Andrew Mitton

I recently read a state­ment that made me stop and think.  The state­ment is: “Trust is prob­a­bly the most impor­tant cur­rency of busi­ness.”  If you don’t trust some­one, then you move much more slowly.  You do your due dili­gence.  You make sure that you have all the right pro­vi­sions in the con­tract.  You set up reminders to fol­low up on a com­mit­ment.  You end up spend­ing more money and time on a transaction.

On the other hand, if you trust some­one, you can do things on a hand­shake.  You walk away with an assur­ance that things will get done smartly.  The only sur­prise is when you’re expec­ta­tions are exceeeded.  You don’t spend as much time and effort on the project.

For exam­ple, Dov Sei­d­man of LRN recently was faced with the deci­sion to let go a num­ber of his employ­ees at LRN.  But he did it the right way as he explains in his arti­cle in Busi­ness Week.  LRN gave sev­er­ance pack­ages with no strings attached.  They let their employ­ees take their cell phones and lap­tops.  They shared inter­nal memos with cus­tomers to keep them apprised of the changes.  The result (in spite of the lawyers who coun­seled against it): a suc­ces­ful restruc­tur­ing.  In short, it takes trust to build trust.  LRN will be all the bet­ter for it.  Through these small actions they have built up more trust in their trust bank account.  Way to go LRN!