Trust – Risk

There are two or sometimes more sides to everything! I am not playing on words when I said ‘or more’. I am serious… We live in a multidimensional world so many opportunities, so many challenges and so many touch points into people and their lives. As many sides as the number of touch points!

Each time I see, hear or read the word “Trust” in a leadership tryst or an organization’s manifesto, I cringe. I have written a couple essays on the topic in this blog. Trust is intangible! So I thought it help me to think about “Trust” in order to substantiate my concern or elevate my argument to a philosophical level.

There is no denying ‘Risk’ is the flip side of Trust. When we talk of trust we imply that some or all of the relevant risks will be addressed. Given the scope of trust is undefined the scope of risk is too. To some the risk may be entrusting his or her potential and being evaluated objectively to get promoted in an organization while some one else may be entrusting the value of their work to be measured, tested for the right level of compensation; Some one may be entrusting their career and time to be aptly compensated at retirement, while others may be entrusting their health when consuming a branded product hoping for the positive?

Trust can thus be a two edged sword, where one offers a commitment to fairness the other promises judgment, failure in one can be failure in the other. Wouldn’t it be more sensible and easier to accept imperfections while working towards ‘Building Credibility’?