The Trust Wager
The Dutch and the Chinese extend a lot of trust. Colombians, not so much.
Jim Collins is an American writer and researcher. He taught at Stanford, and he’s written or co-written six books on business and entrepreneurship, including Good to Great, a #1 bestseller that sold > 10 million copies globally.
Today, Jim lives in Boulder, CO, and a few times a year he’ll do a speaking engagement. He sometimes tells a story describing the concept of “the trust wager.”
Jim first learned about the trust wager from his mentor, Bill Lazier, a beloved professor at Stanford.
The way Jim tells it, one day he mentioned to Bill that someone had abused his trust. He asked Bill if he’d ever had his trust broken by friends or colleagues, and Bill said, “Of course, it’s a part of life.”
Jim replied, “Well, have you become more distrustful of people, as I feel like I’m becoming?”
That’s when Bill dropped some wisdom.
“Jim, you need to decide which wager you’re going to make on trust. On one side, you start off assuming that people are trustworthy, and on the other, you don’t trust someone until they prove themselves.”
Our basic stance can be that we extend trust until there’s incontrovertible evidence that someone has abused that trust. And we never attribute to malice what could just be incompetence.
Or our basic stance can be skepticism. Assume everyone has an angle. This stance protects downside risk. We’re guarded, and we avoid getting burned.
Either way, we’re making a wager. There are tradeoffs.
Jim says Bill was a believer in having trust as his basic stance. Because it increases the likelihood we’ll surround ourselves with great people.
“A life of great relationships only happens if you surround yourself with the best people.”
- Bill Lazier
The best people want to be trusted. Distrust pushes them away.
By having a bias toward trust, should we expect to get burned now and again?
“Of course, it’s a part of life.”
But we can try to manage that in other ways. Especially in new relationships, we shouldn’t let our guard down entirely in a way that risks financial or reputational ruin.
But the best people want to be trusted. And a life of great relationships only happens if we surround ourselves with the best people.
And also, we should consider that not everyone is one or the other. Trustworthy or untrustworthy. If we trust someone from the outset, maybe they’re more likely to become trustworthy… because we trust them.
It’s a wager either way.
The best people want to be trusted. Distrust pushes them away.
Extending trust is worth the risk.
