust will sometimes be betrayed. Don’t sulk about it, though, as this is the exception rather than the rule. Moreover, being suspicious is an expensive hobby, keeping in mind the long list of to do’s this entails for your legal department. And finally: being paranoiac doesn’t exactly breed trust, either. Instead, be reminded that accepting the other’s honest mistakes is a small price to pay if it means you’ve surrounded yourself with people who trust you. Among them, you might find potentially interesting future partners. And you wouldn’t want to pass on that opportunity because of some lonely exceptions.

5. Focus on the long term

Just because people say they’re in a happy relationship doesn’t mean they never bicker or go through rough patches. What it does mean is that, in the long run, the good days outweigh the bad. When evaluating, it’s best to take a big enough timeframe so that glitches aren’t awarded too much attention. The tricky thing about humans is that we tend to record negative news and bad experiences about five to seven times more successfully than good news. That calls for some major corrections. Keep in mind you have an inclination towards the negative, so bring in some rationality by avoiding short-term objectives or focusing on bad news.

6. Be transparent, even about the things you don’t want to be transparent about

“Clarity about your intentions improves the quality of communication,” says Jef Colruyt, CEO of one of Belgium’s largest supermarket chains. Transparency is key, but we’ve already acknowledged that there is a big part of our internal rumblings we haven’t a clue about. Another point is you might trust your own bookkeeper with all your finances, but not your business partner in the metasystem. That’s fine. Be transparent about the things you can share, about your intentions and about what you won’t share (for now). Explain why. And if you speak each other’s language like we advised in #1, you might find out the other party has exactly the same reasons to share or not to share.

7. Be inclusive

There is no sound reason to make a metasystem exclusive. Doing so would turn it into an uninspired monoculture. As a result, you could be tricked into believing your metasystem is controllable. In this scenario, you wouldn’t even need trust; power would do the trick. However, that’s not what we are striving for here. Break down those walls as much as you can, be open and welcoming to unusual partners as well as unexpected connections and new combinations.

Once you embrace the positive potential outsiders might bring in, you will radiate an attitude that matches your expectations about them, which is an inclusive attitude. This also means you include future generations when thinking about the impact you have on society. It means your purpose stretches over the long term. It means your plan benefits not only the few, but the many. It means you strive for a fair repartition of the benefits you see. An all-in attitude towards partners and, by extension, society.

INTERVIEW

GROWING BY LETTING GO

AN INTERVIEW WITH SACHA BUYCK, COUNTRY MANAGER BELGIUM AT BOL.COM

With 27,000 partners – and counting, bol.com is one of the biggest and fastest-growing online shopping platforms in the Benelux. We thought we might learn a few things from the way their network of partners operates.

Sacha explains how bol.com has built its ecosystem and why they are evolving from a retailer to a platform. The answer lies in bol.com’s strategy, which is to fulfil consumer’s needs as optimally as possible. As they see it, ‘the market’, aka their partners, are better placed to define the right offering at the right price. Bol.com acknowledges it can’t possibly know everything: being active in 42 different categories ranging from clothing to household appliances, it would be bold to pretend otherwise. At the same time, the platform adds knowledge and expertise on e-commerce. Partnering creates a perfect match.

“We are an open platform,” Sacha says. “Every merchant can sign up and use it to reach ten million consumers who have an account with us. While we leave it up to them to decide what to offer and at what price, we are very strict when it comes to servicing those end customers. Consumer satisfaction is at the top of our list, so we don’t make any concessions to guarantee their satisfaction.”

“The most difficult part is to let go of control.”

However, bol.com doesn’t just wave around strict rules, it provides partners with the means to finetune their services. “We support our partners to reach the right quality standards and help them to optimize their offer, for instance by doing white spots analyses. These white spot analyses, based on search behavior of the customers, indicate product opportunities and are shared openly with all partners. We’ve also created a partner management department that helps partners hone their business model, and gives advice on logistics and assortment. Our success is measured in three ways: turnover growth, consumer and partner satisfaction.”

“Human contact is essential in collaboration, even with 27,000 partners.”

Sacha admits building trust in such a big ecosystem isn’t easy. “You have to do what you promise. On top, we give partners the guarantee we won’t create private labels that would compete with theirs. We believe in human contact. If there is a problem, we just pick up our phone.”

SACHA’S TIPS:

•The most difficult part is not putting yourself in the center and letting go of control. Empathy and entrepreneurship are essential for our people.

•The world is too complex to be able to manage it on your own.

•Put the consumer at the center.

•Have a few simple but strict rules of engagement. In the case of bol.com, this is delivery performance. The bar is put as high for bol.com as for the partners.

The kick-off

Your people are your most powerful asset. Sadly, we see companies trying to eliminate the human factor as much as possible, arguing it can’t be controlled. It doesn’t fit in the right boxes or execute like AI can. However true that may be, people can do a whole lot that technology cannot. For one, they can engage in a relationship. This makes them all potential ambassadors for your company. They can also think in exceptions, be flexible, be creative and teach you something you don’t know yet. Let’s see an automated logistics process do that. Especially in these fluid and uncertain times, we’d like to make the case for re-humanizing companies. People are the added value, the unfair advantage, the white rabbits and the glue that will make metasystems hold. Especially through the dark days.

Building a metasystem starts with looking inwards and working your way outwards, walking your talk every step of the way. There needs to be an internal culture of trust within the walls of your company in order to radiate it out with your building’s front door, so you also have to build trust outside the organization, when talking to potential partners. Like we said in the beginning of this chapter, trust is paramount for your company’s survival, unless you are fine surviving in the wilderness on your own. As a leader, this means you will need to give your team a mandate to operate freely, instead of tying them to a rigid structure of rules and top-down control.

If you show someone you trust them, if you genuinely believe people are good, this attitude will act as an incredible accelerator. It’s like a positive self-fulfilling prophecy: people will actually become the best version of themselves in your presence. Your unwavering trust allows others to become what you believe them to be.