Trust as a Strategic Advantage (Part 2)
The building blocks
In the last article of this series, I have pointed out some misconceptions about trust. Now, let’s look at which cornerstones are needed to establish trust. I will give you a rough overview and dive deeper into specific topics later.
Let’s start with a statement that might disillusion people who are looking for a quick fix to establish trust:
You can work on your trustworthiness, but there is no straightforward way to invoke trust among customers and partners!
Nevertheless, there is much you can do to make trust more likely.
Non-malicious intentions
Let’s start with a well-known example. Can you recall the historic, very simple Google page and the times when “Don’t be evil” was core to their corporate code of conduct?
“Don’t be evil” expresses perfectly non-malicious intentions of a company, and Google appeared trustworthy in those early days. This has changed. But that is a different story.