May 30 2010
Should We Trust People In Business?
No doubt we are living in a distrustful world. There are some people who just can’t be trusted. But I guess most people are innocent like you and me, basically good people but just hesitate to trust others.
I suppose the world maintains itself based on trust, without which it will just break down. We trust our engineers have done good job that our roof won’t fall down to hit our head. We trust our banker with our money that it won’t get lost.
Managing people needs trust. We must trust our employees for certain things, or we will end up doing all the job ourselves. Expanding business network needs trust. We must trust our partners that they will do their part, or we will end up being lone ranger in business.
There is a Chinese saying that if we use the service of people, trust them. Otherwise, do not hire him (用人不疑，疑人不用). Especially true in managing people who work for us.
Correct me if I’m wrong, the world needs more trust. As we extend our trust to people more, good and innocent people like you and me will reciprocate their trust to us.
Between trusting people and distrusting people, I would rather choose to trust than distrust. The world needs more trust and we can do our part to make it a better world. Not only for the world, but for the advantage of ours and people around us too.
The problem is, who to trust and what to entrust them with? This comes with experience. My observation in business is that, we should be shrewd as snakes (know the workings of the devil), but be innocent as doves (be like angel believing the world can get better)
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