They Said Believe Us Or Not Trust Is Something You Earn...

with every mistake you make back to us you return

Trust is something never to be given. One must earn trust in the same way one earns a promotion—through hard work over time. I always regard warily those who are too trusting, too fast. Not because I believe them to be naive, though these people exist, but because those who seem overly willing to trust you are overly anxious to gain yours.

In business, trust is meaningless. One can only trust that your colleagues will act in their own self interests. This is not a bad thing, and in fact is the foundation of capitalism. Modern contract law exists, purely because of this underlying fact. The theory being that while I can’t trust you, I can trust our agreement and, more importantly, the willingness of the courts to enforce it.

Over time, people will show themselves to be either trustworthy or untrustworthy. And even the untrustworthy can generally be trusted to be untrustworthy. Which, when identified, can be an asset. Just think of your blabbermouth friend, and how useful their blabbering can be when ‘floating an idea’ to gauge a reaction while maintaining plausible deniability.

But, what of loyalty? Loyalty, dear friends is something altogether different. While used interchangeably, they are not synonyms – if only because one’s loyalty may be driven out of fear, or love, or responsibility. Trust on the other hand, and a person’s trustworthiness, is inherent. It goes with character, and flows from character. Forget the rappers and NBA stars who cry of their posse’s loyalty—they have no understanding of the word.

So, can we be loyal to those we do not trust? Yes. Can we trust those who are not loyal? Yes—as long as we trust them to be disloyal.

But, in business, the twin questions of “who do you trust” and “how do you engender loyalty” will scream volumes about who you are. Remember, the streets is watching.