Trust

Business is all about relationship. And relationship is all about trust.

Not matter how many instruments, institutions or structures humans invent to formalise different kinds of relationship, they can only guarantee some form of worst-case scenario. The more intense a relationship is, the more trust it requires. The level of trust defines the best-case scenario.

I always keep this in mind: always assume good intention. No one wants to do harm in a purely evil manner. In fact, I believe that more than often, no one wants to do harm at all. Usually it is a difference in approach or worldview. Trust in these cases provides a platform for understanding. Communication is important in a relationship. But from my experience in the last few years, effective communication doesn’t happen unless there is some trust serving as an anchor. Trust precedes communication.

Trust requires cultivation, because trust is ultimately a feeling and is mediated by instinct. There is no formula for building trust. I think being earnest is an important ingredient in it. To me, it means having good causes, deriving values and principles, and acting accordingly. Also, I need to trust and communicate all these clearly to people whose trust I want to have.

Yvon Chouniard, the founder of Patagonia, called himself a reluctant businessman. I’d shy away from calling myself a businessman. It sounds too heavy a baggage to me. All I want to do is to make things easier. And I want to try my best to do so for my colleagues and for my clients. I want to do this for the long term, like many other things I want in my life. For everything about the long term, trust is an inmovable part of it. And we, as human, can predict so little about the long term. You cannot calculate what the expected return is, but it is a leap of faith I am willing to take.