Up until recently I was responsible for corporate strategy, I remember a project not too long ago together with one of the large management consulting firms looking at best practices in corporate strategy development and strategic planning. We spent hours digging into the details of different models and recommendations. Clearly, I felt it had an important role and I am still convinced particularly by the relevance of strategic thinking.
I also believe in the importance of trust in business and society – today more than ever. Only midway in life, did I learn what trust entails and recognised the importance these skills can have in a business setting.
And at the same time – I do not want to see the two put together for CEOs to create an adaptive trust strategy(1).
Why?
Strategies are about controlling uncertainty and decision-making, they are done for a business intention and to provide guidance for what to do and more importantly what not to do, to focus attention and priorities so a group of people are working towards common goals. They have been used by big management consultancies in business in relation to scarcity and competition for resources, to ‘speed up’ natural competition and evolution and involve trade-offs.
Trust on the other hand is not about control. It is not about certainty. It is not a limited resource to be competed for. It is about letting go and being able to let go because of common values, acting reliably and in integrity with defined values, holding accountability, clarity of competencies and boundaries. That is not in an adaptive or planned way – but every time, in every interaction big or small. And when it goes wrong, you make amends and repair with integrity.
Trust is exactly the glue required to enable interactions when there is uncertainty and ambiguity, when you make something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions, which you have no control over.
If I do not recommend a strategy, what do I recommend?
The starting point seems to be reminding ourselves of our humanity, our vulnerability and the common values we stand for. As Halla Tomasdottir said so well just the other day:
“Imagine common sense emerging as a governing philosophy. Humanity at the heart of leadership. A future built upon common values.
It’s on each and every one of us to make it so.”
Halla Tomasdottir, LinkedIn 31 May 2022
Further to that, we can move to include skills development around trust in our education systems, executive education and leadership trainings. There are frameworks on the elements of trust, which allow an understanding of what it requires to build and maintain trust.
And to be clear we have to be careful how we integrate product and service delivery within a trust measure as the report I wrote about here does – without reliably delivering a safe product, then even a great leadership team with common values and a great skill set around trust will not make up for the lack of delivery.
In conclusion. Trust is not a finite resource. Not one company has to win or beat others on a devised trustworthiness scale, it has to be inherent to our behaviours and choices as investors, CEOs, leaders and consumers.
(1) Source: The Evolving Role of Today’s CEO: BCG Weekly Brief, May 31 2022
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